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

Another month passed and another news round-up. I have just under an hour allocated to write this post, so hopefully it will be longer than last months round-up. In 'me' news, I have come up with a new plan for doing my blog, something I came up with while taking a rare week off of writing it. Elsewhere, I briefly lost the use of my PC, but discovered laptop blogging actually wasn't that bad, anyway, onto the news.

Bio Raiders is an Asian vampire horror film that has been released on Blu-ray in the US by BayView Entertainment. Directed by Tommy Leung and starring Luo Tian Chi, Siu-Ho Chin and Richard Ng, this Chinese language horror tells the story of a herbalist who accidentally transforms his sick daughter into a zombie, and so most prevent the world from finding out.

The Dead Follows is now available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video worldwide, again via BayView Entertainment. This is about two ghost-hunting detectives who get trapped in a haunted complex, and so must find a way to escape the horrors. This was directed by Victor Huesca and Jazmyne Nikole, also starring them, alongside Malcolm Alvarez.

Yet another BayView Entertainment release next, another Asian horror, this time the David Chuang directed The Tag Along: Devil Fish, which has been released on region free Blu-ray in the US. This one has a spirit medium who is charged with exorcising a demon from a possessed man. Two students inadvertently prevent this from happening when they capture the possessed man, hoping to make a documentary about what is happening.

Another Asian horror and another BayView Entertainment release, Vampire Cleanup Department is out now on region free Blu-ray in the US. In this one, a young recruit (Babyjohn Choi) to a secret vampire hunting group falls in love with one of the vampires he is tasked with killing.

Starring the iconic Bill Oberst Jr (The Man in Room 6, Devil's Junction: Handy Dandy's Revenge), 2009's Dismal sees a group of students heading out to a remote area of the Great Dismal Swamp as part of an extra credit assignment for a biology course. It is there that in the fashion of The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn, they discover a group of cannibals. This releases March 26th from Bayview Entertainment.

It has turned into an unplanned Bayview Entertainment month as Aware of the Wolf is another one of theirs. Releasing later this year, this was directed by Joshua Nelson and stars Tony Murphy, Suzanne Johnson and Katie Raulerson. Terry is a life coach for the more nervous and timid of those in society, however, his methods are able to unleash the 'wolf' hidden deep inside of them.

Freestyle Digital Media have acquired the documentary, Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. Due to be released on North American VOD platforms and DVD on March 5th, this feature length paranormal documentary follows Derek Hayes and David Flora as they head to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park that is notorious for reports of cryptids, ghosts and UFOs.

Finally for today, Bloody Summer Camp 2: Red Horizon has launched a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo which has already exceeded its goal. This comes from Slasher 15 Productions and as the title suggests is a sequel to their 80's slasher throwback, Bloody Summer Camp. This sequel is due to take place in 1994 and will bring back several members of the original cast, including Felissa Rose (Camp Twilight, Sleepaway Camp) in a film that sees Camp Holiday Trails re-opened after the massacre of the first movie and rebranded as Red Horizon. Check out the Indiegogo page here.

Ship of the Damned (2024) - Horror Film Review

As soon as I saw that Steve Lawson (Wrath of Dracula, The Mummy: Resurrection)  was the writer and director on Ship of the Damned I knew exactly what to expect. I know this indie director for horror films that feature plenty of talking and not much action, and which take place almost exclusively in sparsely decorated interior locations. In that respect this didn't contain any surprises, but any film of his I see nowadays that isn't set in Victorian London (a regular haunting place of his movies) is fine by me.

An apparent five hundred year old ship is discovered floating abandoned out in the sea off the coast of England and is towed to land by the coast guards. Elena (Hannaj Bang Bendz - Wrath of Dracula, Dead Island 2 video game voice work), an expert of ships from that era is called in by her coastal worker ex-boyfriend Michael (Jacob Anderton - Ripper Untold) to verify that the ship is as old as it appears to be. Fascinated by the ship, she convinces Michael to give her access to explore it, so together they head off to have a look. Upon going below decks however they discover a crew of pirates who swiftly take them prisoner before setting sail. They learn that these are the original crew members of the ship, cursed with immortality, who are forced to forever roam the seas, able to only exist on human flesh and unable to ever leave their vessel. The captain, Jacob (Ben Manning - The Snarling, Cleavers: Killer Clowns) believes that the only way to break the curse he is under is to create life on the ship, and for that he needs Elena...

It was both a blessing and a curse itself to see Lawson was the director on this. I was well in the mood for a pirate based horror film, but I knew that his involvement would lead to only claustrophobic dimly lit interior shots. The pirate side of things was fantastic, the pirate crew are as generic and as stereotypical as they come, but this is exactly what I want my pirates to be like. It at times felt like a more horror focussed version of Pirates of the Caribbean, with the crew members being a highlight. Jacob was a great antagonist, while a bad person, he has elements to his character that makes you ever so slightly pity him. I thought Bang Bendz was great in Wrath of Dracula, and here, she pretty much plays the same headstrong powerful character she did there, though this time in a modern day setting. This of course was a good thing, she made for an enjoyable protagonist. The cowardly Michael was probably the weakest link here, playing a bit of a comedic awkward character that didn't lead to me having much time for him.

The film mainly takes place in narrow wooden corridors, but to be fair there are plenty of sound effects of creaking wood and outside waves to simulate the feeling of being on a ship and not a static set. Less impressive are the exterior shots of an obviously computer generated ship, which even led to me initially thinking this was going to be a CG film entirely. There are a few action sequences that were entertaining to watch, leading to some unexpectedly violent moments, typically involving a large dagger prop. When it comes down to it, this is far more content for long scenes of characters talking, but I didn't mind this, and I thought the mid-film exposition of exactly what had happened to the crew was fun. With how easily the cursed pirates are able to die, it did make me wonder how they had lasted over four hundred years, surely they would have all killed themselves or each other by that point as they don't appear to have any more vitality than a regular person.
Throughout there is a perfectly suited soundtrack that was at once both generic and exciting in a swashbuckling way.

Ship of the Damned may not be high art, but it was fun and exciting, helped by a good choice of characters on the whole. I felt engaged with the protagonist's plight, thought Manning made for a compelling (if stereotypical) antagonist, and really liked how the film ended.

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Loop Hero (2021-24) - Post Apocalyptic Video Game Review (Xbox Series X)

I first heard of Loop Hero from a work colleague in my day job. He often recommends games he has been trying out on Xbox Game Pass, and usually they really aren't my thing. With Loop Hero though he struck gold, while originally released back in 2021, this only arrived on the Xbox platforms last April. After ten months of playing, and with an overall play time of forty six hours, I finally finished this fantastic game a week or so back, and can easily state that it is the best game I played out of all those wonderful gems of 2023.

The game has a very basic and charming old school look to it, with the entire game taking place on just the one screen, but it has a compelling set-up that combined with its addictive nature kept me coming back again and again. The synopsis is that the world the game takes place in has ended, not the typical post apocalyptic landscape, but a world in which everything has literally ended, with there being nothing but an endless black void. The intro text states that an evil lich was the one who ended reality, though it later turns out not to be quite as simple as that. For reasons unknown, the only thing that has survived is a small camp. You play as the simply titled 'Hero' who has awakened to find himself in this camp. Leaving the place you discover that your travels cause the world to be filled in and re-built around you, but should you retreat back to the place of safety, or should you be knocked unconscious and brought back home, then the world will once again fall away into nothingness. Initially you set out to defeat the evil lich, hoping with his death the world will be restored.

The story ties into the gameplay as it provides a lore reason for why this is a rogue-like. The world being filled in also fits this, as you have a hand in creating the small world of the loop. Each new run you start creates a random smallish loop which your character automatically travels around. There will be various enemies you encounter, but again this results in automation, with you automatically attacking enemies until either you or they die. By defeating enemies you receive a variety of things. Resources can be used to take back to camp in order to develop it, items and weapons can be equipped to make yourself stronger, while tile cards can be placed both on the loop itself and the surrounding world can be used to force particular enemy encounters, as well as to increase your stats. Loop tiles can for instance be a forest, this area will spawn wolves of a kind, as well as give you wood resource for passing through them. Placing mountains on the world outside the loop will increase your health, suburbs will increase your experience, grass will increase the healing granted at the start of every day (there is a swift day cycle that also constantly is looping). The cards can also be combined to give different boosts. For instance, putting a village tile on the loop (which grants you a quest against a stronger enemy in order to get a reward, as well as healing you for passing through it) combined with a vampire mansion tile on the world next to it (which spawns vampires) creates a cursed village that will then spawn zombies for the next three or four loops but then results in a better village after this.

You can have a total of fifteen different tiles equipped at any one time. My favourites were an Oblivion card that has the ability to destroy a placed tile, and an outpost card that sees an A.I join you in any battles taking place on the loop around it.

The game is split into two parts, the loop journey itself, and all the management back at camp. This later part gets more involved the further you develop it. Buildings placed give permanent boosts to your character such as more health and more strength, and also help you in the crafting aspect. Huts increase the number of stat increasing items you can have equipped, lost books recovered allow you to unlock really interesting lore (multiple bits of lore not only exist for enemies and tiles, but even furniture and resources have their own lore). The alchemy section become essential for later upgrades as they allow you to transmute any resource into any other type of resource. You can also build a potion area which provides you with health potions you automatically use on your loop, and guard towers that will cause soldiers to join in any battles near the camp tile. This camp section is essential enough that the game even deems fit to give you stats for time played both in and out of the camp. I had an overall playtime of forty six hours, but ten of those hours were spent fiddling around back at base.
While I thought the game was unique and fascinating it isn't without its faults. I loved the music, but there are only a handful of tunes, so you are constantly hearing the same couple of background tunes while travelling around. These sometimes had some audio distortions to them which didn't sound intended. A likely bigger stumbling block for most will be the amount of grinding needed to be able to beat the game. It is split up into four chapters, each giving enemies more abilities, as well as resulting in a different boss encounter. From the simple presentation it might seem impossible that you could put so many hours into it, but these for me included around ten to fifteen hours of pure grinding. Enjoying the game so damn much this wasn't an issue, I liked sticking on a podcast and just doing a few runs for resource gathering purposes.
An actual real life issue might arise for people in that the studio behind the game, Four Quarters, are based in Russia. The team did put out an official statement stating their opposition to the terrible invasion of Ukraine, and also said that they are perfectly happy with people pirating the game if they are unable to purchase it due to sanctions placed on Russia currently.

I found Loop Hero to be an almighty breath of fresh air. I enjoyed every second of this wonderful game, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the world, I loved how something so simple looking could be so much fun to play (for an idea of just how purposely simple the game is, the player character is represented by a small all-white stick figure on the map screen. As always when reviewing a game I have loved, I have waffled on without even going into everything. I could have mentioned the three different classes (warrior, rogue, and necromancer), gone into more detail on the amount of tiles and combinations there are, and explained everything in general better. Loop Hero is currently free to play if you own Game Pass, but is also not that expensive (I believe around £10). Due to liking it so much I happily brought a copy to be able to keep. Well worth playing, and my top game of 2023.

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Ingress (2024) - Sci-fi Film Review

Ingress is one of those films that at first glance doesn't look like it is a decent fit for a horror based blog. Truth be told, the Rachel Noll James written and directed sci-fi movie doesn't really have any moments of horror, but there are some themes that I personally love, and so I always jump at the chance to watch films including them. I love films about time travel, so they always get a free pass, but I also love the idea of multiverses. Sure, this topic might not appeal to everyone, especially after the glut of not so stunning Marvel films dealing with the topic, but its still a cool thing to think about. There is scope for this subject to be a confusing mess, but Ingress deals with it in quite a thoughtful if not perfect fashion.

With a nearly two hour run time there is plenty of time to ease the viewer into the set-up for the film. For the first forty or so minutes we exist alongside the protagonist character of Riley (played by Noll James herself) and have to try and piece together what is happening to her without any type of easy explanation. It appears that Riley has the unwelcome ability to travel between different realities, but that this ability isn't something she has had much control over in the past. In the present Riley has found a method to combat this travelling, and by recognising the early signs of it happening (represented on screen by a loud buzzing noise and the world around her starting to become digitally distorted), is able to prevent it happening.
Riley discovers that there is a man in the small town she lives in that might understand exactly what she has gone through. This man, Daniel (Christopher Clark in his film debut according to IMDB), is able to channel a consciousness calling itself 'Lucas' (voiced by Tim DeKay - Oppenheimer, The Crow: Salvation), this being states it has the power to be able to give Riley what she is most desperately missing in her life, something she believes to be the ability to travel to a dimension where her recently deceased husband Toby (Johnny Ferro) still lives.

It was interesting to me how the film allows you to just exist alongside Riley for the film's first act, before giving you an exposition dump on her prior life via an interview she has with Daniel. It was nice how neatly that all matched up with the information provided to the viewer. The film takes itself seriously, and wants the subject to be looked at in a mature way. This is sometimes to the detriment of the story being told, or at least it felt that way to me. There came a point in the movie where it felt like events were progressing nicely. There was a good mix of drama and romance, with an undercurrent of sci-fi. This leads to a mostly confusing third act in which Daniel develops into a protagonist in his own right, rather than a side character. While Riley is off trying to deal with her very strange curse, Daniel is off trying to deal with his own demons. With 'Lucas' having been with him his whole life, he had a troubled childhood, with it assumed he was schizophrenic, and this is something that still causes him to doubt himself. These events were both needed I feel, but it did rip the momentum out of the story a tiny bit, even if it leads to some neat moments where characters get to experience if 'the grass really is greener on the other side' as the saying goes.

Outside of the visible digital and audio effects used to display Riley's travelling, there are lots of moments where echoes of alternate presents bleed into the film, with both protagonists seeing ghostly visions, people appearing and speaking dialogue before fading away into nothing. Some of the ideas where terrifying in a real world sense, something people would be able to empathise with. The mid-film moment where Riley explains that one day she moved realities to discover her parents had died many years previously, and that since that point she had been unable to find a reality in which they still lived was heart breaking, and represented well by a flashback scene showing the moment this happened to her as a teen. Effects used throughout are all obviously digital ones, but there isn't much you can do when the effects need to demonstrate people phasing out of existence. There was one neat scene where Daniel is face-to-face with his inner voice of Lucas shown by him talking to an alternate version of himself in a mirror.

Ingress put a lot of thought into best getting its ideas across to the viewer. It may have lost me a bit in the slightly confusing later part of the film, but still got me enough in the feels that I did find myself getting a little bit teary in the epilogue of the movie. I thought Noll James, Clark, and Ferro in particular were perfect choices for the characters they played, and the rest of the cast were solid with no one feeling out of place. Ingress was released theatrically on January 23rd in ten theatres across the U.S, has previously been nominated for nine awards, and is the first narrative feature film helmed by US and UK-based production company, Emergence Films.

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Create or Die (2024) - Documentary Review

At the start of the month I watched David Axe's latest film, Acorn for review. The film was meta in that it was about a filmmaker making a film within a film, and they in turn were being followed around by a documentary crew. Create or Die (directed, shot and edited by Sarah Massey) is a companion piece to that film, a more straightforward documentary, not only about the making of Acorn, but about Axe's creation process in general.

Having liked Acorn (personally thinking that it is Axe's best film to date), I was interested to see a behind the scenes documentary about its creation. I found this seventy minute piece to be really interesting, and also a bit inspiring. Not that I ever have any intention to do anything as creative as creating a film, but I could sense the drive that the director has, which compels him to carry on doing what he does. I could draw some very minor parallels with my perseverance with this blog, knowing full well that likely barely anyone ever reads it, but it is something that gives me personal satisfaction and a sense of leaving something behind for after I'm gone. Even if that something is just a poorly written blog where I critique the work of people that I could never create myself in a million years!
It was interesting to see how self deprecating Axe is, he openly admits that he doesn't think he is a good film maker, and that it is a constant work in progress. He states it is better to make bad movies than to make nothing at all, and that each film he does is a work in progress towards being a good filmmaker. It was cool to see his passion for filmmaking, despite his own criticisms of his ability as a creator, he is compelled to carry on, not for the hope of finding fame and fortune, but his own creativity as an artist.

The creation of Acorn itself made up a lot of the documentary. That this was shot over just three weeks and is essentially two films in one was impressive. Talking about the editing process, and how this was very nearly two separate films rather than one integrated whole was fascinating. Again with the passion, the director talking about the most important scenes in his own movie was so interesting to watch. This is of course intercut with clips from the film, and also features parts about his prior films, such as Lection and Bae Wolf. There are many talking head parts from people who worked on the film, both from the actors themselves, as well as crew members who have worked with Axe a lot over the years.

Maybe if you saw Acorn and didn't enjoy it then you wouldn't get so much out of this than I did. Usually I really am not a fan of behind the scenes stuff, I prefer to leave the creation process as much a mystery as possible to avoid me being pulled out of the movie I happen to be watching. I thought this was both really inspirational as well as enjoyable to watch. Best of all, the fantastic soundtrack from the film is used lots throughout, possibly the very best part of Acorn was that music, so a big plus for my enjoyment of Create or Die.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 22nd February 2024

My inbox doesn't get any smaller, I really need to dedicate some time to going through it at some point. Hopefully my monthly news round-up next week will be larger than it was last time around. With that all said and done, on to a trio of news stories.

An Indiegogo campaign is currently running to get funds for a sci-fi horror feature film that currently looks to be untitled. The film is to be about an underground cult who are attempting to discover the secret of immortality by performing experiments on victims. Jamie Langlands is to write, direct and produce this, I recognise him from his acting roles in C.A.M and As A Prelude to Fear. Meghan Adara is on board as the lead actress, and key crew roles have been decided. The campaign is to raise funds for hiring of the final two locations, for props, and to pay the salaries of the cast and crew. At the time of typing this campaign has raised £160 of its £2000 flexible goal with fifty three days left to go. For more details, check out the Indiegogo page here.

Bayview Entertainment have released Asian horror film Binding Souls on Blu-ray (region free) in the USA. This was directed by Pang-Chun Chan and written by Chaohong Huang, and stars Carlos Chan, Esther Huang and Yu-Ning Tsao. The synopsis states that a group of students return to their former high school. There they discover a diary that results in the group beginning to experience strange visions and occurrences, possibly linked to the school's dark past as a Japanese military laboratory during World War II.

Finally for today, cult 1970's  horror film Night of the Blood Monster is coming to 4K UHD and Blu-ray on March 26th from Blue Underground. This is a complete and uncensored version of Jess Franco's horror (also known as The Bloody Judge). This stars Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man, Dracula) as Judge Jeffreys, the Lord Chief Justice of 17th century England, who abuses his position to condemn women as witches for his own 'political and sadistic desires'.

Lacuna (2021) - Horror Film Review

Lacuna is a Brazilian demonic possession film that was written and directed by Rodrigo Lages. Sure displays my lack of knowledge about languages as I was split between thinking this was either in Italian or French! While being a demonic possession film, it actually keeps that part slightly more grounded than a typical horror of this type. It makes for a bleak and morose movie dealing with the relative of the possessed, rather than the possessed themself.

Ever since her father passed away, Sofia (Lorena Comparato) has had to deal with her mother, Helena's (Kika Kalache) erratic behaviour. This culminates in a car accident that leaves the woman in a coma, with it unknown if she will recover from it. It isn't too long however before she does awaken, with her moving in to Sofia's apartment so that she can be looked after. The coma has changed Helena however, she becomes extremely withdrawn, prone to episodes of self harm, and often found muttering to herself in an unknown language. After Sofia discovers a notebook full of disturbing drawings and strange writing, she, with the help of her work colleague Dante (Guilherme Prates), reaches out to a demonology expert, to see if what is happening to her mother may not be medical in nature.

It appears rather early on that Helena may be possessed, with a shadowy figure that appears and disappears around her. There are no floating objects or spinning heads, instead the horror is more grounded in that it feels like Helena is a bit of an empty vessel since the accident (the title 'Lacuna' being a word meaning an unfilled space). She has brief moments of clarity it seems to Sofia, and her behaviour is alarming but not something that makes Sofia feel she herself is in any sort of danger. Much of the film takes place away from Helena, with Sofia and company trying to find out what is happening. The middle of the film is when the demonology investigator makes an appearance, I liked that he doesn't really get much chance to interact with the protagonist, he knows far more than he lets on, but doesn't get a chance to reveal his knowledge. This leads to a bit of an obvious later twist, it may not have surprised, but it was well implemented, calling back to earlier events in the movie, while also showing how Helena came to be possessed.

This was a dark film, literally, with lots of it taking place at night. There were a few flashback sequences, but not enough to really show more of the relationship between mother and daughter that well. Outside of one sequence, it was never shown they had a good bond, and so her present day interactions with the disinterested woman doesn't really feel any different to their fractured relationship before the events of the movie. Special effects are used sparingly, often with key moments happening between scenes, they are effective however. Comparato was fine as the protagonist character, I thought Dante was a bit bland and generic. I thought Kalache managed to do a lot with a little. Despite her being near mute the entire film, her tallness and gaunt look made for a somewhat intimidating presence.

Lacuna succeeded as a horror film as there was no light to be found here. I do enjoy demonic possession films and thought this did something a little different, while also feeling influenced by films such as Hereditary, but keeping more grounded on the whole. Perhaps a little slow, I wouldn't have minded a little more happening here, but it told its story well enough. Lacuna came to Blu-ray and EST/VOD/SVOD digital platforms on 28th November, and became available to view on AVOD on 1st January from Bayview Entertainment.

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Unstoppable (2023) - Horror Video Game Provisional Review (Steam)

First off, I will point you to the part of the header that states 'provisional'. That is there as I have not actually completed Korean survival horror video game Unstoppable. In contrast to its title, I frequently hit roadblocks, with my journey coming to a current end at the chapter three boss, that after weeks of trying I just cannot seem to beat. I do feel I have played enough of the game to write a review, though when I do eventually actually beat the game I will update this review to reflect my thoughts on the whole game.

This takes place in 1999, you play as a delivery man who has been tasked with delivering a package to an office block. Not long after delivering it however all chaos breaks loose, with the delivery man getting knocked out. He awakens to find that the staff in the building have gone feral, affected by a poison gas, they have become afflicted with rage, killing all that they come across. His task now is to make his way down through the floors of the office block, trying his best to avoid both the dangerous infected, but also a shadowy group who appear to have orchestrated the whole event for unknown reasons.

Unstoppable is split over four chapters, each of which is made up of around four to five floors of the building, each chapter culminating in a boss battle. The game has an isometric overhead perspective, and reminded me a lot visually of the 'Die Hard' section of the video game Die Hard Trilogy. That is no bad thing as I loved that game. Each floor of the building has you searching for the access stairway to get to the next floor down. Along the way you have to fight infected, mainly using melee weapons that have durability. I'm assuming the business based at the office complex dealt with hardware, as the default weapon the infected carry are hammers, so many hammers! Levels are small, but they feel logical, the lack of variety in the locations makes this feel more realistic than if each level looked wildly different to the last. There is visual storytelling with many corpses and signs of past violence dotted around the rooms and corridors. There are some notes and files to be found, but I wish there had been more than the handful there seemed to be.

Combat is mainly melee focussed, though there are a variety of guns with limited ammo to be found. You have both a quick and heavy attack, as well as a dodge ability. Playing with a gamepad I found the combat to be enjoyable, if a little on the hard side at times. If you don't pay attention the enemies can swiftly make short work of you, and I sometimes found the dodge button caused me to leap forward towards an enemy rather than away like I had intended. It is the boss battles that really slowed down my progress. These were always against non-infected humans working for the shadowy group behind the outbreak, wielding unique weapons. The first boss took me a good while to work out how to beat, but I found this more interesting to decipher than frustrating, even if dying meant you had to re-do the level leading up to the boss each time. The chapter three boss was just too much for me, its attacks able to kill me in around three hits, while even after a good two to three minutes of fighting I was unable to reduce his health by even a quarter.
You can hold up to two weapons at a time, but melee weapons have limited durability, while guns have limited ammo that can't be replenished. You later get a special rage ability that allows you to attack with unlimited stamina for a time once a bar has filled up. During this state however you are still susceptible to attacks, so makes you a bit of a glass cannon.

The cutscenes were not amazing looking, but they had an old school charm to them. The same goes for the barebones story, it is completely functional, and gives you reason for doing what you are doing. I did like the transitions between chapters, as well as the playable character slowly getting access to better armour. If not for the tough boss battles and a lack of difficulty settings I may have enjoyed this more than I did. It certainly is not a bad game, but it does fall a little on the bland side. Unstoppable is out now in its completed form, it can be purchased on Steam.

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Deliver Us (2023) - Horror Film Review

I rarely take time off from writing this blog, but a spur of the moment decision a week or so back saw me deciding that once a year on my birthday week I would do just that. This has led to all my scheduled posts being delayed by a week, but I think it has also helped me return to blogging more focussed.
Deliver Us is a religious horror co-directed by Cru Ennis and Lee Roy Kunz (the later also starring in the film and co-writing this with Kane Kunz) dealing with the antichrist. While I'm not a religious person, I do enjoy a good demonic possession film, and religious horror is a cousin of that genre.

Father Daniel Fox (Lee Roy Kunz) is a priest looking to leave the Catholic church in order to start a family with his pregnant girlfriend. Having had a history of helping those who believe themselves to be possessed, he is asked to take on one last job. In a Russian convent there is signs that one of the sisters there, Sister Yulia (Maria Vera Ratti) is experiencing religious miracles, having gotten pregnant with twins in an apparent immaculate conception. Daniel assumes this to be something that can rationally be explained, but the convent leader, Cardinal Russo (Alexander Siddig - Game of Thrones, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV shows) believes it relates to an ancient prophecy older than the bible itself. The prophecy states that twins will be born, one an instrument for good and one an instrument for evil. This is something that Father Saul (Thomas Kretschmann - Avengers: Age of Ultron, Resident Evil: Apocalypse) also believes, but his intentions are not noble, secretly worshipping the devil.
With Saul's intentions laid bare, Daniel, Russo and Yulia flee the convent, with the woman later giving birth on a train. They head to a remote house in Estonian woodland hoping to raise the children in peace, but Saul is hot on their heels, determined to kill the 'good' twin and usher in a time of darkness.

Of course, the most well known antichrist film is The Omen, and this shares some similarities with that one. The difference here is that it is known that the antichrist is there in person. There is some justification for keeping it alive with Yulia believing that it can be taught to see the world as good, as well as not wanting to see either of her children dead. To be fair, it would probably be better off dead as it has a habit of being able to psychically link with people in order to try to get them to murder its brother! There was a slight slow pace to the film, with much of the first two acts consisting of the babies giving Yulia and Daniel shared dreams/visions, while Saul has his own subplot of mercilessly seeking out their location.

Of course, their paths eventually do cross, and while I thought Kretschmann was decent in his role, this antagonistic character didn't really have too much to him, his every action is evil, with him happy to kill anyone even remotely in his way. It does lead to a great payoff, with some scenes in the movie being quite gory. From someone being mauled to death by wolves, to a crucifix in the eye, a poker through a face and people's throats being slit, this violence looked great on screen. I especially liked the opening scene of a row of victims being killed one by one, the blood from each kill splashing onto the next person.

Deliver Us has quite a saturated look, with an absence of much colour to be found in the washed out imagery. For a dark and despondent feel this worked well, as did the choice of locations. Whenever protagonist rock up to an apparent place of safety that itself looks like the setting for a horror film, you know that things are going to remain bleak. I loved the remote house due to the bizarre paintings left there by the previous owner that seem to relate to what is happening in the present. I also thought this taking place against a backdrop of a world falling into ruin was neat, Daniel's girlfriend might not have really done much, but she gave a look into the goings on of the outside world. This does lead to one of the more silly looking scenes. There was supposed to be a big brawl happening in one scene, but if you pay attention to the background characters, they are blatantly pulling their punches, making for unwelcome distraction from the part of this scene that is meant to be the focus!

I enjoyed Deliver Us, it worked well as a religious horror. With a somewhat slow middle, and characters who weren't the most engaging this wasn't all perfect, but the special effects and choice of locations were all fantastic. Deliver Us had its UK and Irish release on 19th February on digital platforms including Google, Apple TV, Sky and Amazon.

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They Are Strangers (2018) - Drama Film Review

I rarely read the synopsis for any film I am going to watch for review as I prefer to go in with my expectations completely neutral. Sometimes that does bite me however if I realise the film I have requested a screener for might not actually fit anywhere near the horror genre. For much of its eighty minute run time I was certain that They Are Strangers (written and directed by Zane L'Erario) may be one such film. Having agreed to review it I had to carry on, hoping there would be some way I could tie it to the horror genre. Thankfully this does finally deliver even if that does come virtually at the dead end of the movie.

Emilie Krause stars as Rebecca Thayer, a successful romance novelist who has hit writers block trying to write the follow up novel to her critically acclaimed last novel. Part of the reason for this is that she strongly suspects that her boyfriend William (Tom Schmitt - The Listing) is cheating on her, but not wanting confirmation of this, she hasn't confronted him about her suspicions. With a looming deadline for an initial draft of her new novel, Rebecca struggles to focus, becoming obsessed with finding out who the woman is that she believes has stolen her man's heart.

So, until around ten to fifteen minutes before the film ends is when elements of thriller move into what was otherwise a straight up drama. While not a perfect fit for this site, I still found myself enjoying They Are Strangers (the title referring to what happens to a once madly in love couple after they have broken up and gone their separate ways). I thought the protagonist was a great character, someone who is manic, confrontational, and a little bit eccentric. Meeting the character with her relationship already seeming doomed means that her wild persona makes sense, due to dealing with a broken heart. With a vivid imagination there are parts of this that have an unreliable aspect to them. This even includes a whole scene that plays out before it is revealed that it was just a daydream of Rebecca's. There was a good supporting cast for her, in particular I thought her publicist Kendra (Julie Stackhouse - The Listing) was great. The actions of the main character make a kind of sense, coming from a place of hurt as she is. It leads up to a twist ending that while not the most original was still something that I really did not expect, made for an interesting way to finish the film.

I thought the editing and directing worked well for this type of film. I liked the way the words she is typing when she is in the zone then show up floating around her. I also thought the close-up flashbacks of Rebecca and William in love were done well. For the most part there isn't much call for special effects, but when they are used I thought they looked great, can't really say what the effects actually were for fear of spoiling later elements of the plot.
They Are Strangers might not have exactly been what I was expecting, but it still told a good story with a twist that I appreciated, making this not a waste of time to watch. They Are Strangers has won numerous festival wins. It was released on EST/VOD/SVOD Digital platforms on 28th November 2023 and came to AVOD on 1st January.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 8th February 2024

I really didn't get much into my news sack during my last monthly news post. To make very slight amends, here is a trio of news stories that will hopefully be interesting to read. I'm due to go out to a work night out later today (at the time of typing), as a die-hard introvert I'm really not looking forward to it!

Horny Teenagers Must Die! released on VOD on January 5th from Lion Heart Distribution. This horror has managed to pick up twenty three awards on the film festival circuit. Described as a throwback to classic teen slashers with a modern twist, this is about a group of high schoolers who go on vacation to a remote woodland cabin and inevitably end up the target of a masked maniac. This was written, directed and produced by David Zagorski (Killing Brooke), and stars Matthew Marcus (Abaddon's Pit), Chhoyang Cheshatsang (Hocus Pocus 2), Alicia McNeill and more.

The February streaming line-up for horror streaming service Screambox has been announced. 3-Headed Shark Attack arrived on February 2nd, this creature feature stars the iconic Danny Trejo as well as WWE star Rob Van Dam. Also on that date was the arrival of season three of The Dead Hour, a horror anthology that features a different story in each of its twelve episodes.
The fun horror comedy Here For Blood arrives on February 9th, which is also when psychological thriller Waking Nightmare arrives.
Other notable releases includes mocumentary Everybody Dies by the End, found footages Bodom, and the China based Perfect Horror.

Finally for today, What Happened At 625 River Road received a VOD and DVD release in North America on January 12th via Freestyle Digital Media. This is a psychological thriller about two students who travel to the titular location where they find themselves at the centre of a series of enigmatic events where the line between reality and illusion is blurred. This was directed by Devon Jovi Johnson, who also co-wrote and co-produced this.

Acorn (2023) - Fantasy Film Review

Acorn is the latest film from David Axe (Bae Wolf, Lection), something that he wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited and mixed. It uses the concept of a film within a film, essentially telling two stories around the same theme in a clever way. I watched this early on a Sunday morning, I was quite hungover, and once end credits rolled I promptly feel asleep for three hours. I'm hoping those factors don't effect this review as I have a feeling its going to be a bit difficult to write due to the strange (but cool) way the film was set out.

Chloe (Morgan Shaley Renew - Bae Wolf) is a low budget film director who learns she has inoperable brain cancer and only six months to live. She decides as her last act she wants to make one last movie, and pitches an idea for a fantasy western titled 'Die Standing Up', a story that is to mirror her real life struggles and acceptance of death. Along the way she has to deal with a variety of issues, from troublesome actors, to studio interference and unfinished sets.

This opened in a strange enough way that I briefly wondered if I had been given a boot-leg version of the movie to watch for review. It shows the film within a film from the perspective of David Axe (I believe) in a theatre, so the screen showing the film is badly framed and only taken up about two thirds of the actual picture. Despite this, I was getting into the fantasy western that was playing on that screen, so was unprepared for Acorn to cut away from that around ten minutes in and reveal what the actual film was about. This was one of those times when I was glad I hadn't read the synopsis as I had fully expected the film within a film to be the actual piece. I know Axe as a director often uses a fantasy setting to tell his stories, whether it is the post apocalyptic Lection or the mythical setting of Bae Wolf. Due to that, a fantasy western wasn't something unexpected from him, and shares the DNA of a vaguely low budget look. Acorn itself is much more grounded and realistic, with Morgan doing a fantastic job in the lead role. Even here things aren't quite as they seem as not long into the first act the film again cuts away to show that Chloe herself is being filmed, with it seeming that someone is making a documentary about her last six months (David Axe).
As grounded as this part of the film was, there were some suggestive supernatural elements to the story, with Chloe having seen visions of a strange looking tree, which she is then shocked to find exists in reality close to the set where her film is to be made. This tree plays some important roles both 'on' and 'off' camera.

'Die Standing Up' is an integral part of the whole experience, after the start of the movie, the creation of this becomes the focal point of Chloe's story. We get to see scenes taken out of context, but are able to piece together the story for this. In this story, a lone wanderer (Mandy Applegate who also plays the actor character of Starr) is injured while trying to hunt down a monster terrorising a town. She learns that the toxins from the monster's attack has no antidote, and that she doesn't have left to live. Having heard rumours of a cursed tree that has the ability to perform miracles, she sets out to find it, but encounters the jealous guardians of the tree who are prepared to die defending it. As an analogy for Chloe's battle against cancer the similarities are obvious to see. I enjoyed this film almost as much as the core story, both share a great soundtrack (soundtrack highlight was a really creepy messed up version of 'Dream A Little Dream of Me'). In a somewhat odd twist, Chloe's story ends around half an hour before the end of this nearly two hour film. The final thirty minutes are an abridged version of the film within a film, complete with their own ending credits. I did enjoy both parts of Acorn as a whole, but was slightly jarring to have the main story finish so long before the actual end. I get why it was set out that way though as that created a type of meta-experience of watching the 'real' part of the film along with the director of it. 

I've managed to write this review without really talking about the film in a competent way. I thought the duel storylines playing out worked really well together. I found Chloe to be a sympathetic character with the topic of terminal cancer handled well, and I also liked the more generic lone wanderer character found in 'Die Standing Up'. With a superb soundtrack and some interesting editing decisions, and slightly fourth wall breaking moments, I thought Acorn was the best film of Axe's that I have yet seen, something special.

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Silent Hill: The Short Message (2024) - Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 5)

During the Playstation presentation last week there was the surprise announcement that Silent Hill: The Short Message had not only been shadow dropped and was available to play, but also it was free. Heavily inspired by the infamous Silent Hills P.T demo, this two hour game isn't perfect, but is a huge step in the right direction after the inadvertent horror that is Silent Hill: Ascension. Being a giant Silent Hill fan, I think I am well placed to give an accurate view of this mini-game, it certainly doesn't deserve some of the over the top criticism some reviews have heaped on it.

You play as troubled teenager Anita (voiced by Fadile Waked), who has been asked to meet her artist friend Maya (Haruka Sakaguchi) at an abandoned apartment complex that is a popular hang-out spot for teens. Unable to locate her friend, Anita begins to explore the apartment complex, and unknown to her, begins a slide into a Hell dimension where she is forced to confront her many perceived past sins.

I had zero expectations for this new game and went into it having avoided anything at all about what the game would be like. Inspirations from the P.T demo are very apparent. The game takes place in a first person perspective, features a looping structure that sees you go through the same area of rooms over three separate chapters, and is far more focussed on psychological horror than anything more action based. Walking simulator is often a term used to put something down, but that is a genre with some great games in it (What Remains of Edith Finch, Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul spring to mind). This falls into that sub-genre of horror and is a solid example of one of those. The game unfortunately isn't scary on the whole, I even waited until around midnight to play this in order to get the optimum experience. It does have a low level feeling of oppressive atmosphere with the abandoned apartment building feeling suitably ominous. I liked the backstory to the place and the town itself, with the apartment complex a suicide hotspot for troubled teens. It is created with some often wonderful looking graphics, each room daubed in graffiti and covered in piles of trash. The core of the game has you exploring these rooms and corridors, reading diary entries and getting constant messages on your mobile phone from your friends Maya and Amelie (Debora Uehara) There are a few slight puzzles to solve, such as working out a combination lock for a locker, and then there are set moments where you find yourself pursued down labyrinthian corridors by a fantastically designed monster that resembles a humanoid woman covered in cherry blossom petals.
These sections really brought to mind a similar idea from Silent Hill: Downpour (I was one of the few who actually really liked that one!), of having your character auto-running while pursued by something that will instant kill you should it catch up. These moments have been described as frustrating, but I really liked the change in pace, with the first person perspective and sound design combining to make it feel like you are constantly on the verge of being caught by the monstrous pursuer.

It isn't all fantastic however, and unfortunately part of that is down to the story. The Short Message prides itself on trying to tackle some serious subjects in a sensitive way, but ends up beating the player over the head a bit with its many themes it tries to stuff into the two hour game. In addition to a message at the game's start talking about what to do if someone you know is struggling with mental health problems, this same message pops up again at the end of each chapter, initially making me think I had reached the end when I was far from there. The topics were interesting, but shoving so many of them together made things seem a little bit over the top. Self harm, neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, suicide, social media toxicity and pressure, depression, bullying and more are all themes explored, with all three main characters having parts of these as their backstory. I thought playing as a teenager trapped in a Silent Hill style Hell dimension was neat (the game takes place in a troubled German town, but isn't the first not to be set in that titular location), and it was also interesting to play the role of someone who self harms, having struggled with that myself for a decade or so in my earlier years.
Some of the ways the story is told were neat, Anita's sole object she has is her mobile phone, which is used to light her way. I thought the aspects of reliance on this technology felt cool for a Silent Hill game, but the messages between her and her friends didn't read as believable due to how cheesy they were all written. Other parts of the story are done via live action scenes of Maya talking to you. It was super distracting that Maya was obviously heavily dubbed, and also that the voice given to her and other characters had an American accent despite being set in Germany. Still, live action cutscenes in a Silent Hill game was something I felt was very cool.

I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy Silent Hill: The Short Message. It looks great, feels just about suitably Silent Hill-ish, includes a wonderfully designed monster, and tackles some often side-lined topics. It's a shame the way the story is told can lack nuance at times, and would have been nice to have this in German with subtitles. Not a complete return to form, but for a free experience, this was a step in the right direction, and was something I am glad to have played.

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The Dark Sisters (2023) - Horror Film Review

The Dark Sisters is a horror film that unashamedly falls into the arthouse style of filmmaking. Written and directed by Richard Bailey, this tells a simple story in an artistic and stylistic way, something that may well not be for everyone. As my score will attest, I was one of those people the film didn't appeal to, though I did appreciate elements of the overall whole.

Jorie (Nicole Fancher - Screen, The Sky Has Fallen) and her sister Kaidon (Edna Gill) have decided to meet up after over a decade apart. They previously separated at the culmination of a dark secret event, and so have decided to go on holiday together in swampland in order to try and rekindle their close relationship. Their visit coincides with the arrival of a knife wielding thief (Kristin Colaneri), someone who has a powerful impact on the two.

From the flowery way the siblings talk to themselves I knew right away this was going to be an odd film. Their language with each other is almost poetic, their conversations sounding like an art students essays on life. This is pure arthouse and this is reflected throughout. From characters randomly doing interpretive dance in slow motion, to communication via thoughts, to lots and lots of scenery shots and repeated images, there is nothing here that is designed to feel like reality. At one point the film even devolves into a series of still photos. There is a cast of just six characters with Jorie, Kaidon, and local pastor (Michael Steven Daughtry) being the only ones with much of a speaking role. Thief and Hunter (Christie Vela - The Finale) barely share more than a few sentences between them, while Karl (Randall Garrett) only appears in flashback sequences and to my memory doesn't actually ever say anything.

The Dark Sisters is split between the modern day setting of the swampland and the past when they both appear to have been dually married to a cruel and simplistic man. These sections in the past were even more odd, I assume they had been part of some old religion as they are wearing clothes in those sections that seemed very old fashioned. It is a simply told story, but the artistic way it is shown means it somehow manages to fill its eighty minute runtime in a cohesive way. For me, many many drone shots of beautiful looking swampland got to be a bit much. I did love the soundtrack though, it sounded similar to the music of dark world Silent Hill, which did give this some atmosphere.

It wasn't so much that I couldn't follow the story completely, more that I wasn't a fan of the style of film. I came to yearn for some simple dialogue, rather than everything being wrapped up in a kind of prose. The story goes in an unexpected direction, but not one that surprised or interested me. At least the direction was often interesting, and the location of the swamp was engaging to look at. I didn't really care for the protagonists at all however, and can't say I was sad when the end credits finally rolled. The Dark Sisters came to Blu-ray (region free) and EST/VOD/SVOD Digital on 28th November 2023, and came to AVOD on January 1st.

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