Psychosis (2023) - Horror Film Review

Psychosis is a very strange Australian black and white thriller that has a unique concept to it. Written and directed by Pirie Martin in his feature length debut, this captivated me throughout, drawing me into its odd world.

Cliff Van Aarle (Derryn Amoroso) is a criminal fixer who has a special set of skills and abilities. The man suffers from schizophrenia, hearing a multitude of voices in his head but which are able to point out things that he might otherwise miss. He is also skilled in hypnotic suggestion, something that he learned from his criminal father who had used the skills for evil. With Cliff's sister in a coma in hospital he is quite desperate for money, so against his better judgement he accepts a job from two small time drug dealers. They had inadvertently stolen drugs from a near mythical criminal mastermind known as Joubini (James McCluskey-Garcia) and angered at this he has tasked his zombie-like 'hollow men' to kill them. Cliff agrees to track down Joubini, though discovers that the man has mind control powers even greater than his own.

I loved this movie, it is surreal and strange without feeling too much like an arthouse film. There is no end of interesting editing and shot techniques to give the film a weird vibe all of its own. The black and white look gave a film noir feel to events, while there are plenty of varied effects, such as scenes shown upside down and blurry slow motion footage used at times. Mind control segments create confusing sequences that make use of cool special effects to give more of a dreamlike feel to them. The initial reveal of the antagonist during a dream sequence for instance was very cool looking as one strong example.

Cliff made for a great protagonist, the voices in his head sounded wonderful with headphones, with the voices seeming to dance around in a way that reminded me a lot of the way they did a similar thing in the video games Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. My favourite part of his character was the movie's narrator (Lindsay Dunn), another voice in Cliff's head, but one who narrates his actions in third person. This allows the protagonists motives to be revealed to the viewer, it also creates comedic elements, such as when the narrator is speaking when a character with Cliff then interrupts what the narrator is saying mid flow. The way this voice spoke and the light hearted tone of it reminded me a lot of the narrator from comedy video game The Stanley Parable. There are not that many characters in the movie but a highlight was the furry superhero LoneWolf (Pj van Gyen). This character should not have worked but he somehow fitted in to the gritty criminal world of the film, and his constant lines of "I work alone" when Cliff suggests teaming up with him were always amusing.

The story was relatively easy to follow despite the often confusing camerawork. The story is mainly a search for Joubini with some classic story beats along the way, such as the hero getting captured, and a third act assault on the HQ of the mastermind. I liked the trippy vibe that came in to play when characters are brainwashed, made for some unique looking scenes, such as characters growing extra arms. There were a fair few action scenes, a bit hard to follow due to the fast paced editing but they worked well. Cliff isn't a John Wick type character, instead he is someone who is flawed and well aware of his flaws, so the fight sequences almost always felt desperate. Psychosis released on August 30th on digital/VOD and comes to Tubi on October 4th, I loved this and think it is well worth a watch for something that is definitely different.

SCORE:

Lyvia's House (2023) - Horror Film Review

Directed by Niko Volonakis and written by Patricia V. Davis, Lyvia's House is a paranoid thriller that I initially thought would fall into the supernatural but instead deals with gaslighting alongside elements of a slasher. Set in an interesting location, with an engaging story and a great soundtrack, this was one film that stayed consistently entertaining throughout. Mild spoilers to follow.

Several months after falling in love with the man of her dreams, Tara (Tara Nichol Caldwell) is convinced by him - architect Johnny (Joshua Malekos - Twisted) to move out to the country, some six hundred miles away from her family and friends. While on a job out there Johnny had been sold a huge house by an Italian artist - Lyvia, who had been wanting to sell her home quickly so she could return to Italy. The couple move in and things initially appear to be perfect. Johnny's behaviour soon begins to concern Tara, with things he says not matching up with reality. Despite saying he hadn't been to the area previously (outside of the job at Lyvia's home), he reveals knowledge of places and people in the nearby town, while he seems very lax in sorting out the internet and phone for the new house even though he knows this is something that Tara is desperate for.
When someone is discovered murdered in a nearby orchard, Tara discovers it might have a link to a series of brutal serial killings that took place in that same orchard some twenty years previously, and it seems that somehow Johnny might have a link to those murders, though she doesn't know how.

I liked that it was never really made a secret that Johnny was gaslighting Tara, making him into a detestable and secretive character. The way he lies and twists truths is obvious to both the protagonist and viewers, and even comes across to other characters who interact with him. There are moments set up to make it seem like Tara might be going crazy, such as a recurring incident at night when she spots a rat in the home, but who Johnny is never able to locate and tries to convince her it is a nightmare. Other characters are just as odd and suspicious, such as creepy near mute and mentally ill Georgie (Andrew Diego) who appears to be obsessed with the couple, and the PTSD suffering former soldier Brian (Pete Davis) who is creepy in his own way. The light of the film for Tara is her best friend Helen (Danielle Octavien) who Tara uses as a soundboard for her fears and suspicions, as well as post office manager Mary Ann (Ann Marie Gideon) who is able to provide Tara with the grisly history of the town. I can't say that there was a bad character to be found here, each serving important roles to carry the story forward.

This is a film more paranoid than scary, there is a body count but this mainly takes place in the infrequent flashbacks that show what happened twenty years previously (those parts are apparently based on true events). Mainly the horror comes from the situation that Tara has found herself in, living in a remote house with someone she increasingly cannot trust. The soundtrack from start to finish is perfect, really helping with the paranoid vibe, while the look of the film is often beautiful, the third act scene in an orchard approaching sundown really looked special, with editing often being intelligent and helping with the atmosphere and vibe of the movie. The eventual reveals had echoes of Scream to them, something I had seen before but I would by lying if I said I had perfectly pieced together what was going on myself.

Lyvia's House started off good and it maintained that feeling from beginning to end. At nearly two hours this maintained my interest throughout, with myself invested in the story and where it would end up going. Lyvia's House releases on 1st October via Stonecutter Media on Vudu/Fandango at Home and local cable and satellite providers, with it also coming to additional platforms such as iTunes/Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play.

SCORE:

Man Baby (2023) - Short Comedy Horror Film Review

Man Baby is a short nine minute long comedy horror film that tackles anxieties of new parenthood from the perspective of a first time dad. Directed by Aaron Murtagh who also stars, this surreal short crams a lot into its minimal runtime.

Taking place during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, this follows new father Bert (Murtagh) as he struggles to get to grips with having a baby, something that his wife Danielle (Kate Britton) seems more suited to. The insecurities of the man begin to bizarrely manifest as a physical transformation, with Bert discovering that for some reason he is getting smaller by the day.

The soundtrack for this was made up of simple sounding nursery music which was the perfect accompiment to the baby based horror going on. With a cast of just four actors (including the baby itself), much of the run time is focussed on Bert himself. The horror comes not just from him notably shrinking, but from the baby itself, with the man hallucinating it at points, hearing its cries and seeing it for moments when he isn't with it. It leads to an increasingly surreal feel that culminates in a surprising finish.

I enjoyed Man Baby but did feel that maybe under ten minutes was a little too short to really get the idea across, things rapidly escalate towards the end. I have to admit to being a bit lost as to what was really going on, though that is down to me more than the film not adequately demonstrating what was going on. I did like the ending to this even if it left me a little confused, and there was some neat editing throughout. Man Baby was a selection at the South Dakota Film Festival on September 14th, the Montana International Film Festival on September 21st and is due to be shown at Grimmfest in the UK later this year.

SCORE:

Diablo IV (2023) - Horror Video Game Review (Xbox Series X)

I've dabbled over the years with the Diablo series of video games. The original Diablo I had a demo for once, while I brought the Diablo II special edition though bounced off that one around halfway through. I did actually play Diablo III: Reaper of Souls to completion, despite giving it a healthy eight out of ten I really can't remember that one much at all sadly. With Microsoft buying Blizzard I decided to hold off from buying latest entry Diablo IV and instead waited for it to hit GamePass. This new entry is a far more dark and moody entry than the colourful one that came before, and it really looks great. Perhaps I was playing this incorrectly, but as this sixty to seventy hour story played out I became to find some giant issues with terms to how darn easy it all was.

Without fact checking myself here is the synopsis as I saw it. Diablo takes place in the realm of Sanctuary, a place where humans came to live after Lilith - a rogue demon and Inarius - a rogue angel created it during the eternal fight between the Burning Hells and their opposites the High Heavens. In Diablo IV, a sorcerer has managed to summon Lilith to Sanctuary. The man has fallen for her lies that she is the one being able to protect Sanctuary from the ongoing fight between angels and demons. With the power to sway people to her side, Lilith sets out to find a way to travel to the Burning Hells and steal her father's power. Meanwhile, Inarius being currently trapped on Sanctuary sets out to defeat Lilith, hoping that his success will compel the Heavens to invite him back from his banishment.
You play as a wanderer who had been captured by cultists of Lilith and fed her blood, escaping your imprisonment, you discover you are the best placed person to find and defeat the demon.

I recall that Diablo III took place within hub levels of cities, with the dungeons branching off of those, and each chapter taking you to a different city. At least that is how I remember it. Diablo IV is one huge open world environment, again split into chapters, but with you able to travel anywhere you wish. Alongside the main quest there are a heck of a lot of side quests that range from the simple (going to a specific area and collecting a certain type of item) to more story based ones, such as helping a woman with an uncontrollable curse that summons demonic creatures. The core story was one seen plenty of times before and it will come as no surprise that your travels to stop Lilith always have you arriving moments after she has left for the next place. The plot is kind of split into two, with a chunk of the story also revolving around stopping the sorcerer who summoned her in the first place (and who has ties to one of the friendly characters who helps you on your journey. The voice acting was all very good, most notable was Ralph Ineson (Brahms: The Boy II, The Witch) as Lorath. Each of the different character classes you can choose all have their own voice actors. For my run I played as a female necromancer and enjoyed her powers. There are just a couple of CG cutscenes but I have to say these scenes were amazing to look at, so were worth the wait between them.

The setting of the game is very grim-dark with no joy to be found anywhere. Locations are dark and dreary and often full of dead horses and destroyed buildings. There was more variety in the locations than I had thought there might be with deserts, swamps and woodlands all making an appearance. The enemy types are suitably varied with everything from human enemies such as cultists and cannibals to more demonic ones and wild creatures like wolves and walking tree men. About two thirds into the game you are given access to a horse which makes traversing the areas so much more easy and streamlined.
My biggest issue came with just how easy the game became. To begin with it was easy enough that I bumped up the difficulty to the next tier. By around the halfway point of the game even this became too easy and so I went to change it...only to find I couldn't. For reasons alien to me, you are not able to increase the difficulty anymore until the campaign is completed. This was an issue for me as with literally thousands of games in my backlog I had no intention of sticking around once the story was finished with. This meant that around half of my whole experience had me so overpowered that I would destroy enemies instantly whenever I saw them. Not only that, but I had so many spells and shields that it became very hard for enemies to even damage me. This led to an increasing feeling of tedium with me falling off of everything outside of the main story and side quests. I don't know the thinking behind locking adequate difficulty settings outside of the main campaign.
Playing as a necromancer was fun even if it gave for a more hands-off experience. I had eight summoned skeletons as well as a huge iron golem who would wade in and destroy enemies without me needing to get my hands dirty much outside of my skin flaying, skull spear throwing and blood wave attacks. Around two thirds into the game I was no longer getting any better equipment than what I had, so that became another aspect that felt wasted on someone who didn't want to do any end game content.

I did enjoy Diablo IV, it looks great and plays wonderfully. I do really wish it had allowed me to play it on a harder setting as it began to really drag due to the severe lack of challenge. A flawed game that had a lot going for it, but unless you are really committed to squeezing every last drop of fun out of this hack and slash it might leave you feeling a little hollow.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 19th September 2024

This is the first weekend in a while where I have properly spent some time on my blog (though still not up to my usual five posts). With my day job being stressful, doing an apprenticeship, and spending more time with my best friend at weekends, my blog has taken a bit of a backseat. I have one more busy weekend coming up, but after that I think things might settle down a bit. Here is a trilogy of news stories to wet your whistle.

Feral is a new LGBTQ psychosexual thriller that stars Fawn Winters (We Are Wolves) and Eunoia Sonders. This is the tenth film from director Rich Mallery (Maid Droid), it is about a desperate woman - Ghost (Winters), who has just a week to find a way to pay off her debts. She plans to get the money by stealing it, and to help her, she manipulates a woman named Billy (Sonders) into helping her. Ghost soon discovers that Billy might not be as innocent as she at first appeared. Feral releases this fall on digital platforms.

On September 24th horror anthology The Profane Exhibit makes its debut on Blu-ray and DVD. This is a collection of ten tales directed by some quite notable names. These include Sergio Stivaletti (Demons), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), Uwe Boll (Postal), Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), and Jeremy Kasten (The Wizard of Gore). I do love a good anthology and this one caught my interest.

Finally for today, Blood Red Beach is the latest film from Mad Angel Films and currently has an Indiegogo campaign running. This pirate themed horror takes place on a secluded island haunted by a vengeful pirate spirit. Currently 65% of the movie has been shot, with the campaign hoping to bring in funds to finish things off. To check out the campaign, head here.

The Zombie Wedding (20230 - Comedy Horror Film Review

The Zombie Wedding is the first film from Weekly World News Studios and is based on the interactive play Zombie Wedding. Directed by Micah Khan in his feature length directorial debut and written by Greg D'Alessandro, this is a light hearted slice of zombie mayhem that never takes itself seriously, but whose humour always fell flat for me.

Ashley (Deepti Menon) is overjoyed when her long term boyfriend Zack (Donald Chang) proposes to her, even the threat of an ongoing localised zombie outbreak isn't enough to take away her excitement. That all changes when during a meal, the undead break into the restaurant they are eating at and Zack ends up bitten. Horrified at what he has become, Zack calls off the wedding, but Ashley decides that even as a walking corpse she wants to spend the rest of her life and his undeath with him. News of the first ever zombie-human wedding gets the attention of a reporter, who decides to cover the story hoping for fame and glory.

As you can tell from the synopsis, the zombies of The Zombie Wedding are not your typical brain-dead monsters. Aside from poor motor functions and slurred speech, these undead retain their intelligence, despite slowly rotting and having an intense hunger for human brains. The make-up was passable, with it only really being the faces that have had make-up and prosthetics applied to them, often with the make-up not extending to the rest of the body. This is all perfectly fine as some of the background undead not quite looking fully the part is made up for with the number of zombies. In this world being bitten and turned isn't the shocking end it might otherwise be, and over the course of the film, outside of Zack, many of the cast end up infected and transformed with not too much difference to how they act. There was never a feeling of horror to this, that wasn't the intention, with the story very much on the drama between Ashley and Zack as they try to break new ground with their wedding. Characters don't take themselves seriously, all are over the top and zany people, and all for the most part are fine. I did really like Ashley's dad - Buddy (Kevin Chamberlin) but that was about it. The rest of the characters were on the main inoffensive, but I can't truthfully say I liked any of them.

Being a comedy horror it was important that the humour was something that appealed. Unfortunately it just didn't. The jokes were middle of the road and bland, with it often feeling like the 'crazy' situation of a human-zombie wedding was where the start and the end of the comedic ideas happened. I can't say I found a single part of the movie funny, but I did appreciate that the jokes remained low level, nothing about sex or bodily functions at least. I appreciated how the film began, showing the mad chaos at the zombie wedding itself before going back in time a few weeks to show how events led up to that moment. Always a good way to set out a film in my opinion. The horror was slight, though there are a couple of moments of CG blood spurts and purposely fake looking severed limbs being thrown around the place. A couple of scenes of almost horror when it comes to the background character zombies who act much more like the real thing, like the humans, these zombies exaggerate their movements, with arms going everywhere.

Truth be told, I was getting bored of The Zombie Wedding by the time it got to the wedding itself. Having found none of the jokes funny, and finding many of the characters flat and unexciting I was just waiting for the end credits to roll. I couldn't say I entirely enjoyed this, but it still worked as a piece of escapism from this seemingly ever more dark world we live in currently. The Zombie Wedding debuted on VOD and select screens on September 13th.

SCORE:

Voice of Shadows (2023) - Horror Film Review

I had a week off of my blog last week so that I could go on a mini-vacation with my best friend. I confess that lately I have been feeling a bit of burnout with this site in recent months, but the break helped, so I am back to a full five posts for this week (actually turned out just to be the four!). Voice of Shadows is the feature length directorial debut of Nicholas Bain, who wrote this also. It takes a typical idea and adds a surreal twist to it, something that kept my attention, even if I can't say I thought much of the characters here.

Emma (Corrinne Mica) her boyfriend Gabriel (Guillermo Blanco) and his sister Celeste (María José Vargas Agudelo) often spend time at the mansion of an elderly and eccentric lady named Milda (Jane Hammill) who thinks of the two girls like nieces. This is somewhere Gabriel hates going, due to Milda appearing to detest the man. With it implied the trio are in desperate money troubles they once again visit the old lady. The next day, Emma receives a phone call saying that Milda had passed away suddenly, and she comes to learn from an equally eccentric friend of the old lady - Ernesto (Martin Harris), that Milda left her the entire estate in her will. Being in so much financial trouble, the trio decide to move in, but Ernesto reveals some bizarre conditions of Emma getting the estate, such as Gabriel being forbidden to be there. They ignore this, but Gabriel soon begins to suspect all is not right, with Emma and Celeste acting very strangely, and a feel of a supernatural or demonic presence in the house.

Voice of Shadows is at least surreal, but that wasn't enough to save it for me from some less than fantastic characters. After an almost amusing prologue in which Gabriel is confessing his tragic backstory in a confession booth before realising there isn't a priest listening to him, the film has a mini-reset. Gabriel was a terrible character, he was set out as the protagonist but I thought he was a bit of a pathetic wet blanket. Emma and his sister pay him so little attention that in the early part of watching this I thought that he might be dead, with a late film reveal of this fact. No though, it seems that everyone hates him. It becomes a bit of a running joke with nearly every character either ignoring him or being mean to him, even the nice ones often have a feeling of taking the mick out of him, such as his creepy next door neighbour Birdie (Kevin Lokey).

Gabriel is very Catholic, so there is a feeling of a battle between good and evil going on, with it revealed Milda appeared to be into some sort of demonic worship, perhaps the reason she disliked him so much during life. He might be Catholic, but the church also appear to hate him, such as the empty booth in the prologue as well as several later scenes where he keeps getting told to go away each time he arrives at the church! Gabriel is also very annoying, it was amusing how much his girlfriend appears to hate him, with many different overhead shots of the two sleeping in bed quite distant from one another. I couldn't tell if he was meant to come across as a good guy, but with his super serious backstory and his ineffective bossy persona he was hard to take seriously.
There were only a small cast of characters, and they were not all bad to be fair. I thought Celeste was great, not so much Emma who came across as a bit bland and lifeless, then there was Ernesto who I did enjoy watching on screen with his bizarre tweed suit.

The horror here mainly comes from the feeling of paranoia and wrongness about both the mansion and the people revolving around it. I thought some of the investigation scenes were saved by strong props, but things such as slamming doors and rocking chairs moving on their own seemed a bit tired. Then there are the jump scare moments of figures with black eyes bursting out the darkness, not sure if they were meant to make the viewer jump also but those parts came across as cheesy. Now there was one legitimately great scene in the third act revolving Celeste, but it did only last around a minute, still it shows that there are some parts of Voice of Shadows that did shine strong. I would also say that the reveals of the antagonist's backstory was interesting when you stop to really think about it and what is suggested just by characters telling others the details rather than showing anything.

Voice of Shadows fell into the middle for me when it came to enjoyment. It wasn't a terrible film nor was it a boring film, I had no trouble watching this, but I had some bemusement with the strange choice of protagonist. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was a feeling of round pegs being smashed into square holes with some aspects of this movie, with things not quite coming together as I had hoped. Voice of Shadows is to be released in North America on digital and streaming platforms on September 17th from Scatena & Rosner Films.

SCORE:

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.

SCORE:

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.

SCORE:

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.

SCORE: