Wilderness (2006) - Horror Film Review

It is another week and another time where the scheduled film for review was unable to be watched due to screener issues. I have a pile of DVDs that I haven't got around to watching and so randomly picked one, which turned out to be the M.J Bassett (four episodes of the Ash vs Evil Dead TV show, Deathwatch) directed slasher - Wilderness. My expectations were low, but as the film went on I found myself pleasantly surprised.

After their bullied dormmate commits suicide, a group of young offenders are taken off to a former Army owned deserted island by the institute warden - Jed (Sean Pertwee - Gotham TV show, Botched, Dog Soldiers). He hopes that some team building exercises there will bring the teenagers together. They soon discover however that they are not the only people on the island as they encounter a couple of teenage girls led by former soldier - Louise (Alex Reid - The Descent) as well as a crazed survivalist (Stephen Don - Game of Thrones TV show) and his pack of vicious dogs who seems determined to kill them all for reason unknown. Even with all their lives in danger, personal grudges among the criminals threaten to speed up the process.

Maybe it was just being a British horror and with it having Pertwee among the cast, but I got a feel of Dog Soldiers to this. There was also bit of a Battle Royale feel to the film, being mainly set outside on an island I guess would be sure to bring parallels to that classic. 
After a needed first act set at the young offenders institute, the movie moves over to the island where the various personalities of the protagonists are set out. Normally it would be a bad thing to have lead characters that you didn't want to root for, but here, with many of the characters being quite nasty people, it was often satisfying to see their varied death scenes. Toby Kebbell (War for the Planet of the Apes, Kong: Skull Island) is the main protagonist, playing the silently brooding Callum, a character who had newly arrived at the institute. I guess he was the one that viewers were meant to root for but he did come across as a bit weird. Steve (Stephen Wight - Men in Black: International, Highlander: The Source) is the most hateable of the cast, a skinhead bully who uses the hulking Lewis (Luke Neal - Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi) to do his dirty work. He may have been horrid, but I think Steve may have been the stand-out character here. The other characters also are all quite stereotypical, such as chav Blue (Adam Deacon - Dead Set TV show), and the very snivelling and cowardly Lindsay (Ben McKay - Hot Fuzz).
The various personalities have as much conflict within as without, with some of the respectable body count coming from infighting. I thought there was a decent amount of characters, and while they were all generic, I thought they made for a varied bunch. Some had more time to shine than others, with some in particular not really doing much at all. Much of the dialogue could be quite amusing. There is no end of swearing and insults, but lines made me smile on occasion, such as one highlight when a character states "This uninhabited island is getting pretty f*cking crowded!" after the group discover yet more people who are not meant to be there.

One of the highlights for Wilderness are the fun kill scenes, with special mention going to the make-up effects on the dead bodies. There was a neat looking early scene of a character getting mauled to death by a pack of dogs, and many of the kill scenes revolve around survivalist type things such as bear traps, tripwires and arrows. There wasn't one type of kill used more than once (on screen at least) and so it was always fun to see how the next poor victim would meet their end. Special effects always looked great, mostly practical as far as I could tell, and a good use of editing to dodge around things that maybe wouldn't look as good on closer inspection, such as dead dogs. The story wasn't bad, with decent motivations for the antagonist and some later twists that nearly took me by surprise.

Wilderness was a solid slasher that made good use of both the outdoor locations, and special effects that rarely disappointed. The characters might have felt a little too much like caricatures at times, but I enjoyed the casts interactions with each other, even if the one set-up to be the lead was one of the least interesting. This was more entertaining than it had any right to be.

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The Omen (2006) - Horror Film Review

It is complete. Around twelve years ago my girlfriend at the time brought me The Omen: Pentology box set from HMV. This five film collection included the four original films (The Omen, Damien: Omen II, Omen 3: The Final Conflict, Omen IV: The Awakening) as well as the 2006 remake, and at three o'clock this morning (at the time of writing) I finally got around to watching that remake. I reckon that if I had seen this back then I would not have appreciated it as much, but watching The Omen remake now, I got a real nostalgic hit from a film that is extremely early 2000's in feel. I will try and keep spoilers to a minimum, but part of this review will be comparing it to the classic original.

Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber - X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Scream), an American ambassador is devastated when he learns that his child has died after complications with its birth at a Catholic hospital in Italy. A priest there has a proposal for him however, he says that a woman also at the hospital recently died after the birth of her healthy son, and that to save Robert's wife, Katherine (Julia Stiles - Orphan: First Kill, Save the Last Dance) the heartache of learning her child has died, should claim this child for his own. The man decides to go along with this, but little does he know that the baby is actually the Antichrist, the son of Satan who is prophesied to bring doom to the world of man. It is on the child's fifth birthday that events begin to be put in motion, and it isn't long before Robert has reluctantly teamed up with press photographer Keith (David Thewlis - The Sandman TV series, the Harry Potter series of films) in order to investigate for sure if his son really is a creation of Hell, after being warned by Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite - Inception, The Usual Suspects) about the deception.

This John Moore (A Good Day to Die Hard, Max Payne) directed horror remake plays it very safe with the story and how particular events play out, so much so that the poor screenwriter wasn't even credited, due to his screenplay being so similar to David Seltzer's (who wrote the screenplay for the 1976 original). Part of the reason I had left this so long to watch is that I didn't want vivid memories of the original clouding my opinion of this. That worked to a degree, I knew all the story beats, but I couldn't really recall how the original looked. Some things are done better, some less so, and unifying this is the peak 2000's feel. Firstly, some of the death sequences look fantastic, better than the original.
Bizarrely, the most memorable death scene for the original film (a character getting pinned to the ground from a falling piece of church masonry) looks quite bad here, due to the obvious replacement of the actor with a fake body that the camera lingers on for too long. Thankfully other death scenes are better replicated, a person compelled to commit suicide has an identical scene but it looks more visceral, and the iconic decapitation scene delighted by occuring in a slightly different way than in the original.

The 2000's seemed a bit of a dark time for me in regards to horror films, it felt like every classic movie was getting a subpar and needless remake, and I'm sure I would have felt scorn for this back then (I do recall seeing the trailer at the cinema). In modern day however I am at the stage in my life where I feel quite intense nostalgia for bygone decades, and seeing Schreiber and Stiles (someone I've always had a crush on) in a movie together was delightful, it took me back to the feeling of that decade. Being set in that time period there has been some alterations to make this more current, such as 9/11 and the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003 perhaps tastelessly being injected into some of the portents for the rise of the Antichrist. My biggest issue came with some of the actors chosen to play the roles. Now, I think David Lewlis was simply stunning in The Sandman, his acting there was very impressive, but here...not so much. Whether it was the actor or his direction, his portrayal of a press photographer is extremely generic and stereotypical, with the man distractingly always chewing gum and forever squinting his eyes. I struggled to take this character seriously, which is a problem when he becomes an essential side character. As for the previously mentioned Schreiber and Stiles, I could watch both of those in anything, even if here they aren't particularly memorable characters. Other notable actors includes Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) as the evil nanny, and Michael Gambon (the Harry Potter series) in a very brief appearance, and of course you have Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as the five year old Damien, someone who at the very least has a decent ability to give a malice filled stare. The ending shot may be identical, but it is just as effective here.

Demonic possession films are one of my favourite horror genres, so this is kind of in a similar ballpark. It is a film that has improved with age, if only for it being such a snapshot of the time period it was created in. On the other hand, being so extremely similar to the original it felt a bit pointless, I've never really understood remakes that try and be identical to the film they were based on, I feel if you must make a remake then at least put your own darn spin on it! Complaints aside, I did enjoy The Omen, not essential by any means, but it was entertaining enough to watch.

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Fido (2006) - Zombie Comedy Horror Film Review

Fido was a zombie film that I had heard mentioned plenty of times over the years, yet it wasn't something I ever really felt an urge to watch. Mainly I think due to not really being too keen on Billy Connolly (who plays the titular role). I was so out of the loop on this one that I thought it was first released in the early 1990's and so was quite surprised to find out this was released in 2006, two years after Shaun of the Dead. Fido was directed and co-written by Andrew Currie who had some slight previous experience of zombie movies with his 1997 short, Night of the Living.

The film takes place during an alternate 1950's America in which some years previously there had been a zombie apocalypse. A solution to this problem was found with the creation of large impenetrable walls around the towns and cities, as well as the invention of a special collar which in effect domesticates the undead and allows them to perform menial jobs. The film starts when Bill Robinson (Dylan Baker - Trick 'r Treat) and his wife, Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss - The Matrix trilogy) get their first zombie helper (Connolly), a ghoul who their young son, Timmy (Kesun Loder) takes an instant liking to. Due to a malfunctioning collar Fido ends up killing a neighbour, this begins a chain of events that leads to a local zombie outbreak, and Timmy's desperate attempts to hide Fido's slip up.

This is basically the idea presented at the end of Shaun of the Dead (zombies domesticated) and fleshed out into a feature length movie. While I'm not keen on Connolly I was also put off by watching this for so long due to all the quotes stating how funny it was. I had a feeling the comedy wouldn't be the kind I like and I was pretty much correct. A lot of the humour revolves around how stereotypically 1950's small town America this is, juxtaposed with rotting corpses walking around everywhere. In a way it shares a feeling with the Fallout games. Families are made up of stern fathers, mothers who cook and clean, and children who play baseball, all set in the roles you would expect for the time period. The zombies add in a curve ball, and it was amusing how little concern for death and destruction people have. The middle act of the film has Timmy trying his best to cover up Fido's kills, yet him, and those around him don't treat any of this as much more than business as usual. There is a macabre underbelly to Fido, a darkness that lurks around the corners but never stains the genial facade of the movie world. Things are mentioned in passing that show how twisted this all is, such as the fact that there are no prisons anymore, instead people who commit crimes are thrown out of the walled towns and cities to fend for themselves in the 'wild lands'.

The Shadow Walkers (2006) - Horror Film Review

The Shadow Walkers is a very B movie feeling horror that is exactly what it at first appears to be. Directed by Mark Steven Grove (The Black Hole) this tells a tale that is traditional in every sense of the word. It is a film of no thrills and no surprises, bad acting and basic storytelling, yet it is because of these that it became something hard to be too down on. It knows it is a shoddily made genre film and never tries to pretend it's not.

A group of scientists and soldiers awaken in an underground research facility with little memory of how they got there. They soon discover the place is full of genetically altered mutants and so seek a way to escape. Unknown to them, they are being watched and studied by an ominous military force who seem to want to use their struggle as combat data to perfect the mutants.

The general outline of the story made brought up similarities between this and Resident Evil, but the low budget of this one means a more fitting comparison is to the sci-fi horror Xtro 2. Locations are dimly lit, effects are minimal and characters seem to delight in dramatic over the top reactions to everything. Right from the start you can tell this isn't going to be anything cerebral with a bunch of shocked scientists getting butchered by a unit of soldiers. There is nothing wrong with brain dead movies, they can be decent escapism, but The Shadow Walkers falls into the trap of also managing to be quite dull at times. The mutant creatures reminded me a lot of zombies, they even have the ability to infect people they bite. Much of the films subplot revolves around one of the survivors who has been bitten and is slowly transforming. This aspect I quite liked, there are a bunch of flashbacks to show the jobs and roles the various characters had before their amnesia, with the insight that the characters were not the most noble of people.

Low (2006) - Short Horror Film Review

Low is a short horror film that clocks in at just under 6 minutes. This features no dialogue, and just the one strangely likeable character but it tells a concise little story well. It was the first film that was directed and written by Jon Salmon who is best known for his cinematography work.

 An electrician (Russ Kingston - He's a Bleeder) is down in the basement of a library fixing a fuse box, glancing at his work diary he is dismayed to realise that except for a day off for his birthday he is working all the way up to and including Christmas. Hearing a strange noise he goes off to investigate...

For the first four minutes this steadily increased in tension with things feeling more and more suspenseful as the electrician investigates the odd sound. I was expecting a jump scare like zinger but instead it takes a more positive bend. I really liked how this started and ended, showing the electrician in a lift descending and ascending but tiny with most the screen being black.  Effects are kept to a minimum with sound used to indicate what is going on.

I thought Kingston was great here for a role that required no dialogue, I think maybe I identified with him being overworked so was on his side. The real moral here is that perhaps there is more to life than work with the horror aspect maybe being an analogy for living life to work rather than living life to live. I enjoyed the pacing of this with my only complaint being a moment of protracted darkness that lingered a little too long. Low is free to view online so I will include it below.

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After... (2006) - Horror Film Review

I knew when I picked up a load of cheap horrors the decision might come back to bite me, but hey, it was three films for £5, a bargain I thought. You can always tell how popular a film is by the number of images on Google...this one, After... had just the one.

After... sounded kind of interesting, though a tad similar to The Tunnel. Three thrill seekers who are into 'urban exploration' decided to head to Moscow to explore Stalin's mythical Metro-2 subway system. After getting into it they soon become hunted by soldiers in biohazard suits, mingle with hordes of radiation infused homeless people, and take part in their very own music video, while 'artsy' flashbacks give insight into the main characters past.

Nate is most definitely the main protagonist, his wife Adrian, and her brother Jay are nearly background characters, is kind of a shame as Nate is such a miserable person. This film is like one huge music video, or a bad acid trip put on camera. The soundtrack is by The Crystal Method and it has to be said is very good. What is not so good is how the film seems to be cut and spliced to fit in with the music. Lots and lots of strobe lighting, extreme close ups and shaky camera work. I very nearly stopped watching after just a few minutes as the shaky extreme close ups were giving me motion sickness. Unfortunately the crew does not seem able to resist inserting handheld camera shots every couple of seconds, irritating and unneeded.

The Metro setting is cool in theory but in practice like The Tunnel it just seems to be a variety of boring looking underground corridors. A Jacob's Ladder style influence is apparent though in this film. Everywhere Nate goes in the underground he sees glimpses of an eyeless man in a baseball cap, who (spoiler!) it turns out had some dark link to his past. Slowly going crazy Nate seems aimless, the two with him don't really comment on anything of note. The flashbacks at least take away from the darkness.

Later on the film just goes crazy in a strange way, not a particularly interesting way. When people die they seem to disintegrate, Nate starts literally warping around to different places, and there is only so many times the film can force the obvious twist down your throat before you just say 'enough already, I get it!' After all that the film just ends, no resolution.

Someone on the internet (I cannot recall who) said that if After... had been a four minute music video it would have worked, but as a near eighty minute film it runs out of steam far far too soon, I totally agree with that statement.

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Final Destination 3 (2006) - Horror Film Review

Goodness gracious great balls of fire, despite not thinking Final Destination 3 was fantastic it still had me legitimately crying with fear at the end, one thing these films always get right is the really obvious, yet really sinister twist endings. Many people moan about the Final Destination films saying they are nothing more than torture porn, but I have always enjoyed them, they are different (from other films, not from each other!).

Wendy (played greatly by the pretty Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has a premonition that the roller coaster ride her and her friends are about to get on crashes and kills all the passengers, in her panic an altercation occurs and many of the passengers end up getting kicked off by security. The coaster does crash killing the remaining teens, including Wendy's boyfriend, and best friend. Along with the assistance of her friend of a friend Kevin she comes to realise that something like this has happened before (the events of Final Destination specifically talked about). She discovers that all the survivors are going to die in the order they were supposed to if they had been on the ride. She has clues in the many photos she had taken before the ride as each of the survivors is shown in a picture in a situation which has clues to their death, including herself and Kevin. Soon the survivors are being killed in accidents one by one and Wendy must find a way to cheat deaths revenge.

The deaths are again the big draw and they don't disappoint. The initial roller coaster disaster is muted in that you don't really see how anyone is killed but the revenge deaths makeup for this, sunbeds roasting people alive, weights crushing someones skull, and a nail gun doing nasty stuff to someones face; all are nasty to see, and darn entertaining. The plot even for a Final Destination seems a bit weak, really a rehash of ones which has gone before. I would love it if one day there is a satisfying resolution rather than death truly being inescapable. Winstead is very good as the slowly going insane Wendy and is forever crying but not in an annoying way. Other characters are the usual teen idiots, jocks, losers, and nobodies so you never really care about them making their deaths more enjoyable.

As I said, I did cry with fear at the end, just knowing what is likely to happen, as well as the creepy as hell photos that hide clues until they are re seen. The Final Destination films are fun. The DVD includes an alternate version of the film where you get to choose key choices which influence how the film plays out. There is even an option you can choose that ends the film fifteen minutes in with a humorous epilogue telling you what happened to the survivors. An awesome idea, and one planned well in advance.

You know what to expect coming into Final Destination 3, if you like these films then is worth watching, if you don't then  this is really not going to change your mind.

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Death Note/Death Note: The Last Name (2006) - Horror Film Reviews

Having recently watched the Death Note anime I thought it was high time I watched the film adaptation again. The story was split into two separate films and even with a running time of around four and a half hours a lot has had to be missed out.

As mentioned in my poor review of the anime (here) Death Note is about a bright young student who discovers a note book with the power to kill people just by writing their name in it. The student; Light Yagami decides to use it to make the world a better place but in doing so leads the worlds greatest detective; a shadowy figure known only as 'L' to hunt him down. The events in the film are quite different to the show, it seems it is far more based on the manga (which I have only partly read).

Playing Light is Tatsuya Fujiwara (of Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Requiem fame), he fits the role well, but much like other portrayals of Light he comes across as evil, leading me again to question why no one apart from L really believes he is Kira. Ken'ichi Matsuyama plays L and actually looks very similar to the character. I don't really like the forced kookiness of L so again was not keen on him, but is well acted. It is a shame that the members of the police squad tasked to capture Kira are pushed to the sidelines a lot here with the exception of Light's father, and rookie detective Matsuda who like the anime and manga is virtually a pure comedy character.

While it can feel a bit rushed this is still a decent adaptation which looks like it had a high budget. The Gods of Death look kinda awful being computer generated but is a small price to pay, and far from the worst CGI I have seen (think that was the giant snake in Python). I learned from this film that it is really quite hard to make a heart attack victim look any good. A lot of people die of heart attacks in this film with a variety of over acting, and lack of spectacle. Of course it was easier in the anime to make these deaths look good (such as the one where a guy falls off a building and through a skylight) as is far cheaper to make.

The film is different enough that it really is worth watching, I really enjoyed it, the length allows it to build up characters and though quite lacking on action entertains throughout never getting boring. Key events from the anime appear but awesome new scenes such as the first film's finale in an art gallery (probably taken from the manga) bring some great surprises. Being Japanese there are subtitles which for the most part are good, especially given the amount of text that also needed translating. Some lines are poorly translated though and made me want to marker pen my TV to correct them!

If you are too lazy to watch the fantastic anime, too poor to afford the billion manga's or just want to see what the fuss is all about these are the perfect films to watch.

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Death Note (2006-2007) - Horror Anime Review

I have long loved the Death Note anime, having first watched it back when it was originally aired in Japan. I remember tuning in weekly to watch the next exciting episode of this novel show. Now the DVD boxset has dropped in price I have finally been able to watch it once more, plus with the distance of years I can now put up with the English dubbed version which sounded terrible before as I was used to the Japanese (with subtitles of course, I am not that amazing!)

Death Note spookily enough revolves heavily around a Death Note (not 100% sure but the clue may have been in the title). A Death Note is a book of death that Gods of Death each posses (called Shinigami's). If a humans name is written in the Death Note then that person will die exactly forty seconds later unless specified otherwise. A bored Shinigami called Ryuk decides to drop his Death Note into the human realm to see what happens. The person who discovers the book is a highly intelligent yet bored high school student; Light Yagami. After discovering the power of the book he is at first horrified, but then comes to realise that with the tool he now owns he can wipe out all evil from the world, make it into the perfect place where crime does not exist.

The story of Death Note is really about how power corrupts. Starting off with the very best intentions Light slowly heads down a dark path, his goal to wipe out evil from the world starts to affect more and more innocent people. Light realises his plan involves him murdering thousands of people, and he accepts that fact for he sees a world without crime as the perfect ideal. The Yang to Lights Ying comes in the form of the worlds best detective; L, Lights opposite in every way except intellect. L is determined to get Kira (as people come to call the Death Note killer) and have him executed. Light meanwhile is out to find out L's real identity and kill him. To use the Death Note you must know the person you want to kills name as well as what they look like, this leads to lots of clever twists and turns as Light and L constantly battle against each other.

At thirty seven episodes a lot happens, so much in fact that the show feels split into three different parts. Part 1 involves the battle between Light and L, this is to be honest the most exciting of the episodes as the rules of the Death Note are firmly established as is the intense rivalry between the two. The middle episodes turn far more light hearted with Light's love interest Misa in particular being animated in a comedy way with lots of exaggerations that feel kinda out of place in such a usually serious but exciting show. It wraps up with a far more serious end with suspicion intensified as the net appears to be closing in on Light.

Death Note is such an exciting and cerebral show, with many people split on who actually is on the path of true justice; L who sees Kira as nothing more than an evil serial killer, and Kira who sees L as someone trying to protect criminals from meeting their deserved fates.

The soundtrack is very good, and it all is really well drawn and directed. It really takes it's time with some episodes, one of my favourite episodes is a twenty minute discussion between Light and a woman who has evidence to reveal Kira's identity. Light is desperate to trick the woman to give him her real name and a tense time is had as he manipulates her for this information.

This is not a good review! But is practice for when I review the Death Note films (arrived in the post today). This is really such a clever, unique and thrilling show, sure the English voice dubs are nowhere near as good as the original Japanese voice actors but with distance that doesn't matter. My main complaints are firstly that it always seems super obvious that Light is the bad guy, it really seems silly at times how the people around him don't see what he really is. Secondly at thirty seven episodes it does drag a bit, the last part in particular seems to be there just for length, and again as mentioned some of the voice acting is not fantastic. Still damn worth a watch.

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Dead Rising (2006) - Zombie Horror Videogame Review (X-Box 360)

Looking through the long and tedious index on my site I realised I have not reviewed Dead Rising. Dead Rising: Chop till you Drop the Wii lite version I have reviewed but not the main course.  I famously turned down a date (kind of) to get home to wait for this game to drop through my letterbox.

Dead Rising sees you as Frank West (a photographer who has covered wars) who ignores a military blockade on the small town of Willamette in order to try and get a scoop on what is going on. He discovers a town over run with the living dead. With three days before his helicopter pilot comes back for him he explores a giant shopping centre to uncover the reason for the outbreak. A reason that involves South American terrorists, shady government scientists and the army itself.

There are a lot of faults with this game, least of all is the fact that save points are few and far between. You can only save in either a bathroom, or on the bench in the survivors save room. Constantly ticking is the clock, if you don't get to locations on time then the games story is effectively over. You can still go rescue survivors, or you can restart the game with all your experience intact. Multiple restarts are really what is needed so that you are strong enough to do your job.

The main quest sees you uncovering the conspiracy but the side missions involve you rescuing innocent civilians trapped in the shopping mall. Usually you must solve some simple puzzles to get the survivors to follow you back to the safe house such as locating alcohol for a drunk, or finding food for a hungry person. It can be quite stressful getting the survivors back to the safe house though as they like to be slow and get picked apart by the many zombies. Least these missions are optional.

There are thousands of zombies in this game, literally. This only ramps up towards the spectacular ending that leads to a very memorable boss fight set piece (to give more away would ruin it). You have access to a lot of items that can be used to defeat the zombies. Some are useless (such as a giant teddy bear, water pistol, and potted plant) while others such as the bowling ball, shears, and pistols are quite useful. Other objects such as traffic cones, gum balls, and tins of paint can be used to distract the zombies.  Crazed humans (known as psychos) appear as boss fights and can be quite challenging. These include an insane clown armed with chainsaws, a Vietnam vet, and a totally crazy super market manager who chases you down with a dangerously modified shopping trolley. The psychos are hard, but the cut scenes they feature in are very well done and entertaining.

The game has it's tongue firmly in its cheek and succeeds in being a very weird place which does not take itself too seriously. As well as the psycho bosses and zombies you also encounter cultists, and armed humans (who are no fun to battle). You are able to visit every shop in the giant shopping centre and do random things such as dress up Frank West in various humorous clothes (baby outfits, woman's clothes, and idiotic sports outfits for instance). The story is typical zombie fare but well done and surprisingly serious considering the rest of the game. You never feel over powered, the sheer amount of zombies just does not allow that.

While a mode where there wasn't a constant time limit would have been nice the game succeeds as an oddball zombie title that delights more than it frustrates. If you love Dawn of the Dead, if you like zombies then Dead Rising is for you!

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Creepshow 3 (2006) - Horror Film Review

You know what? Creepshow 3 is terrible!  I knew that was the case before buying it, the excellent Darkside magazine said so (R.I.P). Not quite sure how I ended up buying it to tell the truth, only noticed I had done so when I got a confirmation email from Amazon. The film like those before it is a portmanteau; a collection of five mini stories.

I'm going to launch some spoilers, the film is bad enough that I don't think anyone would seriously be offended by this. The first tale Alice is about an allegedly teenage girl (I say allegedly as the actress looks to be in her thirties) whose father buys a universal remote control. Each time he presses a button on the control Alice is warped to another reality. In one her family are black, in another her family are Spanish. Each time she warps, her body becomes more and more deformed, which she doesn't seem to mind. Eventually she turns into a white rabbit, I don't know why.

The second tale is called The Radio. Jerry; a loner security guard discovers his new radio has the ability to talk. Pretty soon the radio has Jerry doing everything from theft to murder. But is Jerry the only person who has a talking radio?

The third story is called Call Girl. In this one a serial killer prostitute visits a client to kill him, only to end up his victim as he is a badly CG vampire.

The fourth story is also the best, maybe because it's the shortest. Two ex-students of a trick playing professor visit him to meet his fiancee. They become convinced his wife-to-be is actually a robot, and that the professor is playing a trick on them. To teach him a lesson they decide to 'dismantle' the robot with zany results.

The last story really drags. A rude Doctor accidentally poisons a homeless guy with a bad hot-dog. He starts to see the ghost of the homeless guy everywhere he goes, or is it just his billion self prescribed pills that is causing hallucinations?

The film is dreadful.  It is unrelated to the previous Creepshows, apparently the director got the rights to use the name, and decided to add 'three' to the title as a means to sell more copies. The problem with this film is that it is all so cheap and tacky. The actors are terrible for the most part. The special effects are bad CGI, truly awful. The plot for the stories are boring, nothing goes anywhere, the story starts and ends with no arc, nothing happens to warrant the length of some of these stinkers. The stories are all connected in that characters intermingle, I guess that's ok done, but gah.

Creepshow 3 stinks, avoid like the plague, unless you see it real cheap. Don't expect to be scared, but do expect to laugh out loud at how bad it is (something I frequently did while watching).

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Family - Masters of Horror Episode Review (DVD)

Family is the third episode of Season 2 of Masters of Horror. It is directed by John Landis and is quite a fun episode.

Harold appears to be a mild mannered middle class suburbanite. He lives in a nice friendly neighbourhood, and has a beautifully kept house. Harold is also insane, he kills people, then dissolves them in acid and ties their bones together to make new members for his 'family' a collection of skeletons in clothes who he converses with and spends most his time with. In his head these skeletons are human, and act like any other family. A young couple move in next door to him, and Harold rapidly falls for the young wife. He decides he would like her to 'join' his family...

This is a really light-hearted fun bright episode. Most the episode is filmed from Harold's perspective, so the reason everything is so bright and jaunty is because that is how he sees the world, all perfect. Sometimes his family are shown as what they are; skeletons in clothes, other times they are shown as real people, and you can hear the conversations Harold has with them. The episode pretty much centres on the 3 characters; Harold (played by George Wendt of Cheers fame), and his new neighbours (played by Meredith Monroe and Matt Keeslar). All three actors are fantastic and perfectly suited to their roles, especially Wendt who seems to have had real fun playing the friendly suburban serial killer.

There is not much violence or gore of any kind shown in the episode, most of the gore centres on already dead bodies. The writer for the script likens Family to his take on Psycho which in subject matter is kind of similar. The ending features a neat little twist which I kinda saw coming, but not completely. The twist sort of changes the nature of the whole episode, so watching it again would give me fresh perspective.
A nice fresh feeling episode, well worth a watch!

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Marvel Zombies (2005 - 2006) - Zombie Graphic Novel Review

Marvel Zombies is unsurprisingly a book which involves zombies, and is set in the Marvel universe. I think (but am not sure) that the Marvel Zombies series is a spin off from a Fantastic 4 story in which they travelled to an alternate dimension where a virus had turned the inhabitants of Earth into flesh hungry zombies (I am of course making this up, as I have never read it). In this alternate universe the only people left alive/undead are the hundreds of Super Heroes and Super Villains as keeping their super powers after their change into zombies they easily killed and ate everyone else in the world. What I do know is that thanks to Magneto (one of the last humans left) the Fantastic 4 travelled back to their own dimension, and the dimension travelling machine thing was destroyed leaving the super zombies stranded in their dead world (edit 24/08/19 - all I said there does happen but wasn't the root cause of the outbreak).

The story was released in five parts, which are compiled in the Marvel Zombies graphic novel. Magneto is quickly eaten by the combined super zombies. The super zombies are led by zombie Iron Man, and include mainly Colonel America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Hulk (mostly Bruce Banner, he only changes into zombie Hulk when hungry). The world seems empty of fresh meat to eat, but this soon changes with the arrival of the Silver Surfer who announces the arrival of planet eater Galactus. When Galactus arrives he is furious that his servant has been eaten. The super zombies both good and bad though see Galactus as the ultimate meal...

The book is really quite gory in places, various super zombies lose various parts of their anatomy during the story. The script was done by the same man who does the script for the excellent The Walking Dead comic. Unlike that though, this story is really humorous in places. The super zombies conversations with each other is so absurd as to be hilarious, and seeing well known heroes and villains all zombied up is a great treat for fans.

The artwork is bright and vivid, and the story itself is silly, but cool. Well recommended. I shall definitely be getting Marvel Zombies 2!

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Dead and Deader (2006) - Zombie Film Review

Dead and Deader is real fun. It never takes itself completely serious while being full of brain dead action.

A group of soldiers in Cambodia end up dead while on a recon mission. Only problem is they don't stay dead. A day or so after their bodies have been shipped back to America Lt Bobby Quinn wakes up. He discovers he is dead, he has enhanced senses, and he has super strength and amazing healing abilities. His fellow soldiers who died also have come back to life, the only problem is, they are the more traditional zombie type; eating people who in turn become zombies. The bodies of the returned soldiers have seemingly been sent all over America, so Quinn decides his mission is to track down all the bodies and destroy them before zombie apocalypse occurs. Along the way he teams up with the usual wise cracking wimpy sidekick who is always found in these films, and also joined by a geek girl, of course his love interest.

The writer of this film was obviously a huge film fan. There are so many references to other films, that at times it seems forced. Discussions on who the best James Bond is, which of the Dawn of the Dead films was the best, video game talk, comic book talks. So a lot of screen time dedicated to pointless student style talks. In one scene the characters are at a morgue. The wisecracking sidekick looks at a table which has a big metallic sphere on it; a reference to Phantasm (which is set in a mortuary), excellent.

The film goes along at quite a fast pace, the plot is riddled with holes, but it is good old fashioned dumb fun, and the zombies are plenty. A zombie gets pinned to a door by a pair of deer antlers - a first for zombie films I think! Dead and Deader was a fun film, just don't expect Shakespeare.

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