Spring (2014) - Horror Film Review

Phew, so Spring is the final film I needed to watch for the 2015 Fright Meter Awards (that I literally never shut up about), now that's done I can finally concentrate on stuff I have been sent for review! Spring is up for nomination in the Best Horror Film, Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Director categories, so quite a darn lot.

Lou Taylor Pucci stars as Evan; an American who decides to go on holiday to Italy after a series of bad events (including losing his job, and his mother dying of cancer). While there he befriends a local girl; Louise (Nadia Hilker) and begins a whirlwind romance. However the girl hides a dark secret that may just be too much to deal with...

Bone Tomahawk (2015) - Horror Film Review

After a year illness free I've been struck down with the flu and so not in the best shape to be doing much. Still it had been too long since my last blog post and so I decided to watch the Western horror Bone Tomahawk. This shall be the first review I have written from bed, and one in which I sneezed all over the laptop screen at one point!

Set in the late 1800's a small American frontier town is attacked and several people taken captive by a tribe of cannibalistic feral humans referred to as troglodytes by the local Native Americans. Among the three captured is the wife of Arthur; (Patrick Wilson of Insidious and The Conjuring) who is currently bed ridden with a broken ankle, and the Deputy Sheriff. After discovering this Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) sets out with his assistant; Chicory (Richard Jenkins), a local gunsmith named Brooder (Matthew Fox), and the injured Arthur in order to stage a rescue...

The Final Girls (2015) - Horror Comedy Film Review

The Final Girls is yet another horror that people on the Fright Meter Awards committee have been raving about. The film is like a horror version of The Last Action Hero with a similar plot device used of people getting sucked into a fictional world.

Max (Taissa Farmiga from American Horror Story) is attending a special screening of Camp Bloodbath; a cult 80's slasher which Max's late mum (Marlin Ackerman) was a character in (a blatant parody of Friday 13th). Not long into the showing and an accidental fire breaks out in the cinema which results in Max and her friends heading for a fire exit behind the screen, but rather than get to the exit they somehow end up inside the world of the film. They soon discover they are unable to leave and realise the only way back is to survive to the end of the movie when the final girl kills the Jason look-a-like butcher. Due to their meddling they accidentally get the heroine of the piece killed and so must now work together to defeat the murderer themselves, but for Max she has a different goal, she wants to save the character Nancy who was the role her mum played...

Creep (2014) - Horror Film Review

It is December and the cut off point for the Fright Meter Awards nominations is fast approaching and so I find myself panic watching as many of the films up for nomination as I can, it's a good thing I work better under pressure! Today's film was Creep, I knew nothing about it so when it started and I discovered it was from the found footage genre my heart sank (as always when it comes to that genre). The film actually has a recurring motif of hearts and so that last sentence was accidentally clever by the way.

Aaron (Patrick Brice who also directed and co-wrote this) turns up at the mountain home of Josef (Mark Duplass who also co-wrote) after answering a Craigslist ad. Josef has hired him to follow him around for a day filming everything he does. He soon reveals that he has a terminal illness and wants to create a video diary for his unborn son which seems like a decent enough idea, however things soon take a turn for the creepy when the first thing he wants Aaron to do is film him having a bath. From there things only get stranger and it begins to seem like Josef is less interested in making a film for his child to be and more about getting close to Aaron...

Cooties (2014) - Zombie Comedy Horror Film Review

Another day and another review of a film I saw at this years UK Festival of Zombie Culture, this time the film is Cooties; a comedy zombie film set at an elementary school. People have been raving about this in the Fright Meter Awards Committee Facebook page pretty much all year and so my expectations were high, but not impossibly so.

Elijah Wood stars as Clint; a supply teacher who is covering English during Summer School at the elementary he used to go to as a child. On his very first day however he not only has to contend with the other teachers who are a strange bunch (including among them Rainn Wilson as Wade) but he also finds himself at the centre of a viral outbreak which has transformed the majority of the moody students into flesh hungry ghouls. Barricaded into their office the teachers have to try and find away to escape the horrors who will stop at nothing to kill all adults...

Crimson Peak (2015) - Horror Film Review

The trailer left me cold for Crimson Peak but I had heard a lot of people saying good things about it, even my father had heard of the film. It is a Gothic horror directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) and is a pretty solid horror excelling for the most part at the genre chosen.

Mia Wasikowska stars as Edith Cushing; the only daughter of a rich American businessman. After Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) an English Baron meets Edith after a meeting with her father the two start a relationship of sorts, Edith has little knowledge that Sharpe is after her for her fathers money. After he turns up murdered Sharpe is there as a shoulder to cry on and not much later they are married and living at Sharpes dilapidated Allderdale Hall in England. However Edith starts to be visited by ghosts and slowly she starts to unravel the dark secret of Crimson Peak (the nickname locals give the house due to the blood red clay it stands on). Sharpe and his sister Lucille are certainly not as innocent as at first appears.

The Visit (2015) - Horror Film Review

The Visit is the new film from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Village) who is obviously well known for his twists he includes in most his films. The trailer for this was slightly creepy and so I was almost looking forward to this,

Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are off to spend a week with their grandparents who they have never met before due to their mother and them not being on speaking terms for fifteen years. Becca decides to chronicle their visit so that she can make a documentary for her mum to watch when they return. Their grandparents both exhibit strange behaviour which they put down to them being old, yet as the week progresses more and more unsettling events happen that lead the two siblings to start to believe they might be in real danger.

Unfriended (2014) - Horror Film Review

I felt it was my duty to see Unfriended when I saw it pop up on the list of films out at the cinema, I had never heard of it and upon reading that it was a film of the dreaded found footage genre I was not expecting anything remotely good. This is somewhat different to the norm as the entire film takes place on the screen of a teenage girls laptop, and it also takes place entirely in real time (and was even filmed in one long take!).

After an embarrassing video showed up online of teenager Laura Barns she kills herself, unable to live with the ridicule of her classmates. One year later and Blaire Lily is talking over Skype with her friends when she starts getting strange messages coming from the Facebook account of Laura, it isn't long before a mysterious sixth member of the Skype group she is in turns out to be using Laura's Skype account. The group at first think it is an internet troll who has hacked into the deceased girls profiles but things soon take a turn into the twilight zone for it seems that the actual explanation is something far more supernaturally sinister. Warned that if they end the Skype call they will all die the friends must confront their darkest secrets and hope to survive...

Unfriended is a terrifying film, for someone who is totally numb to the whole found footage genre I thought I had seen it all, that there was no new tricks that could be used but boy was I wrong. Before hand I wondered how a film that took place on a laptop screen would be interesting, let alone scary but the unrelenting pace of the real time event just left me reeling. Usually there are moments of light, times when the horror briefly ends (such as the day and night cycles of Paranormal Activity) but here when the horror starts it just goes on and on with the poor teens trapped in a cycle of terror that you as a viewer also feels trapped in.

The person controlling the events forces the teens to confront their dark secrets and in doing so causes huge rifts between the group, this in a way reminded me of the Saw films, though a much more psychological way than the torture porn of that franchise. The key event of the film is a 'have you ever...' drinking game the group are forced to play with the typed words of Laura's Skype account posing questions based on events from the friends lives and then giving an ominous countdown. The laptop used looks legitimate and includes among other programs and websites Skype, Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo. There is lots of screwed up stuff that happens with windows opening up on their own, music suddenly playing and photos and videos that shouldn't exist appearing to expose peoples dirty secrets.

At times the laptop seems a bit too artificial, by this I mean that for a film that was made in 2014 the girls laptop sure makes a lot of old school noises (such as a noisy grinding sound when searching for things on a search engine), while opening up images and videos takes a fair old while which I am sure was used to build tension. It could just be that Blaire's laptop is ancient though. The idea is also not wholly original, there has actually been a found footage film that took place totally on a computer screen before (The Collingswood Story back in 2002) though that used the computer to show events external to the machine while in this about 95% takes place on screen. As for the plot, well Panic Button (2011) had pretty much an identical story of someone or something getting revenge for an online video that caused a suicide.

Despite some generic characters the acting is actually pretty good, especially considering the whole film was filmed in one long take which was a great discovery. Variations in the script for what could happen kept the actors on their toes meaning they got to improvise a lot. The written text on the laptop comes across as a bit artificial at times but all in all this is engrossing stuff.

It is often said that what your mind conjours up is far more terrifying than anything that could actually be shown, here this is put to great effect as the Skype videos of each of the friends are constantly buffering, freezing, tearing and cutting out so when someone does die (and there are a fair few deaths) you only get to see the slightest glimpses of the method of death, a buffering sign followed by the briefest few insane seconds of someone with their hand being mashed up in a blender (for example) makes for a spooked out viewer. As Unfriended goes on more and more revelations are revealed and the victims start to appear less and less innocent all the way up to an effective but somewhat predictable end. There are some very clever mind games that play out, one in particular involving two printed out messages was very cool but to reveal that would ruin the surprise.

By two thirds of the way in tears of actual fear were streaming down my face; I was very scared indeed! In terms of reviewing this I am rating this based on the effectiveness of this as a horror film, not as a film I would ever wish to see again. If you really want to be scared then I suggest rather than see this on a huge cinema screen you instead watch it alone on a laptop, maybe pretend your part of the doomed Skype call. I was pleasantly surprised there is still life in the bloated found footage genre and despite some generic character types I still had a fun time watching this glimpse of the awfully titled cybernatural sub genre, though once you have seen it once the impact will be gone.

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It Follows (2014) - Horror Film Review

It Follows is a psychological horror that carries an unremittingly bleak vibe from the start up to the very end, certainly not a feel good film, something I seem to crave nowadays. It reminded me quite a bit of The Ring which is not a bad thing.

Jay (Maika Monroe) is a typical 19 year old girl whose life is turned upside down after an innocent sexual encounter. After the act her lover knocks her out and she awakens tied to a wheelchair in a deserted building where she is told that a curse has been passed onto her. a being is hunting her, something which can take on the form of anyone and exists only to kill. No matter where Jay goes, no matter what she does it is always going to be walking straight towards her, and when it finds her she will die, the only escape is to pass on the curse through sex. Now stalked wherever she goes Jay with the help of her friends must find a way to stop the terror.

It Follows is almost art house in its style and execution. There are lots of long long shots of nothing and inconsequential focus on non relevant items. The soundtrack is discordant, screeching and stark. The music sounds like it is from 1970's horror and ramps up the tension and looming threat, amplifying the fear rather than being separate. This bleak outlook is resonated in the locations with many dilapidated houses, buildings and wide lonely beaches, and even reflected in the characters themselves with Jay slowly going insane with the knowledge there is no escape, and her friends who are at a total loss on how to help her in any meaningful way.

If The Terminator was a horror rather than a sci-fi action film then this could easily be that film. The being only walks, never runs, never speaks and is invisible to all but the victim (and any people previously cursed). It can appear as a friend, a family member, a random stranger but is usually portrayed as what I assume to be previous victims with beaten half naked females, gaunt men, and the one appearance of a screaming pale faced child. A trick used is to have the being in the background slowly making it's way towards the scene playing out in focus at the forefront, this is always effective and starts to make you really question if it is the evil or just some random human going about their business. In a decent move that I have to give It Follows credit for the horror is confined for the most part to this presence, there was only two or three jump scares in the whole film. No matter what form the evil takes it is always threatening.

It can be seen as a cautionary tale about casual sex, about the danger of STDs, or even the fear of unwanted pregnancy, but it felt to me more the exploration of mankind's mortality. You are getting closer to death with every passing second and nothing you can do can change that. Using sex as a means to feel, to stop being so numb just doesn't work, even with that done you just end up still so hollow, safe with the knowledge that a temporary reprieve is all you have attained. When it comes down to it acceptance is the only way to deal with the negative thoughts and emotions that come with being alive. You have to face the evil straight on and just try and get on with your life as best as you can rather than be constantly running.

It is not all fantastic though, while I laud the inventive 'monster' of the piece it would be nice to know more of it's powers, while it is said to only walk it seems to teleport off camera getting to distant locations in a short amount of time, at other points when it is close to Jay (within short walking distance) it just doesn't appear. In one scene it is shown to be standing on the roof of Jay's house; just how did it even get up there? With decent pacing and a near final scene at a swimming pool that manages to not fall into the trap of being over the top the film still manages to shine and again shows that off screen deaths need not be a bad thing when imagination comes to town.

With no explanation, no resolution and no joy for Jay this film happily stands on it's own, to explain would be to ruin the magic and the terror. While I won't be kept up at night over this it makes a change to watch something that really makes you think and to imprint your own impressions onto events. A real downer, but an entertaining one.

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