The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for April 2022

Ragnarok must surely be coming for my inbox is pretty much up to date when it comes to news. Here's to some news that is actually relevant rather than months out of date! On a personal note, I am finished with Ghostwire: Tokyo, this spook-em-up had a review earlier in the week.

Arrow Films are to release Quentin Dupieux's surreal comedy Incredible But True in the UK, US, and Canada. This is about a husband and wife who move into the house of their dreams only to discover a life changing secret within the basement. While not a horror, this is said to feature time travel, a concept that I love. Incredible But True is aiming for a release this Autumn.

Releasing on May 31st from Bayview Entertainment on DVD is Kieron Hawkes' Piggy, a movie I reviewed on this site some ten years ago. The film is about a young man who after the murder of his brother meets up with a violent man named only as 'Piggy' who purports to have been a friend of his brothers. With Piggy's assistance, the young man is put on a dark path towards justice.

Not so much horror news, but interesting nonetheless, JustWatch have released a performance review of streaming platforms in the UK. As expected (currently at least), Netflix remains the largest platform, though is closely followed by Amazon Prime. Disney + had the most gains in the first quarter, while I was surprised to see Apple TV+ having 6% of the market share when there is barely anything really on it. I miss the days of just a few streaming platforms as the increase in these sites splits up the content in way that isn't good for people when it comes to cost, though it does increase competition which is hopefully a good thing here.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on May 10th from VCI Entertainment. This is a sequel to the made for TV feature film from way back in 1981. Apparently the first movie is what led to the 'evil scarecrow' subgenre of horror. In this sequel, a single mother, Chris (played by Amber Wedding) and her son, Jeremy (Aiden Shurr), move to a small rural town. One day Chris spots an old scarecrow and accidentally reawakens a long dormant evil. This was written and directed by J.D. Feigelson, the writer of the original film.

May 31st sees the DVD arrival of Elevator via Bayview Entertainment. In this film nine strangers become trapped in a Wall Street elevator where bad things begin to happen. This sounds similar to Devil but no idea if this one has a supernatural element to it or not.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) - Comedy Sci-fi Film Review

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (directed by Junta Yamaguchi in his sole feature film role, with a story written by Makoto Ueda) is the time travel genre's response to zombie film One Cut of the Dead, both of these are Japanese films, both purport to be shot entirely in one single take, and both feature a cast of very earnest and likeable characters. At a glance maybe you could say this shouldn't be featured on a horror site, but I have a fond love for anything involving time travel, and this uses a unique idea in plenty of inventive ways, selling its story despite an obvious low budget.

Cafe owner Kato (Kazunari Tosa) returns to his apartment one evening and is surprised to see himself on his TV. This person tells Kato that he has somehow time travelled into the future and that he needs Kato to come downstairs to the cafe where a second TV is located, in order to inform his past self about this. It eventually becomes apparent that for whatever reason the TV located in Kato's apartment has the ability to see exactly two minutes into the future, while the TV located in the cafe has the ability to see exactly two minutes into the past. By communicating via the downstairs TV, people are able to impart future knowledge to their counterparts in the past. It isn't long before a whole bunch of Kato's friends have gotten involved, all of them fascinated at being able to communicate with themselves. At first content to perform simple tricks to amaze their past selves, soon thoughts turn about how to utilise this wormhole in order to make money, and that's when things begin to make a darker turn.

The whole of Beyond was apparently filmed on an iPhone and the whole film has a simulated look to appear as if it was all filmed in a single take. Obviously there would be breaks as filming an entire seventy minute film would be nigh on impossible in a single take, but it is impressive and never becomes obvious when a shot has changed. I found this more impressive than One Cut of the Dead as that changed into something far different later on, but here, this notion of one single take is stuck with all the way to the end. The flow of the story has Kato and friends constantly walking up and down the stairs in order to both speak to their future selves, and then go and act out their future selves talking back to the past. By necessity this caused a lot of repetition, but it was so clever, especially when things don't always turn out as expected. An early example is when future Kato is told by his older self to go and ask out the neighbour he fancies. He had always been too scared of rejection to do this, but is given confidence by his future self, only to do so and get rejected. Not wanting to disrupt the time flow he then pretends to his younger self that he was successful. This becomes one of the more interesting aspects of Beyond with characters being compelled to parrot their interactions out of a feeling of not wanting to cause a time paradox, rather than having an actual desire to do so, bringing up the idea of free will, or a lack of one.

Counter Clockwise (2016) - Sci-fi Film Review

Counter Clockwise (directed by George Moise) is not really a horror film, instead it is more of a sci-fi dark comedy thriller. however ever since I saw the trailer back in June I had been hoping I would get the opportunity to view it. This is because the film is all about time travel which just so happens to be one of my very favourite concepts.

Michael Kopelow (The People Under the Stairs) stars as Ethan, a scientist who accidentally invents a time machine and is sent six months into the future. He discovers to his horror that his sister and wife had both been murdered the very same day he left from, not only that but he is now a wanted man, hunted by both the police and a shady science corporation. He decides to travel back in time to try and change the past...