Firstborn (2017) - Horror Film Review

Firstborn (Pirmdzimtais) is a Latvian thriller that was written and directed by Aik Karapetian (The Man in the Orange Jacket). This is quite a slow burn of a film, in fact at times it is so slow paced that it becomes glacial. I usually find that slow films are often dripping in atmosphere, and that is certainly true with this one.

Cold, intellectual Francis (Kaspars Znotins) is trapped in a loveless marriage with flirtatious and carefree Katrina (Maija Doveika). One night while they are walking home from a friends house they are confronted by a young biker (Kaspars Zale) who assaults Francis and steals Katrina's handbag. With his pride hurt Francis sets out to find the thief on his own, so that he can be seen as the hero. Locating the thief in some remote woodland industrial ruins he attempts to bribe him into giving the stolen items back, but Francis's plan goes wrong and he ends up accidentally causing the man's death. Thinking he has gotten away with it he begins to get more and more paranoid that there is someone out there who knows what he has done. Eventually this turns out to be correct and he gets blackmailed into committing further crimes in order to protect his unborn child from retaliation for his past act.

Firstborn is focussed heavily on the relationship between the two protagonists, though much more of it follows Francis who is quite the unlikable 'hero'. Throughout he comes across as weasley and a coward, with it hard to say that his actions throughout are not more for his benefit than anyone else's. A prime example is when Katrina is attacked, she calls him on his mobile begging for his help, but instead he decides to head off to find the person responsible. He is so selfishly caught up in trying to look like the hero that he fails to be there when people need him. There is bad chemistry between the central two which works great for what this is setting out to do. Francis and Katrina are polar opposites from each other and their lack of communication and trust leads up to a lot of the plot developments.

One Must Fall (2018) - Horror Film Review

One Must Fall is a horror comedy that comes from Antonio Pantoja in his feature length directorial debut, who also wrote and co-edited this. It does something a little different in that the horror and comedy aspects are kept separate from each other. It is all fun and games until the killing begins, then the humour fades away to make room for some pretty extreme violence.

Having recently been fired from their office jobs, Sarah (Julie Streble - Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories, The Zombie Movie), and her best friend Alton (Andrew Yackel) are forced to get the first job they can find. This turns out to be working as part of a crime scene cleanup crew. The second day on the job they head to an abandoned paint factory that had been host to a series of murders by a serial killer (Barry Piacente) that is loose in the city. However it soon becomes apparent this killer never actually left the scene of his crime and is more than happy to add Sarah and her colleagues to his kill count.

To start with the comedy part of One Must Fall is in abundance. There are characters, such as Sarah's office boss who are walking caricatures, while dialogue is geared towards humour such as Sarah's mother talking to her about how scared Sarah got watching Psycho as a child, and the scene with the assistant of the cleanup crew manager telling the new starters not to get eye contact with him. It is all faintly ridiculous in a good way. This first act also includes a fun cameo by the legend Lloyd Kaufman, his weird conversation about finding a body was a great throwaway moment that fitted perfectly with the vibe. It makes it all the more abrasive when the horror begins and the humour quickly fades away.

First Communions (2016) by Geoffrey Girand - Horror Anthology Book Review

What I used to say when accepting eBooks for review is that due to a backlog it would take some time to get around to reading it, but that no matter how long it took I would eventually read it for review. I received a copy of Geoffrey Girand's horror anthology First Communions back in April...2016, my tardy self has just finished reading it, so a review is in order! I will say what I always say for book reviews - I don't review many books and so I never feel I do a good job at these, but practice makes perfect so they say.

First Communions is made up of sixteen short stories, each of which has previously been published in various collections over the years. These were all well written, though some I found to be a little too abstract, or flowery in how they were crafted. Luckily for me this anthology includes a few zombie tales which are a perfect fit for my blog. So I may as well start with the zombie ones. For Restful Death I Cry gives a unique sci-fi twist to a typical undead story. Here in what seems to be a post apocalyptic world a man explores a retirement home from a previous golden age in human history, his aim is to scavenge the technology. Medical chairs in the past were used to artificially keep alive the elderly residents of these former homes, some of them are alive even up to the day the story is set. Unto The Lord A New Song takes place after zombie apocalypse has happened, the protagonist of this one discovers the son of a preacher who has created a contraption to make severed zombie heads 'sing'. That was a fun one to read. The best story in the whole book for me though was Dead In The Water that features a zombie outbreak occurring on a pirate ship. Zombies and pirates combined are not a new idea, but I found this one to be quite the entertaining read, I loved how it was paced out, and the final few sentences were great.

Then there were a few stories that tapped into the vibe of H.P Lovecraft. He remains to me to be the writer of the most legitimately terrifying stories ever written, no one has ever even come close to the soul wrenching horror of his stories. Saying that I always love a good homage to this master and there are a few here. The anthology starts off with Translatio that features a cursed writer forced to write down the words of an ancient God, the horrors he puts onto paper come to pass in real life. Psychomachia was about a mine whose miners appeared to have accidentally tunnelled all the way down to Hell itself. These same miners then get possessed, or changed by the experience, this reminded me of the ghouls from horror comedy Peelers. This was all told in a roundabout way long after the events had occurred. If I recall rightly it ends with a bit of a needless twist end. Release Me is the one most inspired by H.P Lovecraft, Girand even states this saying he tried to write the most Lovecraftian story he could. In this one a cursed house on top of a hill is home to a literal sleeping giant contained within the basement, great stuff!

Hunter's Weekend (2018) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Hunter's Weekend is a found footage/mocumentary comedy horror film that comes from writer and director Amy Taylor. Horror like many genres is one where the majority of directors are male, off the top of my head Tricia Lee (Blood Hunters, Silent Retreat) and Jennifer Phillips (Blood Child) are the two directors that came to mind as the few examples I could think of for feature length films. Taylor's intent seems to be to give a female voice to horror, and with the small crew being made up of 60% women, and with a subject matter about toxic masculinity it makes for something a little different.

Lyle (Benjamin Guenther) is a park ranger at a national park who along with his hapless assistant Victor (Christopher J. Young) holds an annual hunting competition there. This year they have hired a cameraman in order to get a documentary made of the event. It turns out that the participants are all serial killers. However the duo soon discover that there is a rogue killer on the loose, one who is breaking the rules by murdering the other players. More due to his beloved event getting ruined than a sense of responsibility for his guests Lyle and Victor set out to find and stop this rule breaker...

There are some additional things you have to look out for when reviewing found footage horrors, the most important for me is how believable is the central premise of everything just happening to be filmed. It works here due to the documentary aspect, having hired a cameraman the two are going to make full use of him. You soon come to realise Lyle and Victor themselves are also serial killers which gives a contrast with What We Do in the Shadows due to the comedic nature of this, and having bad people hiring a filmmaker. It felt a little weird how it was revealed about the nature of the people taking part in the event. It is left up to the viewer to piece together that the cast are mostly killers. Eventually this comes really obvious from the dialogue, but I spent a good ten to fifteen minutes of the start of this confused, trying to work out in my head what all the throwaway comments meant. When they find a severed hand and work out it belonged to a notorious killer I was thinking 'how on Earth did they know it belonged to a serial killer?' due to not realising the nature of the contest. Even then I never did work out what exactly the aim of the event was, were these people there to kill other humans, or where they hunting animals? I found a lot of my questions to initially be distracting from the unfolding plot.

Agapornis (2018) - Short Horror Film Review

Agapornis (Love Birds) is a short Spanish horror that comes from director Jose Mellinas (who was an actor in [REC] 3: Genesis as well as Game of Thrones). Mellinas also co-wrote this with Rosario Curiel, and appears in a small role within the short. This is a black and white horror that goes for a Gothic vibe, rather than over the top violence and jump scares.

After their mother passes away sisters Laura and Alicia inherit her remote house. Alicia had been away from the family for quite some time and her sister resents her for leaving her alone with her possessive mother, and her mother's boyfriend Mario. It also turns out there is a forgotten secret from the families past that just may come back to haunt Alicia...

While I didn't feel the overall story was conveyed as well as it could have been I did like the oppressive mood this created. The black and white 1970's setting gave off a moody feeling, while the interaction with the two sisters makes it clear there is an unaddressed issue. The horror comes in the form of a mysterious radio that their bird obsessed mother adored. This radio keeps turning up in the most random of places, always accompanied by a loud distorted cackle. This reminded me a bit of The Twilight Zone, I could see this with a little bit of adapting working great within the structure of that classic show. The twist here though didn't feel like it had the impact it should have. With a run time of just under fifteen minutes I felt some aspects were not able to be explored fully which left me with questions. It is nice to leave stuff to the viewers imagination but for me these lost elements led me to being a little confused as to characters motivations.

This does have some good moments though, especially the final scene that weirdly made me think of the monster from the DLC for The Evil Within video game (The Assignment). I liked how the voice of the mother echoes to make it sound like her voice is coming from a speaker. It all ends on a somewhat ambiguous note. While there is a good atmosphere built up just from the creepy house alone I found the obvious horror moments to work well, and found this to be engaging.

Despite a few issues with how the story was told here I think that altogether this worked even if at times it seemed to be just on the cusp of being creepy, rather than actually being so. Agapornis is currently in a festival run, being shown around the world.

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Flesh City (2019) - Horror Film Review

I received an email from the director and writer of Flesh City - Thorsten Fleisch whilst I was on a rare night out in town, in the process of getting very drunk, around a month back. I just loved the poster for his film and kept looking at it wondering just what sort of film this would turn out to be. My day job has been exhaustingly busy with its endless overtime and so it has taken me quite a while to get to the film. Over the course of three days I have finally managed to get the time to watch all of it, and what an experience it was! I'm not sure how this review will pan out as this is a very hard film to really talk about due to its abstract nature.

Taking place in Berlin, this follows a young man - Vyren (Christian Serritiello) who heads to a nightclub. There he befriends a young woman called Loquette (Eva Ferox) and together they head away from the crowded dance rooms and go deep into the clubs labyrinthian basement. It is down there that they are attacked by some sort of electronic insect, Loquette is abducted by a lightning man, who also performs some sort of operation on Vyren that changes his hand into a kind of fleshy tendril. Leaving the club, confused and hurt he stumbles through the Berlin streets, everything he touches with his mutated hand causes that too to mutate, changing the brutal architecture of the city into that of flesh...

I could see the near total lack of cohesive story to be something that people could get repelled by. I get the feeling this is a film that you would either hate or love. Thankfully for me sitting through this trippy experience I fell onto the loving it side. I admit straight away I have no idea what is going on here! I don't get what the aim of this was, or what any kind of metaphors the abstract images signify, but I know I found it to be engaging. There is so much going on here that I can't see how you could be bored. Through the trip you get close up visuals of large beetles, their movements making electronic sounds, you get Satanists putting on web shows, a subplot involving a avant-garde music group led by singer Womb Envy (Marilena Netzker) preparing for a show, and then the literal sight of a flesh city that felt like something from a David Firth animation.

High on the Hog (2019) - Horror Film Review

When I found out that the modern day grindhouse film High on the Hog starred Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects) I knew I just had to see it. This isn't really a horror, but it fits in right at home in the genre due to its dedication to recreating the feel of a 70's exploitation film. What would otherwise be a simple enough story is made much more involving due to this reverence for its inspirations by director Tony Wash.

A deadly strain of weed is being sold in the city, a strain which causes its user to lose their mind, and which is causing an increasing number of fatalities. In actuality it is the result of a corrupt politician hoping to halt the legalisation of marijuana by causing a new scare in the vein of 'reefer madness', but that isn't known to the DTA agents investigating this outbreak. Loose cannon Agent Dick (Joe Estevez - Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance) thinks he has pinpointed the source of this bad strain to a man affectionately known locally as Big Daddy (Haig), who grows weed out on his farm. Dick is prepared to go to any lengths, no matter how illegal, to get his man.

So the first thing that has to be mentioned is how choppy this all is. The film is made to seem like it is poor quality with frequent moments when the film 'burns up' as well as the inclusion of 'missing reel' sections whenever something juicy is going to happen. With this comes a very fast paced editing style with many shots only being a second or so long before switching to the next, over and over again. There are also semi-subliminal images edited into the footage, and out of context shots, such as of half naked girls dancing spliced into it as well. Rather than make this a confusing mess though it really adds to the grindhouse/exploitation angle that make up the bones of High on the Hog. This also features one of the best 'bad trip' montages I have seen in a movie of this type. The way this starts with a girl smoking some contaminated weed for us to then see her perspective was so good looking. As her friends all turn into plasticine figures, the camerawork and editing goes into overdrive, and we see her heart and veins (also as plasticine), it creates a really disorientating and suffocating feel that is perfect for what this scene was going for.

Aliens (1986) - Sci-fi Horror Film Review (1990 Director's Cut)

Originally I had intended to play the video game Alien: Isolation following on from watching Alien the other week, due to that taking place as its own sequel to the original film. Last night however I found myself with an urge to carry on with the series and so for the third time only I sat down to watch director James Cameron's Oscar award winning Aliens (Cameron of course known for such greats as The Terminator and, Terminator 2: Judgement Day). I first saw this in the mid 90's and happened to see the 1990's director's cut. A few years later I got the box set of the first four Alien films and watching the theatrical release version I was disappointed to see some of my favourite moments were gone. Now nearly two decades later I have again returned to this film, once again opting to watch the director's cut of the film.

Over fifty years after Ripley (Sigourney Weaver - Alien, Ghostbusters) escaped her doomed space merchant vessel in an escape vessel, it is finally discovered. She is awoken from cryo-sleep and explains her actions to her bosses at the company she works for. However her story is deemed too unbelievable and she is stripped of her work licence and suspended. Ripley then learns that the moon in which her and her team first encountered the eggs that lead to so much misery has in the past fifty years become inhabited by a space colony. After losing contact with this group her former employees decide to send in a team of colonial marines to investigate. Fearing for the safety of the colonists, as well as with the promise of getting her old job back she agrees to go with the marines to act as a consultant on the alien menace. However upon arriving things quickly go downhill, this time around rather than just facing the one xenomorph there is a whole army of the creatures to face...

Aliens eschews the slow paced survival horror of the original for something that is far more action packed. The first third or so is tense, and it does take a while for the threat to become known, but from this point onwards this is much more action horror with many of the scenes fast paced with lots and lots of guns and aliens. Immediately impressive was the set design, that like the original stands out as iconic. While there are a lot of models used here for establishing shots it all looks really good even now. The only noticeable elements that don't work as well are scenes involving the transport ship that sits uneasily against the backgrounds it's been superimposed onto. The director's cut features seventeen minutes of additional footage which helps to flesh out characters more, as well as provides additional scenes of xenomorphs attacking. This extra footage all fits in well and adds some meat onto the bones of the action here.

Shed (2019) - Horror Film Review

I almost missed seeing Shed. Thankfully I did eventually notice it sitting at the bottom of my white board 'to watch' list, and I say thankfully because this is a damn good movie. This is an indie film and it really does show, but rather than be a hindrance, director (as well as writer, editor, cinematographer, cameraman and producer) David Axe leans into it with something that felt like a legitimate throwback to eighties horrors.

Middle aged 'crazy' Mike (Mike Amason) holds yearly Halloween parties at his remote farmland property that all his young friends attend. He has a reputation for his conspiracy theories, the biggest one of his being that centuries ago skin stealing creatures arrived in America and now live among the general population in secret. Two of the party goers go outside for some fresh air and stumble across a shed with a 'Keep Out' sign on it. One of them decides to enter the building and apparently is killed, the other one runs back to the main house and lets everyone know, yet upon arrival back at the shed the alleged victim appears alive and well. It turns out that skin stealers really are real, and that they are determined that no one is to survive the party in order to keep their secret safe...

Shed doesn't waste any time in setting up the main plot. Within 20 minutes the horror has began and it stays on point for the whole 82 minute run time. This takes place nearly entirely at night, the way it is lit, and the way it is directed gave me a real nostalgic feeling. Scenes are often poorly lit, not in a way that makes it impossible to see what is going on, but instead in a way that compliments the action with the shadows helping set the mood. The cinematography and camera work is often a thing of beauty here, I loved all the different classic ways of filming, I was reminded of The Evil Dead on more than one occasion. Filming people inside a building through the window from outside, first person perspective shots and the whole remote setting brought that to mind.

Zombie Land Saga (2018) - Comedy Anime TV Series Review

I don't watch nearly enough anime, so recently I have been making an effort to get through the backlog of stuff on my list. While the premise behind Zombie Land Saga didn't really sound like my thing, the fact it had the undead in it meant my hand was forced. With season 1 being just twelve 23 minute episodes I zoomed through this in a week, a good sign as the last anime I watched - Clockwork Planet was also twelve episodes, yet took me the better part of six months to drag my way through.

Sakura Minamoto (Kaede Hondo) is a normal Japanese girl who has aspirations of becoming a pop idol. On her way to hand in a application form to audition to be one she is hit by a truck. She awakens in a strange mansion and is shocked to see it is full of zombies, she flees but eventually comes to the realisation that she too is now one of the undead. A mysterious man - Kotaro Tatsumi has somehow brought her, and six former pop idols from history back to life as zombies. His goal is simple, to create the ultimate pop idol group in order to bring attention to the prefecture of Saga, doing so he hopes will save it from decline.

So from the summery it can be inferred that this is a comedy. While it is comical it never turns into the sort of farce that animes such as Excel Saga were. Instead it keeps things relatively normal outside of the crazy situations the group get into. This also surprised in that it has a lot of heart to it at times with characters growing as people over the course of the season. Some of the characters get episodes dedicated to them, that shows how events from their pre-death lives has impacted on who they are now, and the consequences of their passing. Saki Nikaido for instance used to be the leader of a biker gang, and comes across a girl that she realises is her former best friend's daughter. She has aspirations of keeping that same gang alive. The youngest member - twelve year old Lily Hoshikawa in a different episode discovers her father and the impact her death had on his life. I did quite like that some of the characters suffer PTSD from their deaths, in particular for Ai Mizuno who died after being struck by lightning during a gig.

Francis Makes a Friend (2019) - Short Horror Film Review

Francis Makes a Friend is a short fifteen minute horror written by Jake Braden, who also co-directed with Logan Wood, as well as features as one of the cast members. It works on a few levels in that not only is it a horror film in it's own right, but it also perfectly captures the real life horror of being in an uncomfortable social situation that you can't escape from. Another level for me personally was that it features puppets, which are a mild weird phobia of mine.

Francis (Tistan Szucs) has been invited to a small party that his new college friend Alex (Braden) has invited him to. Not only is he in an awkward situation due to not knowing anyone and being a bit of an introvert, but he is expected to drink which is something he doesn't do much of. As the night goes on the party starts to get more and more sinister overtones to it, but is this all just in his mind?

This short is split up into different chapters that chronicle the different parts of the party. These different scenes (or phases) such as Puppet Show and Dare Wheel neatly split up the short, even if at the same time give it a tiny bit of a disjointed feel. In each phase at least one out of place event happens that makes the normality of the situation take on a dark tone. This starts off gently enough with a dinner scene in which Francis's rice for a split second turns into maggots, but each of these phases ramps up. The highlight of this for me was Puppet Show which took place entirely as a literal show complete with location changes and multiple characters. Who knew a puppet being gutted and covered in blood could feel so disturbing!

Coming from the perspective of Francis, the film as a whole follows the perspective of an unreliable narrator. There is a sense what is happening could be interpreted two ways, either it is all in his head due to some kind of mental illness, or the surreal stuff is actually happening due to some malicious intent. The confusion and uncomfortableness of Francis is portrayed well by Szucs, while the other cast members adherence to acting normally creates an unsettling disconnect. This is all helped by some nice camera effects and vocal distortion. With all this weirdness going on the ending is a bit underwhelming, but then that might be the point with the perspective switching to reality rather than Francis's claustrophobic view.

For me Francis Makes a Friend worked due to creating a sense of being trapped in a social situation. There may not be much actual story to it but I was interested to see how things would turn out, and it is worth it for the puppet story alone that is the definite highlight. I believe this is currently having a festival run, so if you get a chance check it out.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for April 2019

While I liked monsters as a kid my path into horror wasn't a sudden drop, it was more an incremental series of stepping stones that led me to completely falling in love with the genre as a whole. I remember many of these steps, watching Night of the Living Dead for the first time as a teen with my childhood best friend was one of them. The first zombie film I ever saw, it was so much fun and a great gateway drug into that marvelous genre. This same friend was also there the first time I saw Scream, another movie that had a big impact on me. As the years went by our friendship gradually faded and we came to see each other less and less, so much so that it had been at least five or six years since we last met. It was sad to hear recently of his tragic passing, this months general news post is dedicated to him, see you on the flip side old friend.

Call of Duty: Black Ops IV saw the release of the second DLC map for the Zombies mode - Ancient Evil. This is the fourth and final map in the Chaos storyline and chronologically takes place immediately after the launch map IX. Ancient Evil takes place in an ancient secret underground city in Greece. At first I wasn't impressed, the architecture reminded me a lot of IX and so I thought it was a bit lazy. However it fast became one of my favourite maps for this latest incarnation of Zombies. This map is split into two halves, the first in the underground city, then after a great flight on the back of pegasus you get to the 'evil' side of the map which takes place in dark caves. Unique enemies for this map include Jason and the Argonauts style skeltal foes, as well as a boss monster that shows up occasionally which is a huge four armed brute. I really love the design of this map, it felt so much better than the first DLC map.

The PS4 exclusive open world zombie game Days Gone was released on 26th April. This has you as a biker in post apocalyptic America out in the wilderness. So far I have played under ten hours so can't give too much of an impression other than it has already gotten its hooks into me, it is addictive in the Ubisoft way of giving you a huge map with plenty of points of interest to investigate, such as bandit camps, former evacuation centres, and friendly settlements. A big draw of this was that you occasionally encounter hordes of zombies that reminded me of the ones from World War Z. A review will follow when it is finished, I imagine that will be quite a way away!

Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper is to get a 3 disc limited edition set from Blue Underground. This includes Blu-Ray, DVD, soundtrack CD, collectible booklet, reversible sleeve and a 3D lenticular slipcover. This is a 4K restoration which is uncut and uncensored and includes exclusive new extras. In this classic movie a psychopath is on the loose in New York and being hunted by NYPD detective Fred Williams. The New York Ripper is due for release on 25th June.

Kasper Juhl's Your Flesh, Your Curse has been released in Europe thanks to TetroVideo as a special two disc deluxe package. In this arthouse horror a murdered girl ends up in limbo where she is forced to relive repressed memories. In my review last May I said that it was "...a beautiful looking film". The film can be purchased here. Below can be found a sneak peak of this film.



Al Lougher's award winning short film The Dollmaker has been added to the roster of ALTER. This Pet Sematary inspired Faustian tale won  the Best Horror/Thriller award at Comic-Con last year, and stars Steven Yeun (Glenn from The Walking Dead). Check out this ten minute terror in its entirety below.



Indie thriller Made Me Do It is due to be released by Indican Pictures on 23rd April. This 80's slasher throwback follows disturbed soul Thomas Berkson who is encouraged to kill by the voices in his head. His latest targets are college student Ali Hooper, her brother, and her ex-boyfriend.

 

Jalbert Brothers Studio's latest show after Haunted Tours is Share Your Scare that claims to be 'the only show out there that truly drives into the reality of paranormal activity'. Hosted by psychic medium Valentina Lomborg this features 'real stories by real people, with real scares'. With episode titles such as Black Cloud, Bloody Fetus, It Follows, and Demonic Lust it sounds interesting enough. Share Your Scare is currently available on Amazon Prime.

Terror Films is set to launch seven found footage films on the subscription streaming service POV Horror. The films set for release are Hell House LLC, Savageland, The Documentary, The Claire Wizard Thesis, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, The Follower, and the never before seen Swedish horror Documenting the Witch Path.

Toxic Tutu is now available world wide on DVD, as well as on VOD. Thirty years after starring in Troma Entertainment's cult classic The Toxic Avenger, Mark Torgl (Melvin the 'Mop Boy') resurfaces at a fan convention where he is promptly abducted and taken to a secret containment rich toxic oasis. This comedy features amongst its cast Lloyd Kaufman, Mel Novak, and Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
Also featuring Mel Novak is Michael S. Rodriquez's Last American Horror Show Vol. 2. This is an anthology featuring six 'hair-raising' tales from a variety of up and coming directors. Other actors in this include Maria Olsen (Paranormal Activity 3, I Spit on Your Grave), Lynn Lowry (The Crazies, Shivers), Jonathan Tiersten (Sleepaway Camp), and Timothy Quill (Army of Darkness). This is due for release in 2020.

New slasher/black comedy The Curse of Valburga currently has an Indiegogo campaign running to raise funds. Two crooked brothers set up a tourist trip to a local mansion that is based on a mysterious legend about the property that in reality has been fabricated by them. It turns out that a group of native inhabitants live in the dungeons of the mansion, and during the first trip by the brothers they come out to prey on the tour group. For more information check out the Indiegogo page.



Samuel Goldwyn Films have acquired North American rights to Play or Die. This sees two gamers that decide to take place in an exclusive escape game. They follow the clues and make it to the finale that is based in an abandoned mental hospital deep in the middle of a forest. There they find four other participants, as well as learn that only one of the group will be able to get out alive. This is directed by Jacques Kluger and based on the best-selling novel Puzzle by Franck Thilliez. This comes to On-Demand and Digital platforms on 2nd July.

Finally is news that Captured is coming soon to VOD. This stars Jasper Cole (Westworld, American Horror Story) and is about an escaped convict that is hunting the female lead of a rock'n'roll band that have gone on a weekend getaway to film a music video. Cole plays a local handyman who happens to know the convicts past. This is directed by first time Argentinian director Joe Arias.

Rottentail (2018) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Rottentail is a comedy horror directed by Brian Skiba and which was based on a graphic novel by Kurt Belcher. Watching this it is not surprising it's based on comics as it is very bright and over the top, looking like a graphic novel that has been brought to life. This is indie b-movie shannangins and it opts to go for gross out comedy for the most part which couldn't help but bring to mind comparisons with Peter Jackson's Braindead (Dead Alive).

Peter Cotton (Corin Nemec - Stargate SG-1) is a rabbit obsessed scientist that is working for the U.S military, working on a cure for infertility. A colleague of his is also working with rabbits, though he has created a mutant creature hoping for it to be used as a weapon. Peter discovers this creature one day and while trying to free it from its cage is bitten. The bite gradually transforms him into a half human/half rabbit monster who comes to call itself Rottentail. Meanwhile an old school friend of his - Anna (Dominique Swain - Face/Off) has asked Peter to help her prove that the secretly corrupt local pastor - Jake Mulligan (William McNamara) has illegally acquired her deceased father's church. Despite now being a murderous monster Rottentail sets out to help his former friend.

So weirdly enough this isn't the first half man/half rabbit monster movie I have seen, that would be 2015's Bunny the Killer Thing. Both films by subject matter alone are horror comedies, and both have their moments of bad taste, having plenty of jokes revolving around sex and bodily functions. The transformation of Peter is relatively quick here, there are a few scenes of the initial change but the mutations (that all happen off screen) quickly turn Peter into the monster. This is a good thing for the most part as scenes of him and his new personality battling for control made me cringe a bit as Nemec hams it up giving a Jim Carrey like over the top performance. Rottentail is essentially Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Mask character crossed with Robert Englund's Freddy Kruger. The crazed bunny is constantly wise cracking and talking to himself, while all his victims get their own one liners as he finishes them off. It's an acquired taste and eventually I came to not really mind this character. The fact this is based on a comic, along with the visuals of the film means this over the top method of acting actually fits in quite well.