House by the Lake (2017) - Horror Film Review

House by the Lake (directed by Adam Gierasch of Night of the Demons) is a horror that tries something a little different in the way it paces its plot. This way didn't really work for me and made the film feel like two distinct chunks, just that one of the chunks was far briefer in time than the other.

Mismatched couple Scott (James Callis from Battlestar Galactica) and his wife Karen (Anne Dudek) have gone on holiday to a lakeside house along with their severely autistic 10 year old daughter Emma (Amiah Miller) and her helper Gwen (Natasha Bassett). Emma starts going on about someone she calls 'the fish man' which her parents assume to be an imaginary friend, however this man may be more real than they think...

Traditionally films have a three act structure, obviously a beginning, middle and end. With House by the Lake this structure didn't seem to be there. Usually in a horror you have the slow build up until around the halfway mark when the proper stuff begins, not so with this. Instead you have a slow gradual build up for over an hour, and then in less than ten minutes the horror begins in earnest. So the majority of this film is a drama and as dramas go it isn't bad. Scott and Karen are about as opposite as people can be, as an outsider the viewer can see how doomed they are. Karen is all about rules and very controlling, while Scott is the polar opposite, they have nearly zero chemistry together with that only appearing when they talk about the distant past, or when they get natural urges. This friction is compounded by Emma's new helper who happens to be a young and quite attractive woman. There are some good scenes with the three, especially when Gwen first appears, so much is shown by body language. I have a soft spot for Callis anyway as I loved him in Battlestar Galactica and here he does a fine job as does Dudek (though there is a really cringe worthy scene of Callis 'playing' a videogame by mashing random buttons on a X-Box 360 controller). This drama is all well and good but it is horror I wanted from this.

The Forlorned (2016) - Horror Film Review

The Forlorned isn't the best horror I have seen, it suffers from budget constraints and a pretty ridiculous story. However to its credit it is entertaining, it doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't try to be something it has no hope of becoming. This was directed by Andrew Wiest (Dead Noon) and adapted from a book written by Angela Townsend.

Colton Christensen stars as Tom; a newly appointed lighthouse caretaker who is to live alone on the tiny island the lighthouse and accompanying house occupy. He is warned by local; Murphy (Cory Dangerfield) about the dark past the island has, of the previous caretakers descents into madness, but he doesn't put much stock in the man's tall tales. It soon becomes apparent that something really is up with the place though, Tom starts to glimpse shadowy figures and hear strange noises and soon he begins to worry he too is slowly losing his grip on reality...

The Forlorned is silly, and this is down to pretty much one thing; the big bad haunting the island appears to be...a giant invisible demonic warthog. The Evil Dead did great things with its unseeable evil force, it managed to be pretty terrifying. Here, while the same techniques are used (the evil creatures perspective as it chases its victim for instance) it is hard no matter how well shot to make a ghost pig appear scary, not helped by the many squeals and squeaks it gives off. More effective are the many ghosts that haunt the island, there is a The Suffering vibe in that nothing but bad events have happened in the islands past, and with Murphy spinning entertaining stories about previous inhabitants and occurrences weight is then given to each odd appearance of one of the poor souls (favourite being the man who was eaten by his pigs after he drunkenly went to feed them one night!).

Mother! (2017) - Horror Film Review

I had heard good things about Mother! so despite knowing literally nothing about it I made an effort to catch one of its last performances at my local cinema. To be honest I kind of wished I hadn't bothered, this was hot trash wrapped up in an artsy bow and while it did plenty of surprising things I was more baffled and confused than being able to enjoy it.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Mother, the younger wife to Him (Javier Bardem) who is a famous poet struggling with extreme writers block. While he spends his days attempting to write Mother spends the time renovating the family home of his that they both live in. The arrival of a strange man (Ed Harris) brings with him untold hardships and trials which threaten to bring an end to the peace and tranquillity the remote homestead used to offer.

You can say I didn't 'get' this film and maybe you are right, yet this was a tough slog to get through, several people left throughout the film and while I don't condone leaving before the end of a movie I couldn't really blame them. This is so deep in symbolism and analogy that the plot becomes extremely bare bones. What starts off simply enough with Mother horrified at the end to her and her husbands peaceful existence then becomes something that plays out like a two hour dream sequence of random nightmare events bringing hell to Mother. Along the way we see extreme violence and murder, we see hero worship, riots, executions and even get to see a newborn baby ripped apart and eaten. If you're looking for some context you will be hard pressed to find some, instead this seems like an attempt to bring famous biblical stories together in an unholy mesh of insanity. You have analogies for the garden of Eden, Jesus Christ, Cain and Able, Revelations and many more, it is all dizzying but not in an enjoyable way. Initially I emphasised with the horror Mother feels at her precious home being invaded by faceless masses, especially as her husband has no problem with all this intrusion, instead it inspires him and so he welcomes it despite Mother's pleas. I myself sometimes suffer social anxiety and so her attempts to find solitude away from the chaos was something I could relate to. Director and writer of this; Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) has stated that Lawrence represents mother nature, and from that we can infer that the home is symbolic of planet Earth.

Red Christmas (2016) - Horror Film Review

I first mentioned Red Christmas back in April of this year and now I have gotten the opportunity to watch it for review. It is an Australian Christmas themed slasher and so from the off it is doing something different. While it is filmed well and full of brutal kills for me the tone was a little too bleak.

Diane (Dee Wallace from Critters, The Hills Have Eyes) has invited all her family together to stay at her outback home to celebrate Christmas. However the arrival of a mentally and physically disabled stranger named Cletus (Sam Campbell) brings death and destruction as he is obsessed with the idea that Diane is his mother, and that if she won't accept him then he will take everyone she loves away from her.

Red Christmas starts well with the introduction of all the family members and the vast dysfunction that exists between them, which is all displayed in a blackly comic way. Diane just wants a family get together but most the group don't get on well with each other. You have prudish Ginny and her vicar husband Peter (David Collins), then you have heavily pregnant Suzy with her husband Scott as well as third daughter Hope, Diane's Down Syndrome afflicted son Jerry, and finally her partner the care-free Joe. The arrival of the stranger brings an end to this introduction stage and unfortunately it is from this point that the plot goes downhill slightly. The actual dialogues between the characters are always good, it is more that what happens is then an excuse for mayhem. The majority of the film is the group constantly splitting up to do inane plans to help them survive, whether it be going off to get the keys to a car, going off to try and rip down the climbable terraces attached to the house, or just going off. I get it is a dysfunctional family but when the majority of bad things happen due to characters refusing to follow instructions it becomes a bit farcical, especially with the amount of running around and screaming everyone does.

Entertaining Demons (2017) by Daniel I. Russell - Horror Book Review

Daniel I. Russell's Entertaining Demons is a horror book that felt a little bit different from others of it's type. In fact a lot of this book feels more like a twisted adventure story in the vein of Neil Gaiman, while the other half is more familiar. It is the meeting up of these two styles that really makes this something unique in feel.

Fifteen year old Molly is the unwitting star of a reality TV show called PI: Paranormal Investigations due to her home being seemingly haunted by a ghost. She is unable to stop being in it though as the show provides the money her and her grandfather need to keep her mentally ill mother in a good nursing home, while she hopes the show's host; paranormal expert Samuel will be able to find a way to stop the hauntings. However things are not what they seem with the spirit haunting the house actually a demon, and worse two more demons are travelling to her sleepy English town with the aim of shutting down the show using whatever means they can...

When I first started reading this I wasn't immediately hooked, I've seen the demonic presence haunting a house so many times in films over the years that it has gotten to be quite a dull subject. It was the introduction of the sub plot involving the two demons that my interest got heightened. I found everything about these two characters to be fascinating. They ride around in the bodies of humans but are able to come out at will, one of them is like a huge shaggy beast, while the other one is made up of snapping teeth on stalks and that can turn its fingers into deadly needles. The descriptions for these two were endlessly descriptive, Russell is fantastic at providing vivid images of these creatures. They are anti-heroes in that they are looking to disrupt the events playing out but are in no way whatsoever good people, these are demons who care absolutely nothing for humanity and this shows in their actions. Much of the really violent stuff happens around these two and much of it is so over the top crazy that aside from a couple of torture scenes it comes across as quite fantastical. There is a lot of descriptions about destroyed and eaten people, and of the aftermath of victims of these two (with a strange focus on sex organs), yet it is always captivating, again in the vivid way it is all described. Around half of the book is focused on these two and Entertaining Demons is all the better for it. These are not the only demons of the book though with the others also receiving enough attention to really make them stick in the mind, whether it be the skull crown wearing demon stalking Molly, or the demon of TV; Audience who was a fantastic creation with some David Cronenberg Videodrome style moments of repulsive organic technology.

A Walk Home Alone (2017) - Short Horror Film Review

A Walk Home Alone is the second of director Andrew J.D. Robinson's short horror films he sent my way. While Placebo was quite sterile in its portrayal, here we have something that is more familiar and deals with a common subject in six minutes, but does so in a novel way.

There is a serial killer loose in the city and it seems he targets young woman walking home alone and leaves their bodies in the river, this is all told to us from a radio broadcast. We then follow Alice (Maura Stephens) as she makes her way to her flat in an apartment building, and who is quite preoccupied with something and so doesn't notice she is being followed...

A Walk Home Alone is shot in black and white and again features a soundtrack that is once ominous and seemingly at odds with what is happening on screen. What I really enjoyed about this is that the serial killer plot is faded into the background, while it bookends this short it is the sub plot in the middle that becomes the main crux. This also avoids cheap scares and instead builds the tension and horror by what it doesn't show. Robinson tears down the victims defences within this middle story by its sweet resolution and so when the main plot comes back into the forefront she is naturally in a weakened state of mind.

While it is up to Stephens to carry the emotional range it is Jurgen Vollrath as the stranger who stole the show for me. There is just something strange about his character, yet he manages to not comes across as threatening. The boyfriend on Alice's phone for me was the weakest part as there didn't seem much emotion behind the voice, though that could be excused as not knowing the context for why he might sound that way. A Walk Home Alone avoids doing the expected with it's story and by only hinting at what happens is all the better for it. By focussing on the unimportant and leaving the horror in the mind of the viewer rather than displayed on screen this wins out for me.

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Placebo (2017) - Short Horror Film Review

Another day and another short film, this time it is Andrew J.D. Robinson's Placebo that deals with the subject of body dysmorphia in under three minutes. Shot in an art house style fashion this (mostly) black and white takes place in blackness. A woman is getting plastic surgery done to make her look like a photo of a lady she has brought along, however it turns out things are not as simple as they first appear.

There is a surreal edge to this one that coupled with the ominous music combine to make something seem off from the very start. The whole film is shot from a face on perspective with minimal dialogue. This is more a portrayal of mental illness than a fleshed out story. However it gets the message across well with stylish editing and directing, the zinger was effective in bringing context to the strangely wrong atmosphere.

The beauty of short films is that when they are done right such as here they manage to give a vibe and feeling without all padding that makes longer ones. There really isn't much more I can say about Placebo other than it does the job well.

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A Robot Named Fight (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PC)

It is a nostalgic month in the world of video games it seems as after the fun Citadale: The Legends Trilogy that I reviewed yesterday comes A Robot Named Fight which is another retro throw back to the classic days of yore. This time around the inspiration is Metroid, and specifically the Metroidvania (one huge 2D level) style of Super Metroid as the graphics are 16 bit and the sound is authentic to that time. This has a difference though in that the game is a Metroidvania in style but has roguelike elements thrown in, in that you only have the one life and the game is procedurally generated so no two playthroughs are the same.

Millennia ago the mechanical Gods arrived and brought with them peace for the robots who lived on the world. However one day a huge moon sized mass of evil flesh known as the Megabeast arrived and spewed out thousands of monstrous creatures which decimated the land and massacred the robots. One robot decides to make a stand against this hell and descends into the planet in search of lost artefacts of ancient wartime in order to defeat this unholy terror...

A Robot Named Fight is fantastic and like the best roguelikes it is extremely addictive with that 'just one more go' feeling perfected. I love how like Metroid it really is. This is a 2D platformer that is one huge maze like level made up of hundreds of smaller rooms. You play as a robot armed with a cannon and as you progress you can collect upgrades that both make you more powerful (such as extra health, guns do more damage and increase your speed) and unlocks more skills for you that help you get to places in the levels that you couldn't previously get to. Rockets can destroy metal doors for example, while the spider ability allows you to navigate narrow spaces. Elsewhere you can get a double jump to reach high places, eventually unlocking a jet pack. There are also suit upgrades that let you survive in hot areas, torches to light dark places and so much more. Each playthrough is different and so every time I played I unlocked different abilities and upgrades.

Citadale: The Legends Trilogy (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PC)

Citadale: Gate of Souls was originally released on the Wii-U last year and has now been re-released as part of the Citadale: The Legends Trilogy which funnily enough is made up of three different games. These games are modelled on the classic Castlevania series, so much so that many plot points, level design, and enemy types, as well as the weapon system are virtually copied totally. Nowadays with Konami seemingly refusing to make any more Castlevania games a copy is better than nothing, and thankfully Citadale is a damn fun game.

So there are three games to be found here, each one can only be played once the one before it has been completed. Starting off is Citadale: Gate of Souls. A Dark Lord (who is in no way Dracula) terrorises the land, playing as Sonja Dorleac and wielding the Dark Lord killer 'Shadow Blade' you make your way to his castle to meet up with your husband (who happens to be the Dark Lord's son) in order to seal his Dad away behind the Gate of Souls.
The second game is Citadale: Curse of Darkness, it is 24 years later and with the seal on the Gate of Souls weakening, a wizard (the son of Sonja) has headed to Citadale in order to repair it to full power. After failing to return Sonja's other son Gabriel decides to also make the journey to see what has come of his brother.
Finally you have Citadale: Legacy of Fate, 17 more years have passed and now the wizard's son Christopher makes the fateful journey to the dark castle as evil is once again rising to suffocate the land.

This is a very nostalgic game as it is made to resemble an 8-bit game, like the early Castlevania's were. The graphics are simple but with modern technology there is far more animation to them, while the amazing soundtrack is done in the chiptune style. It is a 2D platformer that has you battling through various locations such as forests, caves, mines and castles with a unique boss at the end of each level. The variation of these bosses is impressive with only one repeating over the 18 levels (a giant eyeball that behaves and looks differently each time). These bosses have simple attack patterns but are fun to fight and range from skeletal demons, giant insects and humanoid foes and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Normal enemies range from zombies to skeletons, ghosts, bats and spiders. There are some that appear to be ripped straight out of Castlevania in the way they look, especially a large knight with a shield, and the final boss for Gate of Souls that not only has a battle that takes place in an identical throne room to Castlevania but the boss is a vampire who teleports around the room and summons bats.

Goodnight, Gracie (2017) - Short Horror Film Review

Goodnight, Gracie (written and directed by Stellan Kendrick) may be under 4 minutes in length but it doesn't pull any punches, this is a brutal little film! Rather than build any set-up this opens straight into the horror that only gets more intense until the shock finale. This short was actually created as a proof-of-concept for the crew yet still manages to stand on its own right.

8 year old Gracie (Caige Coulter) is awoken in the middle of the night to sounds of screams. Investigating she discovers her mother being hacked up with an axe by a mad man (Courtney Gains from Children of the Corn) and so decides to combat this evil the only way she knows how.

With the first shot pretty much showing a crucifix coming loose off a wall and swinging upside down I thought this was going to be about demonic possession, that could also be inferred by all the religious imagery. So it makes the change in tone all the more shocking to see a close up of a hacked up body. While Coulter was fine enough it was Gains who stole the show with his manic mannerisms, hypnotic to look at. I loved how they didn't shy away from gore and violence despite having a young child front and centre. This was inspired by the director's real life divorce of his parents and tells quite a bitter message of 'blind faith leads to death'.

Goodnight, Gracie was in the Official Selection at the Sitges 2017 film festival where it had it's world premiere. It is to be the Opening Night film at the San Antonio Horrific Film Festival in Texas on October 20th and will also be shown at the NYC Horror Film Festival on October 29th, with more festival appearances to be announced soon.

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Latched (2017) - Short Horror Film Review

I have had an influx of short horror films sent my way these past couple of weeks and leading the vanguard is Justin Harding's Latched. To me at first this seemed like it was going to be a bit whimsical and pretentious with its subject matter of fairies and I assumed the horror content would be light. Because of this assumption I was all the more shocked (happily so of course) when Latched changes tone and becomes something a lot more violent.

A single mother travels to the woodside holiday home she owns with her toddler in order for her to prepare for a dance troupe she hopes to do the choreography for. One day out in the woods she finds the body of a bizarre looking small creature that she brings back home with her in order to ask her neighbour what it is. It ends up going in her rubbish bin but an accident involving spilt breast milk somehow revives this creature that over the following days starts to grow and grow out of sight.

17 minute Latched is a film of two halves, literally in that the first 8 or so minutes is set during day time, and the final half mostly takes place at night. This distinction is also a firm divide between the fantastical and the horrifying. So the first part establishes the woman and her child, it is split into days that mostly consist of the woman interpretive dancing her way around her house as the baby looks on, and occasionally the fairy creature makes an appearance unseen by her to steal milk. This was all well filmed (with fantastic choreography) and the special effects nice enough but it was light on scares. One of these special effects involved an old man looking at a flyer to see the figures in it start moving, I don't know the significance of that part of Latched as it didn't seem to add anything other than a side of surreality. This man in general was a bit of a disruptor to the main plot to begin with even if he was needed to bring the story along.

3 (2016) - Horror Film Review

3 is an indie horror film that was directed and written by Lou Simon. This happens to be the second female directed horror that revolves around torture I have seen this year (Jessica Cameron's Truth or Dare being the other). At first I was ready to dismiss this, I found the characters to be irritating and the situation pretty silly, however as the plot moved on I began to recognise that actually this was something a little different, helped in no part by actor Todd Bruno whose very antagonistic role managed to generate sympathy regardless.

A man (Mike Stanley credited as It) is on his way to a meeting, his journey takes him onto the American backroads where he finds his way blocked by an abandoned car. With the owner not around he decides to move the car so he can continue on his way, however hidden in the back is someone wearing a mask who knocks the traveller out. We then find out that the assailant (Bruno credited as He) had specifically kidnapped this person as part of a plan him and a woman (Aniela McGuinness credited as She) had come up with. A year previous She was raped but there was never enough evidence to convict her attacker, she believes it is the man they have kidnapped and hopes to get a video confession off of him to give to the police. However He's efforts to get the truth out of their victim become ever more drastic and brutal...

Where most films revolving around torture focus on the victim here the focus of the film is far more on the antagonists who don't actually see themselves as the bad guys. There is a weird divide between the scenes of horror that take place in the basement and the more normal goings on upstairs. Despite it being for She's sake she wants nothing to do with the man, she tends to constantly change the subject whenever he is mentioned. Soon it becomes apparent that both her and Him have serious mental problems. The kidnapper is prone to outburst of uncontrollable violence when he gets angry, while she is so vague on the specifics of the rape that as a viewer you begin to question just who it is that is telling the truth. Out of the three it really doesn't seem like It is the one at fault despite being caught up in a few lies. As for the woman she keeps insisting He was at the party where the rape happened despite him telling her they didn't meet until months later when she start seeing a psychiatrist, and so you begin to doubt if she what she thinks happened actually took place. Bruno is fantastic as the kidnapper, he is a former army medic who got honourably discharged due to PTSD from his time in Iraq. Initially I found both him and the woman to be awful people, I didn't want them to succeed. But by showing us how really messed up the man is you can't help but begin to pity him.

September 2017 Horror News Round-up :Your Flesh, Your Curse, [Cargo], Jasmine, Gone, and Bacchanalia - Horror Film News and Trailers

Nowadays I tend to store up horror news rather than do lots of little posts about whatever bits come my way and so once again I have released a valve to unleash a news storm. First up then...Your Flesh, Your Curse had its world premiere at the BUT Film Festival in the Netherlands at the end of August. This is the 5th feature film from 25 year old filmmaker Kasper Juhl, whose previous films include award winning social realistic horror A.G.W.A.U (also known as A God Without a Universe). This latest film is about a woman named Juliet (Marie-Louise Damgaard) who ends up in limbo after being brutally murdered. Here a spiritual guide forces her soul to relive repressed memories. Sounds cool enough and it also features the most prolific actor ever; Kim Sonderholm.



Next up is news of thriller [Cargo] that is trying something daring for a feature film, or least that's what it appears from the trailer. Ron Thompson stars as a businessman who wakes up to discover he has been kidnapped and imprisoned in a cargo container. A call to his phone informs him that he has 24 hours to raise a ridiculous sum of money or else he will die. I got a slight hint of Phone Booth and Cube, though I do wonder how this tale can be sustained for a lengthy time without boredom setting in, still it would be interesting to find out. [Cargo] is currently nearing the end of post-production. The soundtrack is to be released by Invisible Hands Music while a novelisation written by producer J.C Macek III is coming in January 2018 by Bloodhound Books.



In other news Jasmine is coming to VOD/DVD in around a weeks time, it is set in Hong Kong and follows a hapless outsider who is trying to find out who killed his wife a year previously. When I reviewed it I said 'where Jasmine excels is giving us such an interesting character in the form of Leonard. He is a flawed hero and the film never goes away from showing us this'.
In other news zombie slaying video game Killing Floor 2 got a new map in summer in the form of 'The Tragic Kingdom' that takes place at a twisted carnival of terror. Fighting against hundreds of undead in a sinister fairground is really effective, even more so is that the enemies have been re-skinned, so the normal zeds are wearing pig masks,  the smaller ones are now pinheads etc. Maybe the most horror focussed type map yet released, and of course it is free for anyone who owns the game.

The Edmonton Festival of Fear International Film Festival opens on Friday 13th October, it has been announced that Gone shall be getting its world premiere here. This film is special as it features a guest appearance by the master of terror Stephen King. In the movie three friends go on a fishing trip deep in the woods. As they tell scary stories around a camp fire one night bizarre things start happening that leads to the three disappearing into the darkness of the woods.
Bacchanalia is coming to DVD on October 10th in North America and is available for pre-order now. This was originally shot in 2013 under the title The Winedancers (I covered it back in 2014). This is a comedy horror that again features Kim Sonderholm and is about an innocent wine tasting weekend that turns into something very...odd.

And there you have it, another round-up of the latest news that has been thrown my way. I will end by mentioning Steam video game A Robot Named Fight, a game that is stunning, think Super Metroid crossed with a rogue-like. A review shall be coming in the future for that hidden gem.