The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Friday 10th March 2023

Another news post, on the day that the new cyberpunk/Japanese themed season came to Fortnite. I'm predicting that my blog posts for the next week may be a little light on content...

First off, VIPCO and Bayview Entertainment had four new releases that came to Blu-ray and Prime Video in January, while at the end of February four more titles came to Blu-ray in the USA and Prime Video worldwide. The February releases included Carnal Monsters, in which a group of friends discover two unconscious girls outside a nuclear facility who turn out to be crazed killers. Another film was Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night, this sequel takes place on the day of a Halloween party, with The Plague Doctor and The Creature (whatever they are) turning up to cause mayhem. The final two releases were It's Not A Wolf that from the cover image seems to be about a dinosaur, and The Things We Cannot Change, this is a vampire film about two different factions of vampires who have different thoughts on how best to live their un-lives. All of these can be purchased on Amazon.com.

Some music news now, dark electronic folk bad Hem Netjer released their debut album The Song of Trees on February 28th on all major digital platforms, including Bandcamp. The album was mostly written remotely during lockdown and the press release states it is a 'musical journey through the five elements'. Tracks announced include Void, Salt and Tears, Eldur, Freedom, Connect, Elemental Cry and Otherworld.

Sex Tape is the new single from the upcoming EP The Sex Tape Sessions by Kill Shelter and Death Loves Veronica in their first collaborative work together, with it due to come out 17th March. The EP includes two new tracks as well as two remixes from Death Loves Veronica's album Chemical, and also some extended releases. In anticipation some specially put together bootleg cassettes and VHS tapes were leaked, with the VHS including adult material that won't be included in the official release. Pete Burns of Kill Shelter says of this '...is an exploration of that idea surfacing highly emotive themes of sex, passion and death'.

Craving (2023) - Horror Film Review

Craving is a horror film which also delves into the crime genre. Directed by J.Horton (Edge of Darkness), and co-written by him and the ever reliable Gregory Blair (Amber Road, Garden Party Massacre), the general outline of the plot had me thinking one thing, but what actually happens was slightly different.

Set in 1998, this begins in medias res with two detectives arriving at a remote bar to discover a slaughter has happened there. Upon discovering a bloody sole survivor, barmaid Shiloh (Rachel Amanda Bryant - Vexed, The Campus), the story goes back to the previous evening to show how events came to pass.
The previous night had been business as usual for the staff and regulars, that is until a gang of drug addict criminals, led by Gail (Holly Rockwell) burst into the place and take everyone hostage. They were on the run from another group, a masked gang led by the elderly Hunter (Al Gomez), who decide to barricade everyone within the bar, under the impression that one of the drug addicts is hiding a terrible secret that they will become forced to reveal.

This was a blend of the crime and horror genres, with the first two acts far more firmly seated in the crime genre. It was only the third act (roughly the last half hour of the ninety minute film) where this becomes pure joyously violent horror. From the synopsis I had assumed that Hunter's gang were the big threat, but they turned out to be a bit impotent, with them happy to just wait around outside for events to play out. Vague feelings of the first The Purge movie got replaced with the realisation that the drug addicts were perhaps more-so antagonists than those outside.
The cast of all three groups were varied, my favourite probably had to be the nerdy cowboy Travis (Blair), he was just great in his role. Horror icon Felissa Rose (Terrifier 2, Sleepaway Camp) turned up in a role which I figured would be slight, but was still enjoyable. As for the rest of the non-criminals it was only really CeCe (Toya Morman) who had much to her. It did feel like a bit of a waste that there were a handful of characters who did so little over the course of the movie that it felt like they may as well not even be there. Most the hostages spend much of the film just stood around doing nothing. The drug addicts had more interesting roles, though none of them were at all remotely likeable people. They included Kevin Caliber (Ugly Sweater Party) as Mac, Ashley Undercuffler as the very annoying Frenzy, and Xavier Roe as Will among a few others.

The whole plot taking place at the bar wasn't the most captivating, but what really worked were the many flashbacks to the various character's pasts. Notably, there were sections set in 1981 that revealed how they all met, and for Frenzy, there were a few key scenes that took place in the very recent past that shed new light on how everything came to be. I thought these flashback sequences were a great idea, with their slow drip feed over the course of the movie being well implemented, though I never quite understood why it was decided to make a criminal gang made up entirely of drug addicts. I guess it gave the film's title a different meaning, both for the addicts wanting their fix, and for the hidden one among them with a completely different addiction. For those who like to turn off as soon as the end credits roll, you might want to stick around as the final part of the film's story plays out over the credits, in a fun sequence that reminded me a lot of how Jennifer's Body ended.

The best thing about Craving were the special effects, by the time the end credits roll there has been a high body count with some very gory and visually violent kills. These include someone getting their head ripped open vertically, people's insides being torn out, and some brutal looking head trauma effects. This is all helped by the well edited close up shots that really give the impression of more happening than it would have appeared to be if they had occurred fully on camera. With characters literally soaked in blood on multiple occasions, this was a satisfying blood bath.

When the horror does come it was quite unexpected with the angle they went for, I had expected something far more traditional than the Stranger Things-esque direction this went in. I did enjoy watching this, especially with the great special effects, but it did feel at times like there was only such a large cast in order to give a larger body count. Still, for a bloody crime horror, this indie film could be what you are looking for.

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Life After: Zugzwang by Bryan Way (2021) - Short Zombie Novella Review

I'm dog sitting at my sisters place in the middle of a trailer park today (at the time of writing), so I don't have my typical two screen set-up, hoping that won't affect much as I am instead using my blogging laptop and my iPhone instead. Life After: Zugzwang is the second in horror author Bryan Way's second trilogy of short stories/novellas set in his Life After world of zombie apocalypse. Where the first entry, Life After: The Maze could easily be taken and enjoyed as a stand alone tale, with this one it really only makes sense if you have read the mainline books, specifically Life After: The Void. Mild spoilers for that book to follow.

The main focus of The Void was zombie film expert Grey and his group of survivors attempt to head across country and meet up with some fellow survivors, in order to bring them back to the safety of their high school base. Zugzwang follows the survivors that Grey would later set out to rescue, giving glimpses into how their situation became untenable, and their ill-fated attempt to rescue Grey's brother from his campus apartment.

The first thing I did when coming to write this review was look up the meaning of the word 'zugzwang', the definition is as follows 'a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one's turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage', which seems to be in reference to Chess. That title really sums up the flow of the story that takes place here. With so many characters, and with some time passed since reading The Void it did take me a fair while to really get it straight in my head exactly when this took place, and who these characters were. It begins with Grey having already requested that they make an attempt to locate his brother who lives nearby to them. As a fan of the series it was great getting some outsider perspectives on Grey, with many of the group either not knowing who he is, or thinking he is a bit of a tool. It was also cool realising this took place slightly earlier in the apocalypse, a time when there is still a minimal police presence on the streets and where there seems to be plenty of random survivors going about their business.
The first half shows the already fracturing dynamics of the group, with various groups within the larger group who seem to actively dislike each other. 

The main protagonist seems to be a girl named Dory, who due to having a close friendship with Grey's brother, is determined to seek him out, even if her majority rules decision making group decide against launching a rescue mission. The second half of the sixty page novella is the rescue attempt, where things become more entertaining, and where I finally figured out when this story likely took place.
As a stand alone zombie story I don't think this would be too easy to follow, but that really isn't the intention here. Instead, as a side story giving more details into the plot of The Void, this was pretty cool.

After getting over my initial confusion of just who all these characters were, I soon got into the plot. I still admit that I can't recall which of these characters made it to the events in The Void, but knowing that their mission to get Grey's brother likely wouldn't be successful kept me wanting to find out exactly what would happen. Life After: Zugzwang may not be an essential read if you are heading into it fresh, but if you're a fan of the main series this was a lovely little sidebar giving the world some more flavour.

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Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff (2021) - Horror Film Review

Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff was quite a bizarre movie. Directed by Sam Bhattacharjee, this supernatural horror outstayed its welcome, yet never became boring, instead there was a feeling of endlessness to the relatively simple story being told.

Set in the late 1970's, this takes place in a small coastal town in England which has become known for the oddly high number of suicides that have all occurred on the same cliff. With Inspector Jenny Jones (Emma Galliano) baffled as to the reasons why this keep happening, she calls in the mysterious paranormal detective Barun (Priyanshu Chatterjee). He soon learns that this phenomenon may be supernatural in nature, and that it could well be linked to an old house on a cliff nearby. Meanwhile, Soumili (Nyra Banerjee) and her husband Harmesh (Sid Makkar), newly arrived in the country have moved into this house, with Soumili in particular beginning to experience apparently supernatural occurrences.

I'm pretty sure the version of the movie I watched was dubbed, either that or many of the actors were not able to say their lines in a believable way. At first this was distracting, but to be honest, corny dialogue aside, I had mostly zoned out the weird delivery of lines by the film's conclusion. There is a lot packed into the two hour run time, yet paradoxically not really much happens. There is a slight body count, and moments of attempted horror, but this maintains a chilled relaxed atmosphere to it. The story on the surface is very simple, I'm not quite sure how it fills the run time.
The characters are mainly strange in their behaviours, I did kind of like Barun, his introductory scene in which he walks around a house that a series of murders has taken place, and is able to see snapshots of the murderer and victims frozen in time was actually neat, it made me want to keep watching. I'm not sure who Barun's assistant was played by, but the actor had a genuinely impressive mane of hair that I was quite jealous of. Tony Richardson had a fun role as Father Paul, though his subplot appeared early on, only to fizzle out until it re-emerged right towards the end of the movie in an entertaining exorcism segment. Then there was Brian (George Dawson), the mentally challenged man-child with the knack for taking photos that proved to be very much needed for Barun to crack the supernatural case.

It seemed that the reliance on CG effects was all consuming here, even when it felt like it would have been far easier to use a practical effect, a CG effect was used in its place. Outside of a few moments (such as a roof ripping off a house, swarms of bugs, and people dissolving into pixelated fragments), these effects were nearly passable. My problem with them was they looked too clean, they didn't look 'raw' enough, more with a clinical feel that took away from the atmosphere the film was going for. Doors and windows opening on their own, objects moving around, and even characters who appeared to have been possessed by demons all looked acceptable, but the moments that try and elicit fear often fell flat due to the obviously fake effects.

Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff wasn't a great film, it didn't really even feel like it had the makings of such a movie, instead it was middling in nearly all aspects, but weirdly addictive to watch Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff was due for release from High Fliers Films on 27th February.

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Other Side of the Box (2018) - Short Horror Film Review

You can tell I was trying to phone in my blog posts this week, as Other Side of the Box is the second short horror film I have chosen to watch for review. I have often seen this Caleb J. Phillips directed (and co-written) horror when on YouTube as a recommendation, but it was only after my friend recommended I review it that I decided to check it out.

One evening near Christmas a couple, Ben (Nick Tag who co-wrote this) and Rachel (Teagan Rose) are cooking when they are disturbed by the arrival of an ex-friend, Shawn (Josh Schell) who brings with him a gift. He tells Ben to open the box, but upon opening it appears to be empty. Shawn makes a hasty exit, apologising for what he has done. The darkness within the box is perplexing, and after a few experiments it seems the box somehow has no bottom. Then something bad occurs, having looked away, the couple look back to see the top of a human head impossibly peeking out of the small box (Tyler Pochop), a quick read of the card that came with the 'present' and it is revealed that they must never take their eyes off of the box as the being is only able to move should no one be looking at it.

First off, a decent idea for a horror, in terms of rule making it didn't seem too different to something like It Follows, which is no bad thing. This is the second short I've watched this week that actually felt like a small horror film, as opposed to a poor effort basic plot stretched around a central idea. The cast of four were well chosen, especially with Schell, I liked how easily you could infer the friendship ended due to something that occured with Rachel. The man in the box is of course creepy, with much of the middle act revolving around his slow initial emergence.
This all leads into a third act where the stakes got ramped up in a way that was more exciting than I had anticipated, even if you have to ignore some of the film's own self-imposed rules and logic that get broken along the way. Culminates in a perfect way to end the short.

Other Side of the Box was a great little horror film which I could see working equally as well as a feature length. A good idea, and well executed, this was an entertaining fifteen minutes of horror.

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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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Life After: The Maze (2021) by Bryan Way - Short Zombie Novella Review

Life After: The Arising was a zombie novel from 2013 that made the mundane the focal point of the story, and by doing so really seemed to set itself apart. That novel was followed by three novellas taking place in and around the events of that one. In 2016 the full length sequel, Life After: The Void was released, and that too has a trilogy of stand alone novellas to accompany it. The first of these was Life After: The Maze.

A lot of the events of this particular story only start to make sense once the story is over, with the characters seemingly more clued into their current plight than the reader is. Four survivors of the zombie apocalypse have battled their way into a strangely designed building in the middle of a dense forest. It is here they aim to find a way to the nearly inaccessible higher floors where it is hoped the pursuing zombies will be unable to reach them.

Way has stated that this story was inspired by The Twilight Zone, and with the twist ending to this I can see how that was the case. That ending provides better context to the story, and even with a partial re-read I was picking up on a lot of stuff that went over my head the first time around. I'm not going to talk about that, instead I will mention the meat of the twenty four page novella, which has the four survivors in the bizarre building. The four seemed to have a shared history, with them seemingly having been in plenty of similar situations in the past. One of them is a real hindrance to the group, especially Mallory who is fed up with the dead weight's incompetence, I enjoyed this mini-conflict. I could see this story really working well as a short film, it has some interesting scenes, such as the first time I think I've ever thought about zombies and slides in conjunction with each other. I also enjoyed the feeling that characters had knowledge I wasn't aware of, it gave this a feeling of history having taken place before the story even began, like this had been taken from the middle of a much larger story.

Some of the earlier novellas built off of The Arising showed promise, but this was the best one I've read so far. This was the second one that suggested far more important things were occurring in the Life After universe then Grey and his highschool friends (from the core series) were aware of  It may be a relatively simple plot, one focussed on action more than anything else, but Life After: The Maze was thrilling and something a little different to the norm.

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Esther (2023) - Short Horror Film Review

Red Tower is a new genre production company/digital network that is all about showing short horror films 'for a new generation'. Their debut short film is Esther, directed by Matt Cunningham (The Spore, 3 Demons), wo also co-wrote this alongside Brian Levin. This may not do anything revolutionary, but at least it looks the part and has good atmosphere.

Katy (Haley Heslip - The Spore, 3 Demons) has recently moved back to her childhood home where she finds herself with a strange puzzle. Every morning at 2AM she is awakened by her smoke alarm going off, something that is all the more odd when it still goes off despite having taken the batteries out. She soon comes to fear that there is something in the house with her, something which may be related to an imaginary friend called Esther that Katy had as a child.

All too often with short films you don't actually get a film. Instead it is more an idea that a plot has been clumsily wrapped around. With Esther however this actually felt like a short film, and I was impressed with the quality of this. I have seen feature films with a similar story that don't manage to bring it together half as well as this ten minute mini-film. It does take a little while to get going, I did like the cold open that had Katy recording a message for her psychiatrist, it provided much needed backstory in a plausible and efficient way. Much of the first half isn't too eventful, Katy constantly being woken up by her smoke alarm and not much else. It's only really the final two minutes when the horror properly begins, and while it was enjoyable, and while abrupt endings can work, I felt this was a little too abrupt, without even a credit sequence appearing.

The plot is generic, but the imaginary friend angle was something slightly different, and I was impressed with how well this was put together. A more natural feeling ramping up of horror may have benefitted this, but as it stands, Esther was still a solid short that is worth a watch. Check out the film below, and to find out more from Red Tower you can go to their website here, follow their Instagram - @redtowerent as well as their TikTok - @redtowerdigital.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for February 2023

Another month done and dusted, so onto the monthly news round-up. Voidcaller is a Lovecraftian themed Swedish horror film from Nils Alatalo that was filmed last year and is currently being edited. Recently a Kickstarter campaign was created in order to fund the post-production. The story sees a woman named Anna who wakes up one day to find she has no memory of the last month, but as she slowly begins to piece back these memories she begins to suspect that she has had something to do with the summoning of a cosmic horror. For more details check out the Kickstarter here.

F'd: Tales from the End Times is an upcoming horror anthology that uses the apocalypse as the basis for the theme. Confirmed directors are Ash Hamilton (Holes in the Sky: The Sean Miller Story), Dillon Brown (The Flock) and Josh Brucker (Mothman). Each of the short films is said to take place on the day the world ends. Remaining directors are yet to be finalised, and the film is set to begin filming later this year.

Synapse Films have released Dario Argento's eighties classic Phenomena on 4K UHD. This stars Jennifer Connelly as Jennifer, a sleepwalking teen who has the ability to communicate with bugs telepathically. After a series of vicious murders, the girl teams up with entomologist Dr. McGregor (Donald Pleasence - Halloween series) and his chimpanzee in order to somehow solve them. The two-disc special edition includes the original Italian version (116 minutes), the International cut (110 minutes) and the U.S 'Creepers' cut (83 minutes). There are also two commentary tracks, a feature length documentary about the film's creation, among plenty of other extras.

The Pyramid (not to be confused with The Pyramid) has recently been released on DVD from Bayview Entertainment. This is an anthology horror with its interconnected theme being a pyramid '...that comes into the world to spread madness, death and destruction'. The four short films were all filmed around Italy

YouTube channel Kings of Horror are going to be releasing award winning horror shorts, Mindful Meditation (Best Horror at the New Creators Awards) and Science of a Seance (Best Director), both coming from filmmakers Monica La Vella and Louie La Vella, and both of these were filmed on an iPhone.

Arachnicide is now available from Acort International. This one is about a special task force who fresh after a successful operation against a drug operation find themselves called to Albania where judging from the poster they battle giant spiders.

American Horrors is a new 24/7 linear streaming horror Roku channel. The press release states '...featuring uncut critically acclaimed bleeding edge short horror films, bloody cult feature films, exclusive in-house generated tv series, banned tv commercials from yesteryear, uncensored music videos...' This can be watched on the American Horrors website here, or on the Roku channel, here.

Finally, an email that I received with little details, the release in full 'This is the time you need to give something new and different a chance! Trippy the Clown will make you laugh and also creep you out!' For more details about what seems to be a little metal music obsessed killer clown doll, check out the website here.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Sunday 26th February 2023

The second of two smaller news posts for this week has arrived. Recently I have started watching films for review in the evening, rather than during day time. I'm hoping this will make films more scary to watch, but with the downside of me then not writing the review until the next day when my memory may be a bit foggy on particular details.

Some David Moody news first, the author is after some copies of his books that he doesn't currently own. He is after the 2014 Italian version of Autumn from Delos Books, the 2016 German version of Trust: Alien Invasion from Voodoo Press, the Czech Republic 2010 release of Hater (known as Nenávistní), as well as the Romanian 2011 version of the same novel, there it was called Furiosii. Head to the author's site here for more details.

Horror film Marvin has came to Amazon Prime and Tubi TV. This stars Craig Colasanti, Thaddeus Daniels, Scott Baker, Tina Lundahl, JoAnn Celentano and Lamar K. Cheston, and is about a man who has spent the past twenty years collecting skins from drug addicts, in order to 'fix' his son's disfigured face

Finally for today, a new trailer has been released for Jared Masters' (Ballet of Blood) upcoming horror film The Nightgown, due for release in October. This takes place in 1976, with three schoolgirls who decide to explore the mystery of a botched exorcism and stars Elizabeth Rath (Quartz Vein), Randy Masters, Kate Ly Johnston, Baracha Walston and Kelley Poling. The press releases states 'The Nightgown will be a cinematic movement like none other, a pulsating neon night terror simmering with ghouls, girls and a mischievous groundsman'.
There is also currently an Indiegogo campaign running to get funds for the director's next movie, the holiday themed Easter Evil, check here for more details on that one.

Friend of the World (2020) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I watched Friend of the World before heading to bed last night (at the time of writing), at least I think I did, it's entirely possible that this Brian Patrick Butler written and directed darkly humorous body horror was part of a fever dream I had as it was an extremely surreal watch. The one part of my synopsis I got from online was that the film takes place within a bunker, I didn't pick up on that fact while watching this!

Diane (Alexandra Slade) awakens in a room full of the dead bodies of her friends and colleagues with not too much memory of how she came to be there. Managing to escape from the sealed room by descending a lift shaft, she soon passes out and awakens to find herself in the room of a very eccentric army general, Gore (Nick Young - The Case of: Dakota Moore). The man is disappointed to see that she has survived the apocalyptic event that has led to them both being in the bunker (for that is where they are), but with supplies low, he decides to lead her out of the bunker with him, constantly lecturing her on his insane world views as he does so.

This is a black and white (for the most part) experimental movie that spreads itself across several genres. This is most definitely post-apocalyptic, with the surface world displayed as a Hellscape full of flames and ruins. It doesn't really do a good job of bringing the viewer up to speed on what has occured, though the characters themselves seem aware of the events that led up to them being in the bunker. There are also sci-fi and body horror elements, even the odd zombie type being here and there. It is split into chapters, and this is successful at splitting up the film into slightly self contained segments. The first chapter, which sees Diane escaping the room of corpses, played out almost dialogue free. This was a great introduction to the film world, not only gaining my attention immediately to the bizarre and mysterious situation the protagonist finds herself in, but also provides some claustrophobic locations which permeate the movie. It always feels like characters are in rooms and corridors that are too small for them, each new place just as cramped and contained as the last. Not realising this took place within a bunker, I imagined that the characters were trapped within a world that only existed within a building, with vague reminders of Cube.

The core of the film, and what it makes it the most experimental has to be Gore, a man who is a larger than life and an obviously insane person. The two characters seemed to almost be polar opposites of each other, Diane is a young filmmaker, someone shown to have some liberal views. Gore on the other hand is an unhinged madman, someone who seems to blame the apocalyptic world on artists like Diana, even when it appears to have been some kind of devastating war that led to the current situation. At times this came to feel like a series of deranged lectures, and certainly had the feel of a stage play with the low number of characters and events that mainly play out as purely dialogue. More than anyone, Gore reminded me of Rodney Dangerfield's character from Natural Born Killers, he was someone who had a feeling of off-balanced unpredictable danger to him, and someone who more than likely had something to do with the predicament that Diana found herself in at films start.

Friend of the World is a comedy, but one whose humour is jet black and very surreal. There are not any laugh out loud moments, instead scenes become funny while also staying dark and slightly creepy. There is a subplot about people becoming zombies with body-horror abilities to merge themselves with their victim by melding their flesh into them. This leads to some great looking special effects, and a few scenes of insanity, such as the manic smile that is plastered across one of these zombie type characters that is killed. With the apparent antidote to this infliction having some LSD style side effects the film soon becomes quite trippy, with distorted voices, and a cool looking scene of a corpse that has Gore's talking face growing out of its chest.

At just fifty minutes long this never dragged, and with all the content jammed into the run time it felt like it was over quicker than even that short time. I can't even begin to pretend I understood a lot of what was happening here. The plot remains purposely obtuse and some of the ideas were a bit brain melting. There was one scene that included the repeated use of a bodily function sound effect that didn't appeal, and I thought parts of the violin based soundtrack were quite grating, but overall I was impressed with this cohesive depiction of an insane world. Friend of the World has recently released on Apple TV.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Friday 24th February 2023

Happy Friday, PSVR2, the very expensive virtual reality headset arrived a few days back, so that may affect my output for next week, depending how immersed I get into the virtual world. There shall be plenty of horror games out for it now doubt, so I will certainly be checking those out for future reviews here.

105ive Films have recently finished their first feature film, Invited. Described as a 'Zoom thriller', this comes from director Navin Ramaswaran. Sounding like this takes place entirely as a Zoom call, this sees a mother reluctantly attending her daughter's Zoom elopement, where her and her family begin to realise the groom is part of a Russian cult with sinister intentions. The director says of the movie "Watching our actors go through a roller coaster of emotions uninterrupted was fascinating to experience, and that energy comes through in a really fascinating way".

Comedy horror film Amityville Thanksgiving is getting a sequel, currently titled Amityville Turkey Day. This recently had a successful Indiegogo campaign where it raised over 881% of its desired goal. The original film was shot over just two days on a low budget, director Will Collazo says of the follow up "We want to give you the sequel that everyone has been asking for to continue the story. And this time we've brought out dinner, the killer turkey!". David Perry (Scream: Legacy, Camp Pleasant Lake) has been confirmed to be returning.

Finally for today, Craving has released an official trailer. This monster movie/crime thriller is about a group of drug addicts who find themselves under assault by masked figures at a rural bar, with one of the addicts hiding a terrible secret that their withdrawal may release. It stars Felissa Rose (Camp Twilight, Sleepaway Camp), Kevin Caliber, Ashley Undercuffler, Holly Rockwell and Al Gomez. Director J. Horton says of it "Craving is set in 1998. It's an homage to my young adulthood and the movies of the time. I've always loved genre mash-ups and one of my favourite is the crime thriller/horror movie." I have a screener of this, so a review will be coming around the streaming release date of March 6th.

Doomsday Stories (2023) - Post Apocalyptic Anthology Film Review

Doomsday Stories is a post-apocalyptic horror anthology film which as far as I can tell works as a quasi-sequel to 1992's Hell on Earth II: The Arena of Death. The budget over the four short films and the wraparound segment appears to be very low, but this leads to some purposely cheesy moments which couldn't help but bring some joy to my rotting heart.

This takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, where society has completely collapsed after the accidental release of a man-made virus (which transformed much of humanity into zombie like creatures dubbed 'meanies'). In the future, wasteland survivor Zorack (Phil Herman - Hell on Earth II: The Arena of Death) comes across a handwritten book which chronicles various different accounts of the unfolding apocalypse. Taking the form of the wraparound segment, this was a decent enough way to bring the stories all together. Not much really happens, but that is kind of explained away by being set at a time when much of the meanies have expired. It ends on a high note with a cliffhanger that didn't feel like it needed to be resolved. Instead, in a Mad Max type of way this seemed to serve as a footnote in Zorack's path. Special mention goes to the flashback sequences here which has Herman humorously playing his younger self via the use of wig and baseball cap.

The first proper film is A Broken Promise which was directed and co-written by Derek Braasch.  Taking place in 2021, this follows survivor Rick (Justin Bower) and his dog Lucy as they roam the deserted backroads of post-apocalyptic America. This took up nearly forty minutes of the anthology and felt like it could have been streamlined a bit. The feeling of isolation was well made, but only because for much of this it is just Rick and his dog wandering empty roads and exploring mainly empty buildings. There were moments of excitement here, specifically an encounter with a group of men at a garage, and the violent finale, but much of this felt as aimless as the lead character seemed to be, though I did like how flashbacks to earlier in the apocalypse were integrated into the present day moments.
The second short is Bomb Threats which is also the shortest. Featuring just the two actors, and directed by James Panetta, this follows a woman (Debbie D who also wrote this) in the very early days of the collapse of society. With the government telling its citizens to seek shelter in bomb shelters, she decides to seek out local man Alvin (Jim Ewald), in order to use his private shelter rather than having to go to one of the larger ones. This turns out to be a bad idea as the man has some troubling ideas for survival. At about fifteen minutes this didn't have time to out stay its welcome. Each short film was better than the one before it, there were some fun cheesy effects during the scene when the woman is watching TV, though the story took an unpleasant turn later on and it didn't feel like it had too much life to it.

Forever Man is the penultimate film and was when I really began to enjoy Doomsday Stories, both this and the final film had really crazy plots which excelled in the low budget settings. Marcelo Fabani wrote, directed, edited and did the post production on this insane story about a man who is forced to become a cyborg known as Frank 21 (Chandra Mouli Nandy) as part of a government program designed to sell organs to other countries. It only had the four actors, which is impressive seeing as the wild story felt to me like its cast was much bigger. With sci-fi B-movie effects and a frankly silly plot, I really enjoyed it.
Saving the best till last is 187 Times by Joel D. Wynkoop, who also stars as the amusingly named James Kirk. I love time travel stuff and this didn't disappoint. Picking up deep in the time travelling exploits of Kirk, who is on his one hundred and eighty seventh attempt to fix the timeline, in order to not only prevent the world ending virus from being released into the world, but also to save his wife's murder. This was a wonderful film, I loved how Kirk is constantly travelling all the place, from the 1970's up to the 1950's, with the aid of his wrist watch mounted A.I companion. He literally spends seconds in time periods, but each time he makes sure to remove his time travelling helmet. His whole outfit is so purposely bad looking, and the effects where actually not that bad. Leaping all over time, having conversations with people he knows, but the viewer hasn't been introduced to, this was a wild ride that I loved every second of.

At a two hour run time it did feel like Doomsday Stories could have done with some editing, by that I guess I mean A Broken Promise specifically as that one was a slow introduction to the anthology, solely due to the long moments of not much happening and the more serious tone. Thankfully, the second half was a lot better, and I think it was a good thing that the quality improved rather than decreased over the course of the movie. While this is about a kind of zombie apocalypse, there is only a small handful to be seen here, but for me that wasn't a problem, it was more distracting that these four different tales seemingly intended to all be about the same apocalypse felt wildly different in how events play out. It may have been a slightly mixed bag, but it goes to show you don't need the biggest budget to make an entertaining film. Doomsday Stories was due for release mid February and is priced at $20 including postage. For more information, contact Phil Herman or Joel D Wynkoop on Facebook messenger.

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