Monday 18 March 2024

Greed & Gore (2023) - Short Horror Film Review


Greed & Gore
is a short fourteen minute horror film that was directed and co-written by Adam Kirkey. It lives up to its title with a story that is a cross between Reservoir Dogs and The Strangers, featuring plenty of greed, and indeed, plenty of gore.

After robbing a bank and taking a hostage, a group of criminals are out in rural Canada on the way to a safehouse that their driver has chosen. When arriving, despite the poor condition of the property, they decide to hunker down for the night, celebrating their heist with alcohol and partying. After the lights suddenly go out one of them heads into the basement to check the generator, unaware that there is an intruder in the house who is none too happy to see them there.

I love short films that feel like they are much longer than they actually are. With Greed & Gore you have a feature length story crammed into a short, but without feeling like it is really missing too much. From the initial car journey, to the partying montage scene, up to the first kill, events move along swiftly but without seeming rushed. The anti-heroes are a slightly generic bunch, you have strong silent Whiskey (Nick DeWolfe), comedic joker Tango (Matthew Bell), perpetually angry Romeo (Krishan Dutt - The Boys TV show) cold Sierra (Monica Zelak), with calm and collected Delta (Curtis Desrosiers) rounding out the crew. I did enjoy the montage scene of Tango throwing notes around everywhere, was a fun little sequence.

From the moment of the first kill events ramp up. The gore part of the title fits well as there are some really fun looking moments of violence. From a severed hand, to a head split in half horizontally, and numerous axe blows, this all looked great, if a little clean. While there is a reliance on practical effects, some of the stuff around the edges seemed like it had some CG assistance, such as the frequent cutaways to show the house in the howling wind and rain. The killer was a typical masked maniac, but I liked his look, the mask that looked like a zombie clown was pretty neat. In terms of the story, I liked the hostage angle, it is never made clear if the killer is purposely leaving her, or if they have just seen her as a non-threat. The first kill that takes place in the basement around the blindfolded victim (Julie Mainville - Confessions of a Haunting..., We Are the Missing) was a highlight, loving the way the blood from the kill splashes over her.
There was variety with the filmmaking throughout, from drone shots, to shots that appear to have been done from chest mounted cameras on the actors, and insert shots, it was varied but never felt too much.

The award-winning Greed & Gore is available to stream now from Slinger Pictures, with the filmmakers hoping to start production on a feature version of this idea this Autumn. This short doesn't outstay its welcome, is full of violence, and looks fantastic. Maybe some of the kill effects looked a little too crisp and clear, but overall I was impressed with how this was made, exceeding my expectations.

SCORE:



Friday 15 March 2024

It's A Wonderful Slice (2024) - Horror Anthology Film Review


Towards the end of last year I reviewed Phil Herman's Christmas themed anthology horror, I Slay on Christmas. Recently he contacted me about another Christmas themed anthology horror, this one titled It's A Wonderful Slice, written, directed, and produced by Michael Moutsatsos. There was certainly a lot packed into this ninety five minute anthology, but did at times feel a bit lacking in terms of variety. I couldn't find this on IMDB and there isn't much of a credit sequence at the end of the movie, so apologies for leaving out actor names.

The film is split up into five different short films, but there are also a lot of little sequences around these, most notably at the film's start. The introduction sequence has a man dressed as Santa armed with a machete dancing around streets while festive music plays out. This brought a recurring idea of a juxtaposition between wholesome music and twisted visuals. I liked that this sequence seemed to be shot around real people rather than actors, giving some nice reaction shots. This is then followed by a little sequence 'Santa's Woods', in which Santa, Krampus and an Elf frolic around woodland getting up to mischief. This kind of introduces the shorts as it is explained that there are many stories of horror that take place around Christmas time. Following this is a short sequence of a vlogger heading to woodland before encountering a festive slasher, before a similar one titled 'Krampus: Prologue' that is set in 1975, represented by a sepia look and fake Super-8 style film grain. This barrage of shorter sequences also sets up some of the issues I had with the anthology as a whole. They mostly feature a victim encountering someone dressed up as Santa who then proceeds to kill them as the finale of the short. It led to a repetitive feel, with some of these being better than others.

The first proper short was 'A Slay to Remember'. In this one, a peppy Airbnb host named Alex is delighted to be hosting a famous actor and writer, Tom, a man who has headed to a remote American town to get away from his fame for a while. The character of Tom was played by an actor who appears in nearly all the shorts, playing a totally different character each time. With multiverses being in vogue at the moment, it was almost like each short took place in a different reality for this character. It's good he was entertaining to watch, but not as much as the character of Alex. I liked how it wasn't too clear to begin with which of the two characters the horror would stem from. This was a fun short, though I felt it stuck around a little bit too long.
Next up was 'Here Wolfie Wolf'. A man (the actor who played Tom) has headed to woodland with his filmmaker friend Carlos. After Carlos vanishes, the man discovers a werewolf type creature dressed up like Santa, who swiftly takes chase. I liked the sound effects used for the creature, and it had a fun finish that was unexpected twice in quick succession.

The third film is 'Santa's Got an Axe to Grind' and serves as a kind of sequel to the first short, as the character of Alex pops up again, but this time in a woodland setting. As fun as it was to see this character again, there wasn't really much going on here, making it probably the most unneeded part of the anthology as a whole.
'Demonic Intensions' is the penultimate one, again starring the actor who played Ben previously. This one tries something a little different by featuring just the one character. A man who is either demonically possessed or who is suffering mental health issues.
Final short is 'A Doll to Die For', and for a change we have a female antagonist. Filmed in black and white, this one stood out visually, though is the same sort of thing by having a crazed person torturing a tied up victim. The actress had a neat enough Harley Quinn style craziness, believing the mall Santa she has kidnapped is the real deal.

Christmas and horror does go well together, and this indie anthology does have good parts to it. The shorts were obviously linked together, there are two different creepy looking Santa masks that the various killers wear throughout, while the tools of violence they use are also shared between them all. This also goes to the interior locations, with the first and fourth film having the exact same building, while the woods used for most the others is functional, but again brings a conjoined familiarity. This indie horror never tries to be something it isn't, the acting can be a bit basic at times, but this is leant into, with some enjoyable moments coming from some of the dialogue. The sound quality wasn't always fantastic, with some moments that sounded a bit tinny, but I did love the music throughout, a definite highlight, the mix of light music and dark actions never got old.
While I wish there had been a bit more variety than just short after short of a festive themed killer capturing victims, I still thought It's A Wonderful Slice had a decent enough unified look to it, and regardless of variety it felt like a lot was stuffed into this, and there were some definite stand out actors, such as the recurring bearded character and the man who played Alex. 

SCORE:



Thursday 14 March 2024

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 14th March 2024


For the second news anthology of the week I bring three more rotted pieces of news from my bloody mail sack of horrors. In 'me' news I am currently playing Helldivers II, though I don't think that really fits into the horror spectrum. I haven't mentioned it previously, but the current season of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has a zombie theme to its battlepass. Not only is it full of zombie calling cards, stickers and emblems, but it also features Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead as its big skin. That would be cool, but not only does he have something of a cheap knock-off look to him, but they have someone very much not Andrew Lincoln providing his lines. As a paid skin there is also Michonne, thankfully she does look a bit more like the character she is meant to represent!

Friends Forever is an eighties styled slasher film that is streaming exclusively on Reveel. The synopsis has a mother of a family going insane and killing her family as a result of discovering their years supply of food has been ruined. Thirty years later a bunch of teens break into the abandoned family home in order to throw a wild party, but no doubt discovering a killer who is none too happy to see them there. To see this head over to Reveel here.

Afterlife is a documentary that is out now on digital platforms from BayView Entertainment, and is due to head to AVOD platforms on 30th March. Described as '...compelling and thought-provoking...', this follows a filmmaker (Ben Harl) as he explores what could happen to us once we die. The documentary includes interviews with spiritual teachers, scientists, and medical professionals.  


Finally for today, too crazy not to mention is horror parody (should that be parrotdy?) Murdaritaville which came to digital, Blu-ray and VHS from Amazon and ByTheHorns on March 1st.  This is about a group of friends who find themselves the target of a deranged were-parrot(!) while on route to an impersonator contest. Being a lover of both birds and horror, this seems like the perfect (birdseed) mix.

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Aware of the Wolf (2023) - Horror Film Review


I had originally intended to watch something completely different for today's review but the link had expired, and so I turned instead to the Joshua Nelson (The Things We Cannot Change) written and directed horror Aware of the Wolf. This horror might have a bit of a decent message at its heart, but the horror sure takes a long time to come.

Terry (Tony Murphy - The Things We Cannot Change) is a self help guru who provides his own special type of therapy for downtrodden, weak and mild people. He calls his class 'Terry's Transformations' and teaches that within everyone is a wolf, and that by seeking out your inner wolf you can become a predator rather than prey. Elsewhere, Detective Wagner (Suzanne Johnson - The Things We Cannot Change) and Detective Hoffman (Kelly Fine) are investigating a series of strange murders in the area, the victims covered in bite marks.

This is only the second film of Nelsons that I have watched but there really seems to be a style that is gone for. The last one of his I watched was about a vampire self-help group, and that is repeated here, with a vague werewolf tone to it instead. The majority of the film takes place at the self-help meetings in which various weak people listen to Terry as he tries to get the meek to stick up for themselves. It starts with a few different scenes showing how each of the characters are put down in their lives. You have a pregnant girl whose step-mum (Debra Holtzman - The Things We Cannot Change) constantly belittles her, you have Veer (Vamshi Krishna Achutha) whose cruel boss threatens cancelling his work visa should he try to go against her, you have a woman whose husband has no respect for her, and Ella Mae (Katie Raulerson - The Things We Cannot Change) who has let men walk over her her whole life. The actors were fine for this type of indie film, their individual antagonists might be very over the top and exaggerated but it worked in making you as the viewer pity them. Their sessions led to some cringy moments, such as when they all try and howl like wolves, but these moments feed into their lack of confidence.

The actual horror takes a very far back seat to the rest of the movie. The detectives investigating the murders only feature in a couple of short scenes, that subplot makes up less than a fifth of the overall film. A shame as the prologue featuring two lovers getting seemingly attacked by wolves out in woodland made it seem like the horror would be more pronounced. Aware of the Wolf finally gets going in its third act, but it is only really in the final scene that things begin to move, by that point it was a little too late. That isn't to say it was dull leading to that moment, but as well intentioned as some of the first two acts felt, this was light on action and heavy on scenes of people sitting around talking in the therapy sessions. Some of the make-up effects were passable, but the few times violence is shown on screen it wasn't sold that well, with actors trying to make it seem like they are throwing punches, but looking a bit lame.

I though the character of Terry was the best part of this, and I thought the later revelations about his real intentions were not that badly implemented. I also thought the Tales From the Crypt style end twist was amusing in a morality tale type of way. Far too much of the lead up to the third act had a kind of holding pattern feel to it, with not much really happening despite the amount of run time that was happening. Aware of the Wolf is out now on digital platforms worldwide (excluding Amazon Prime Video) and will head to AVOD digital platforms on 30th April.

SCORE:



Tuesday 12 March 2024

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday March 12th 2024


With an inbox that isn't getting any smaller, here is the first of two news anthology posts for this week. Onwards as ever to the news.

BayView Entertainment are a regular inclusion on my news posts, and today's post features two of their horror films that are due for release soon. The first of these is Raveland which is out now on digital platforms in the UK, USA and Canada. This fantasy mystery thriller follows a group of teenagers on a supernatural island in their quest to find the person able to prevent ominous forces from harming them and their loved ones. Written and directed by Rebecca Ugo, and starring Racheal Ihim, Kent Shocknek and Will Horton, this is also due to head to AVOD digital platforms worldwide on 30th March.


The Exorcism Tapes was voted 'Most Original Concept' at the Videoscream Film Festival 2021 and is now out to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and USA as well as on AVOD worldwide. Written and directed by Jason Hawkins and starring Hawkins, David Mitchum Brown and Jason Reynolds, the synopsis is that a video coined The Exorcism Tapes was uploaded to the internet, purporting to show a real life exorcism. 


Finally for today, Listen Carefully has its world premiere at the Fantaspoa Film Festival in April 2024. This American indie psychological horror film was written, directed and stars Ryan Barton-Grimley. It is about an assistant manager who is forced to carry out the twisted instructions of a voice on a baby monitor after his baby daughter is kidnapped. Also starring is Simone Barton-Grimley and Ari Schneider (as the voice). For more information check out the film's website here.

Monday 11 March 2024

The Well (2023) - Horror Film Review


The Well
is an Italian horror film that comes from Federico Zampaglione (Shadow), who both wrote and directed this. He has been dubbed 'the Italian Rob Zombie' and that is a moniker that really fits as even before reading that I was reminded of that director's work while watching this gruesome slaughter-fest. While this just misses out on being a fantastic film, there is still plenty to enjoy here.

Lisa (Lauren LaVera - Terrifier 2, Clinton Road) is an American art restorer who has been contracted to head to a remote Italian village in order to restore a 15th century painting that a rich duchess is in possession of. She is told the painting recently received smoke damage and that it is essential it is restored within a fortnight as it is due to be sold at an auction. The more she works on the creepy painting, the more disturbing nightmares and hallucinations she gets, but is compelled to ignore her instincts and carry on the work for fear of her father's business being ruined by breaking the terms of the contract.
On the way to the village Lisa had befriended some botanists who had planned to camp out in the nearby forest to conduct some research. Elsewhere, things went bad for them, as on their first night camping they are all captured by an unseen person. The three, Tony (Gianluigi Galvani), Tracy (Taylor Zaudtke - The Leech) and Madison (Courage Osabohine) awaken to find themselves imprisoned in an underground cell which faces onto a large well. Their brutally sadistic mute jailor systematically begins to slaughter them, in order to feed them to a monstrous creature that dwells at the bottom of the well.
Needless to say, these two separate events are more linked than at first it might appear.

The most striking part of The Well are the nasty stomach churning special effects. Thankfully, these special effects are all practical (apart from one key scene during the finale), and they look horrific in the best possible way. Among the visual horrors are some strong almost torture porn moments of victims really being made to suffer. Limbs are hacked off, an eyeball is raked out, a rusty nail goes through a foot, someone is pinned to a door by a crossbow bolt, and some poor unfortunate even has the skin peeled off their face! The mute and mentally unstable jailor really felt like he stepped out of a Rob Zombie movie, while there are some nightmarish moments that Lisa suffers through. The creature design for the thing in the well was great, I admit it did initially remind me a bit of Gollum from The Lord of The Rings, but the more you saw of it, the more I came to appreciate how horrid it looked. 

The cast were mostly great, I thought that the duchess' teenage daughter Giulia (Linda Zampaglione) was one of the weakest links, the petulant rebellious teenager came across as a bit one dimensional, making for not that compelling a character. With most the characters here, the less you know about them the better, it is only really Lisa herself who gets some character development. Special mention goes to Melanie Gaydos as Dorka, her expressive turn during the culmination of the movie was so cool to see, putting the other actors in that particular scene to slight shame.
 As always with cursed painting horrors, the art needed to look effectively dark, and here the painting was ace. A slight possible plot issue might have occurred should Lisa had chosen to work on a different part of the painting than she did at the start. I found Lisa's story the less interesting of the two going on, but I enjoyed how they linked together. It did lead to an epilogue that was a little bit cheesy, the plot in general had some good moments to it, but I would be lying if I said that any of the revelations that occur were that surprising to see.

I thought The Well was really well made. The locations all looked very dusty and grimy, the special effects were gruesomely delightful, and I found myself invested in the events of the movie. Only really let down by a couple of generic characters, and an epilogue that I wasn't that sure about. The Well had its UK premiere at Frightfest in Glasgow on 9th March.

SCORE:

Friday 8 March 2024

City of the Living Dead (1980) - Zombie Horror Film Review


Back when I was first properly getting into horror films at the turn of the century I would pretty much buy anything that looked interesting. The zombie genre in particular was a highlight of horror for me, and so seeing Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead (a horror legend, not that I knew that at the time) on DVD I purchased it, fully expecting it to live up to the title. I did not like what I got, instead of an undead filled extravaganza I instead had a supernatural horror full of bizarreness. I hadn't seen it since, but hearing it was heading to limited edition 4K UHD, as well as heading to the ARROW streaming subscription service I just had to check it out, to give it a fair chance that my younger self didn't do. It turns out some of my memories of this were correct, but other parts I had thankfully misremembered.

A priests suicide in a graveyard in the American town of Dunwich results in the gates of Hell being opened. Having had a vision of this event occurring, a young New York based psychic woman, Mary (Catriona MacColl - The Beyond) teams up with a reporter named Peter (Christopher Bell), as she believes her vision has shown her that the only way to close the gateway to Hell lays with the priest, and that they must get the  gate closed before the approaching All-Saints Day is reached. Their task becomes a lot harder once they arrive at the town, and discover that a variety of supernatural events are occurring, including the dead refusing to stay dead...

The whole film has a feeling of a nightmare to it and so elements of this only make sense in a kind of dream logic type of way. From what I remembered there were not actually any zombies in the movie, thankfully that turned out to be incorrect, with the whole third act turning the film into a zombie one. The make-up effects on the walking dead was fantastic, corpses look to be rotting, with live insects such as worms and maggots crawling over them. In a really novel way, the undead are supernatural in nature, having the pretty chilling ability to not only teleport, but having super strength and able to make people literally puke up their internal organs just by locking eye contact with their chosen victim! The story is a bit bare bones, and it is never really stated exactly how the heroes are going to be able to close the gateway to Hell. It all leads up to an infamously terrible ending that rumour says wasn't actually meant to the end, but that the footage was somehow lost or destroyed and so, not being able to afford a re-shoot, Fulci had to make do with what he had. It is a shame that the last scene in the film is also the worst, it leans into the dream logic, but it really makes no sense whatsoever. Following on from some really strong scenes it did put a bit of a dampener on an otherwise near flawless final thirty minutes.

It is an upward path to this living up to its title, but the horror that comes before is frequently pretty neat. The priest teleports around town murdering random people (always showing up still hanging from his noose), there is a tense scene in which a woman buried alive is constantly nearly pick-axed to death by the man trying to save her(!), and at one point the protagonists  have to endure a rain of maggots. Disgustingly this scene was actually done using real maggots, with the poor cast having thousands and thousands of the insects blown over them by a giant wind machine. I hate insects being used as a means of generating horror, I don't find it scary, just gross and sickening. Maggots likely don't have feelings, but I still felt bad seeing them treated in such a bad way. Other moments are cool though, such as a mysterious fireball that erupts out the floor, mirrors smashing on their own, cracks in walls opening up, and walls bleeding. Then there is the ultra violent scene where the town idiot has his head forced into a spinning drill. Being the eighties the effects are of course all practical ones and look suitably great. Also great is the soundtrack, it sounds very much like Goblin's style, and was wonderfully catchy.

I had hoped that giving the film a second chance would improve my feeling towards it, and I was right. Rather than a poor quality DVD transfer, the film here looked crisp and clear, really adding a lot to all the nightmarish scenes. I still think the many scenes involving real insects was ill-judged and gross, but the other horror makes up for it, especially with the undead whose ability to teleport made them an intimidating foe to face, and of course the wonderful practical effects. City of the Living Dead comes to ARROW (here), and releases on limited edition 4K UHD on 25th March.

SCORE:

Thursday 7 March 2024

Dead by Daylight - A Beginner's Guide to The Mastermind


I have now been making an effort to get into asynchronous multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight for four months. Each month sees me randomly picking a new killer to spend the month trying to get to grips with. For February the killer chosen was The Mastermind, better known to all as Resident Evil's Albert Wesker. When I initially saw this killer was my new pick I was excited, I thought it would be cool to play as this iconic bad guy. Over the course of the month however I just never really got to grips with exactly how he controlled, leading to frustration more often than not.

The set-up for how the killer came to be in the nightmare realm of Dead by Daylight is often pretty cool, though with Wesker his introduction comes not at the end of his natural time in the Resident Evil games, but instead is made non-canonical with him weirdly getting pulled into the realm mid-way through the events of Resident Evil 5. I have a somewhat sad knowledge of the Resident Evil world and so this really is just nit-picking on my part. As for being a killer in this realm, it makes sense Wesker would relish the chance to use his powers to kill those deemed as weaker than him, I imagine it would feel like a welcome break for someone used to dealing with boulder punching action heroes and global conspiracies. He was added to the game in Chapter 25: Resident Evil: Project W, while he didn't get his own stage, he was joined by Ada Wong and Rebecca Chambers who became survivor characters.
Wesker was at the height of his coolness during the events of Resident Evil: Code Veronica, where his powers were blatantly inspired by The Matrix films. The version of the character here isn't that though, recently infected with the Uroboros biological weapon, his main form of attack is transforming his arm into a tentacle.

Being perfectly honest, I'm a little ashamed of how little I played Dead by Daylight last month. In total I only actually played three matches with Wesker, one of which was a unique limited time mode which took away the threat detection ability as well as the use of items. In that time I was met with a lot of frustration getting to grips with how Wesker's move set worked, despite him being rated as 'moderate' to use. His default weapon is a knife, perfectly fine, no trouble there. His power move sees him rush forward quickly, his arm transforming into a black tentacle to either grab survivors and hurl them against walls, or to use his dash to swiftly vault over barriers and through windows. Hitting a survivor in this way infects them, the infection eventually causing the hinderance status effect (movement speed reduced by 8%) if the survivor doesn't find and use a first aid spray. My main problem came with using his rush ability. He has the ability to rush twice in a row, but I was rarely able to get this to work. Sometimes I would see a button prompt to do the follow up dash, but other times it seemed I wasn't even being given the option to do this. It led to me charging at survivors expecting to get a second dash to actually reach them (the grab and hurl motion being automatic once contact with a survivor is reached), but never usually getting to reach them. This, coupled with a cool down for the dash move, led to me being the least effective killer I have been since I started playing Dead by Daylight again.

Wesker was fine as a killer, I left him in his default black trench coat look as I have only been purchasing alternate skins for the killers I had previously used in the past.. He is prone to saying cheesy one-liners when attacking, something that fits him perfectly as the Resident Evil games are often full of cheese like that. I did have to turn off the subtitles in the settings however as it was quite distracting having them come up on screen in large text.
The sole highlight I had playing with Wesker came right at the end of a match. Survivors like to troll killers by hanging out at the exit doing the tea-bagging motion rather than immediately going through it when it opens up. One such player was doing that, obviously forgetting that Wesker has a dash, I swiftly shot forward, grabbed this player and threw them against the exist (which then turned solid due to the killer not being able to pass through). This put the player in a downed state, so I quickly picked them up before they could crawl to freedom, put them over my shoulder and went and hooked them. I have to say that was really satisfying!
So, I have done a random killer pick for March and that killer is The Cannibal, which I recall is actually Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series of films. I will aim to play more than the paltry amount I managed for February!

Wednesday 6 March 2024

Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001) - Horror Film Review


Originally, I was meant to be watching something totally different for today's film review, but due to being an idiot and forgetting to request a screener, the film I intended to watch was locked away from me. Without looking I reached a rotting hand into my unwatched DVD shelf and pulled out randomly Children of the Corn: Revelation. This is the seventh film in the series, but having been a fan of these in my teens, I have actually seen all the ones that came before. This wasn't a good film, but it came from a nostalgic era for me, the early 2000s where CG was just starting to be used, and horror films were often enjoyably cheesy.

Jamie's (Claudette Mink - R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour TV series) has been increasingly worried about the behaviour of her beloved grandma. First she moved to a dilapidated apartment building in a small rural town that was subsequently marked as condemned two months after she moved in, and then, more recently, she stopped returning Jamie's phone calls. Worried for her, Jaime decides to head to the apartment to see if everything is ok. She finds the building in a very poor state, with most the inhabitants save for a few already left, and her grandma nowhere to be seen. Of course, we as the viewer can guess her fate, as she was seen likely on the way to her death in the movie's prologue sequence. Jamie keeps seeing creepy children dressed in old fashioned clothes around the town who all give her evil looks. With the local police station not believing her grandma is actually missing. Eventually, she comes to believe that all the spooky goings on may be down to a cult made up of children, who operated in the area in the distant past.


This carries on the fine tradition of the Children of the Corn movies by having the evil antagonist 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows' turn up in a completely different look to previous films. Before, it has been portrayed as an invisible force, a giant monster, even as a sentient grain silo(!), here, the eventual reveal is that of a child dressed up like a preacher, but who speaks with a dubbed over deep adult voice that both made me laugh out loud as well as being pretty neat. While this is a sequel, there is a bit of a ret-con going on, as the child cult are now said to have been operating in the 1960's, not in the eighties and nineties as the previous films had it. I thought it was cool that it is suggested that rather than be actual children, this time around they are actually evil ghosts of the cult members. It leads to one cool scene in which a man is able to see the children while wearing night vision goggles, but each time he removes them the children are nowhere to be found.

There is a decent enough body count, but it is a shame that all the on-screen deaths, while fun, aren't exactly that exciting. Included are people being thrown from heights, a drowning, and someone who has a heart attack. The most exciting looking kill, that of a character getting their head sliced off, is sadly one that takes place off screen. I did think the moving vines from the nearby corn field leaking blood when cut into was a decent idea. There is some use of obvious CG, but thankfully this is kept to a bare minimum rather than being over-used. I liked Mink's protagonist, but only really because she really resembled Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil 2 video game. Her determination to locate her missing grandma becomes a bit silly, especially when she has visions that clearly show what happened to her. I thought Michael Ironside (voice of Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell video games) was a great side character, was just a shame it was an almost blink and you miss it appearance, despite his exposition serving role. The majority of the movie takes place in the apartment block, and it has a great grimy run-down look to it.


I have a soft spot for this series, this straight to video sequel is not a great film, but it sure does feel like a horror from the early 2000s, an era that is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I like that like the other films before it, it isn't afraid to mix up the formula somewhat, even if the many kills aren't the most exciting to watch, and ghostly kids were lame rather than spooky. This is certainly better than the snore fest that was the 2020 Children of the Corn reboot.

SCORE:

Tuesday 5 March 2024

Post-Climax (2024) by Assassun - Music Album Review


Post-Climax
is the third album released under Berlin based musician Alexander Leonard Donat's Assassun moniker, following on from last years Chronic Quicksand Depression Morning. This brings together twelve delightful tracks of electro-goth gloom. I have a habit of saying this whenever I review a follow up album of an artist, but I really think this is the best album yet from Assassun.

'You Can't' kicks off the album and brings with it a slightly different sound to what I was used to. While the vocals are as mean and frustrated as ever there was a simple repeating electronic beat that gave an almost contrasting feel to the tone of the lyrics. Track two, 'Footnote' is when the Assassun I remember comes into sound, the familiar and welcome eighties style music, with the artists repeating refrains such as "I can't find the antidote" giving this an almost stream of consciousness feel to it. 'Sling Me Out' has Assassun sounding his most fed up and bitter. That track was an early highlight with a fantastic and addictive backing beat conjuring up memories of Megadrive video game music (not a slight, that's my favourite console). So much of the music on this album just sounds sublime, there is a sense of urgency that comes from many of the songs (most nightmarish, the freefall feeling 'If'), such as 'Hell Here' and the best track on the album, 'Cpr' that has great machinegun style beats to it "With my lips melting like wax, Both sides turning into trainwrecks" this had some inventive lyrics to it.

Heading towards the last third of the album things slow down slightly with 'Spectator', 'Sink Your Sword Into Me', 'Swallow My Sky', and epic sounding penultimate track 'Used to Glow'. Final track 'Skull-Line' is a return to the frantic fast sound, closing out Post-Climax in a fitting manner. Throughout I loved the dirty sounding off-kilter electronic sound, it really sounded so good.
It's a bit of a running joke that I usually listen to albums while doing some type of housework, with this I listened to it twice before doing my review, once while on my lunch break at my day job, and a second time while having a shave and a shower first thing this morning (at time of typing), both times the music was a delight. 
It is always apparent that I know next to nothing about music, but I do like what I like, and Assassun's Post-Climax is one such album that fits that bill.

SCORE:

Monday 4 March 2024

The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 (2023) - Horror Documentary Review


The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2
is Small Town Monsters follow up to 2022's American Werewolves and covers a slightly different topic. While werewolves do feature again, this time around the focus is more on skinwalkers; creatures existing between life and death who are able to take on the form of both humans and animals by 'wearing' their skins.

This is set out in a very similar format to that other documentary and so for me falls into some of the same pitfalls. The eighty minute documentary is split up between nine or so different eyewitness accounts of purported skinwalkers. Each of these is split by a chapter heading giving the name of the next witness. Directed by Seth Breedlove, this again sees him taking more of a backseat. These interviews just have the witness talking on screen, sometimes with aerial shots or stock footage playing over their words. There is a definite horror vibe, both with the eighties synth sounding music, as well as inserted shots of close-ups of werewolves and skinwalker creatures.

Many of the accounts come from Native Americans, it was really interesting to hear these tales based on their viewpoint of what these creatures are. It is apparently a taboo topic for them to talk about and so it isn't something they are that comfortable speaking about, one of the witnesses even has their face in shadow and their voice altered to keep their identity secret. The descriptions take on a similar vibe, people encountering either a large beast like creature on all fours, or a beast standing upright. Sometimes these creatures are spotted from afar, sometimes there is a direct interaction. One woman talks about seeing her dogs attacked by a creature, another speaks of the time some of her animals went missing. One still visibly affect man talks about how as a child one of these creatures got into his father's house. As always, these people speak with truth behind their words, whether what they encountered were actually supernatural creatures or explainable wild animals, they act in a matter of fact way about these being unnatural.
With a focus on New Mexico there comes a unified feel to these accounts. The problem of having nothing but account after account is that again it felt like the documentary would have benefitted by having more variety to it. There are little interjections where text on screen gives some facts about the area, but no overarching narration, nor any attempt to state a viewpoint either way.

The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 certainly had some interesting moments, but is more like a series of stories (however true they might have been), rather than a more detailed look into the subject. This documentary comes to Cable VOD and Digital HD on Blu-ray/DVD on March 15th.

SCORE:



Friday 1 March 2024

There's No Such Thing as Zombies (2020) - Comedy Horror Film Review


Directed by Eddie Bammeke (Talk of the Dead) and written by Michael Haberfelner (Talk of the Dead, A Killer Conversation), There's No Such Thing as Zombies is a horror comedy that felt like it would have worked a whole lot better as a short film than as a feature length one. Due to this I found it quite a struggle to get through, a shame as the zombie genre is by far my favourite one.

The film takes place within a world in a which a miracle drug for depression has very recently been discovered to have the unfortunate side effect of reanimating the bodies of heavy users of it. This has resulted in it being banned in the UK, though is still in use elsewhere, in particular the USA. To combat this threat, an organisation named the Z.I.A (Zombie Investigation Association) has been formed, though its members are all inexperienced. After her ex-boyfriend Paul (Rami Hilmi - Artifacts of Fear, Colin) arrives at the apartment of the very dense Carlotta (Luana Ribeira - The Eschatrilogy: Book of the Dead), she welcomes him in, unaware he is actually a zombie. When her husband Colin (Rudy Barrow - Dead Walkers: Rise of the 4th Reich) returns home he is alarmed to see Paul, and realises immediately he is undead due to Paul being responsible for the man's murder in the past.


The main issue I had with There's No Such Things as Zombies is that there is only really the one idea used to carry the film, but the long length for this type of idea (clocking in at ninety five minutes) is just too extended for this to work well. It essentially boils down to a three person single room drama with division between Carlotta and Colin, due to the former not believing Paul is really a zombie, and the later knowing full well that he is. This got old really fast, so it seemed crazy to me that the back and forth of this conflict was what the whole movie was based around. I found Carlotta to be intensely annoying due to how unbelievably stupid she was. Colin was no better as he frequently physically abuses his wife, someone who is happy to take the punishment in her simple minded obliviousness that this is far from the right way to behave. Much of the humour comes from her interactions with Paul, seeing his many attempts to bite her as him just playing around.
It seemed at first that the two Z.I.A members who appear at the film's start would have a key role to play. These two (played by Debra Lamb and Scott Hillier) instead spend the majority of the film standing outside the apartment, their power as Z.I.A members appearing to be extremely slight. It did lead to some actual humorous moments of them constantly being startled by gunfire happening in the apartment, but trying to act like what is going on in there is none of their business.
Bizarrely, the very best storyline in the film was taking place on a TV screen that the protagonists occasionally turn on. This was set in a UK news studio in which an American high-up member of the zombie causing drug company (Lynn Lowry - Wolf Hollow, Cynthia) is trying to convince everyone that zombies don't exist, despite increasing evidence that isn't the case.

With much of the humour not to my tastes there wasn't much here to keep my attention, I really struggled to pay attention to the dull meandering story. I'm never keen on jokes about sex, which is what the main form of humour is about here, and I found the characters all unlikeable. Being an indie film, and being a comedy, the make-up effects for the zombie were very slight. Paul has white make-up on his face, but the rest of his body is free of make-up. The only blood to be found in the movie is very obviously computer generated. The actual number of undead featured in the movie is a small handful, in total I think there were only around six or seven, with the majority of the run time just focussed on Paul, who being tied up for nearly the entire film doesn't actually do much. The set had barely any detail to it, not seeming like an actual apartment, the floor didn't even have carpet on it. I did like the use of sound effects, such as when characters suggest something (such as firing an imaginary gun) and the sound of the real thing being inserted.


I love a good zombie film, I even love bad ones, but with There's No Such Thing as Zombies I found myself getting increasingly bored, I found it a chore to sit through for review. There are little moments that worked well, such as the subplot set at the news studio, but all in all, I just couldn't shake the feeling that this would have worked so much better as a twenty to thirty minute short film, as there just wasn't enough to warrant this being feature length. There's No Such Thing as Zombies has been released on streaming services worldwide.

SCORE:



Thursday 29 February 2024

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for February 2024


Another month passed and another news round-up. I have just under an hour allocated to write this post, so hopefully it will be longer than last months round-up. In 'me' news, I have come up with a new plan for doing my blog, something I came up with while taking a rare week off of writing it. Elsewhere, I briefly lost the use of my PC, but discovered laptop blogging actually wasn't that bad, anyway, onto the news.

Bio Raiders is an Asian vampire horror film that has been released on Blu-ray in the US by BayView Entertainment. Directed by Tommy Leung and starring Luo Tian Chi, Siu-Ho Chin and Richard Ng, this Chinese language horror tells the story of a herbalist who accidentally transforms his sick daughter into a zombie, and so most prevent the world from finding out.


The Dead Follows is now available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video worldwide, again via BayView Entertainment. This is about two ghost-hunting detectives who get trapped in a haunted complex, and so must find a way to escape the horrors. This was directed by Victor Huesca and Jazmyne Nikole, also starring them, alongside Malcolm Alvarez.


Yet another BayView Entertainment release next, another Asian horror, this time the David Chuang directed The Tag Along: Devil Fish, which has been released on region free Blu-ray in the US. This one has a spirit medium who is charged with exorcising a demon from a possessed man. Two students inadvertently prevent this from happening when they capture the possessed man, hoping to make a documentary about what is happening.


Another Asian horror and another BayView Entertainment release, Vampire Cleanup Department is out now on region free Blu-ray in the US. In this one, a young recruit (Babyjohn Choi) to a secret vampire hunting group falls in love with one of the vampires he is tasked with killing.


Starring the iconic Bill Oberst Jr (The Man in Room 6, Devil's Junction: Handy Dandy's Revenge), 2009's Dismal sees a group of students heading out to a remote area of the Great Dismal Swamp as part of an extra credit assignment for a biology course. It is there that in the fashion of The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn, they discover a group of cannibals. This releases March 26th from Bayview Entertainment.


It has turned into an unplanned Bayview Entertainment month as Aware of the Wolf is another one of theirs. Releasing later this year, this was directed by Joshua Nelson and stars Tony Murphy, Suzanne Johnson and Katie Raulerson. Terry is a life coach for the more nervous and timid of those in society, however, his methods are able to unleash the 'wolf' hidden deep inside of them.


Freestyle Digital Media have acquired the documentary, Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. Due to be released on North American VOD platforms and DVD on March 5th, this feature length paranormal documentary follows Derek Hayes and David Flora as they head to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park that is notorious for reports of cryptids, ghosts and UFOs.


Finally for today, Bloody Summer Camp 2: Red Horizon has launched a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo which has already exceeded its goal. This comes from Slasher 15 Productions and as the title suggests is a sequel to their 80's slasher throwback, Bloody Summer Camp. This sequel is due to take place in 1994 and will bring back several members of the original cast, including Felissa Rose (Camp Twilight, Sleepaway Camp) in a film that sees Camp Holiday Trails re-opened after the massacre of the first movie and rebranded as Red Horizon. Check out the Indiegogo page here.