Keith (2021) - Short Horror Film Review

The three minute short horror film Keith (written and directed by Alex Baró Cayetano) is currently available to watch on ARROW, the streaming subscription service. It does have some moments of horror, but the overall feel was more comedic than scary.

One night a young girl (Mia Hemerling) is startled to discover a monster under her bed (voiced by Bear Winter-Perreau). This unseen creature however just wants to talk, stating that while he is a monster he wishes the girl no harm, even revealing his true name of Keith. The girl may apparently have nothing to fear, but the monster has still arrived in the room in order to scare someone.

I wasn't sure about Keith for a lot of the running time. Under three minutes long, this mostly takes place with the girl huddled under a bedsheet while she talks to the unseen creature. The comedy comes from how down to earth Keith is, talking about how his parents wanted him to be a dentist and not a monster and other such silly things. The voice of the creature had distortion to it, but it sounded friendly. Thankfully, this pulls itself together for the ending, that did give me a slight chill when it happened. I do like it when short films manage to create an effective finish.

While a bit too talky, I think it was the correct decision not to show the creature under the bed, and I also thought it was wise how this ended. Aside from that finish though there wasn't much horror here to be found, but Keith was still enjoyable enough.

SCORE:

Stranger Things: The First Shadow (2024) - Horror Play Review

With the comedic horror parody musical Stranger Sings last month still fresh in my mind I needed a palette cleanser. That luckily was to come in the form of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, an award winning play that was not only canonical to the TV series whose universe it takes place in, but was  based on an original story written by the Duffer Brothers, (alongside Jack Thorne and Kate Trefry, with Trefry writing the play. I watched the 13:00 showing in London on April 14th, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was blown away somewhat by the amazing special effects used. With the show working as an origin story of sorts for the antagonist of season four of Stranger Things there are doubtless spoilers from that show contained here.
On a side note, I brought a Stranger Things mug, but it turns out that wasn't the only thing I brought back from London as I also picked up Covid for the second time and currently feel awful!

The majority of the two and a quarter hour show is set in 1959 in the town of Hawkins, in which a series of sadistic pet killings around the town have started happening. While the police think it is the work of a wild animal, some of the teenagers believe it is a person responsible. In particular, James Hopper Jr. (Oscar Lloyd), Joyce Maldonado (Isabella Pappas) and Bob Newby (Christopher Buckley), three high schoolers (the characters would of course come to have large roles in the TV series) who decide to take it upon themselves to try and find the killer. These killings coincide with the arrival of a new family in town, the Creels, with them having came to Hawkins to start over, due to an incident involving the strange boy Henry Creel (Michael Jinson). Unknown to most is that Henry has some strange powers, able to make dreams (or nightmares) come to life, and psychic abilities stemming from an incident in which he went missing in the Nevada desert a year previously. With much of the town having no time for the weird kid, he ends up forming a friendship with Bob's adopted sister Patty (Ella Karuna Williams) who sees his abilities as a gift, not a curse.

This was one of the most impressive stage shows I have seen, at least in terms of the amazing special effects used. With the older characters in the show not having any prior knowledge of the supernatural, the show makes effort to ensure this remains canonical, and while the trio of Hopper, Joyce and Bob take on a role similar to the kids in the TV show, their investigation not only fails, but they don't even discover the real culprit. The play is split between their goings-on and Henry's relationship with Patty. Henry always came across as real weird, but made for an enjoyable performance. The actor spoke in a similar way that The Riddler does in The Batman. Without going into too many spoilers, it gave some information on his character that I either missed or which wasn't mentioned in the series. He is a conflicted individual, with it shown that he almost has a split personality, there is the normal Henry, and then there is the supernatural being within him (that always leads to some great moments where Henry will be speaking normally before his voice becomes demonically distorted). The friendship with Patty seems to work, this is due to her backstory of feeling like an outsider herself due to being adopted and never knowing her birth parents. There were plenty of nods to the show, I loved that the parents of Nancy and Mike Wheeler show up as teens, with Ted Wheeler coming across as a super jock idiot. There are two end act zingers, with Dr Brenner (Patrick Vaill) appearing at the end of the first act, while a young Eleven appearing right at the end (the events of the play lead up to showing how Henry Creel became an orderly at Dr Brenner's institution). Act one mainly features Hawkins High School and Henry Creel's house, while act two has a lot of it set at Dr Brenner's facility.

Special effects were tremendous, as was the interesting set design. The stage had three concentric circles on it which could revolve at different times to each other, or spin in opposite directions. This was used at times to give the illusion of motion, with characters having walking and talking conversations without really moving from the spot. It was also used to give a 360 view on static scenes. There were different levels at times to the stage, with areas such as Henry Creel's attic, the command room of a boat, and the rafters in a drama room all looking more authentic due to being high up in the stage. At times a big screen comes down to cover the whole back of the stage. This is used to show the iconic red credits, display secret government documents, as well as to do drone shot flyovers of Hawkins, and to represent the dark upside down area. The upside down looked fantastic, typically introduced with two bright red horizontal bars coming down and then up again over the stage. At times a body double of Henry is used, so that he can be at once in the real world wearing a blindfold, and in the upside down interacting with characters. Occasionally cast members will appear in the audience, such as people in hazmat suits comedically examining random audience members belongings. 

I was impressed with the horror here. Being before the upside down proper the cool demogorgons only make a token appearance. There was a neat prologue set in the 1940's that featured one, and later a few are shown on TV screens in the lab. Henry being Vecna means he gets to do some of the stuff that character does. There was an impressive part when a cat flies up into the air, and then while suspended its limbs all snap with gnarly sound effects, the second act this is repeated but with a human. Obviously a dummy used both times, but I admit I didn't spot the swap between actor and dummy. There are plenty of times characters are suspended in mid air, I never once saw wires attached to the actors, so these always took my by surprise when they are suddenly psychically lifted up. There are a few jump scares, and moments of humour, and also the inclusion of blood. My favourite part was when a mouse in a cage was exploded, and another part where a test subject with a white hood over their face suddenly has blood dripping from where the eyes would be under the sheet. The very best effect comes towards the play end in which we watch a character fall from a great height, but created in slow motion, hard to describe but it looked so fantastic.

I loved Stranger Things: The First Shadow. It might not really add to much to the existing lore that hadn't been mentioned in the show itself, but it was delightful seeing such high quality special effects, and most importantly, it felt like Stranger Things despite being mainly set in the late 1950's rather than the eighties. If you get the chance to see this, it is well worth a watch, excellent stuff.

SCORE:

Campton Manor (2024) - Horror Film Review

A big admission before starting this review of Campton Manor in that I often do other small admin jobs while sat in my office watching films occasionally. The task I set out to do on my second monitor ended up taking me nearly an hour, so I was only able to give this movie my full attention from that point onwards. Directed by Cat Hostick and written by Stephen Wallis, this supernatural horror told its story in an intriguing fashion, making for something that little bit more different.

Teddy (Shawn Roberts - Here for Blood, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) is a horror author and someone who also has the special ability to both see and interact with dead people. At the behest of a mysterious client named Jack (Jason London - The Rage: Carrie 2), he is asked to visit the long derelict titular Campton Manor, a place that during a party many decades back had an unsolved mass incident in which the guests all died, seemingly of heart attacks. Together Teddy and Jack head to the mansion, where Teddy finds himself supernaturally back in time, conversing with the many ghosts of the partygoers and staff, in order to finally solve the mystery of what happened that fateful night. But things are not exactly as they may appear to be...

The meat of the film here is conversations between various characters, with a slight vibe of The Shining. Not so much the horror side of things, more conversing with people from the past who seem amused to be dead. I really liked that the majority of the characters are not only ghosts, but they seem delightfully aware of that fact. They are doomed to repeat the events of the fateful night for eternity, but seem aware they are playing out their roles time and time again. It leads to a lot of fun conversations where they state things while having a hidden twinkle in their eyes. Best of these characters was Walter Borden as the bartender and Kenneth Welsh (The Void, Survival of the Dead) as Lawrence, the owner of the mansion. It was nice to see Julian Richings (Hall, Blood Hunters) in a side role. Teddy and Jack were both decent leads, and I liked the Shutter Island style direction the plot went into for its third act, was most unexpected for me.

While there are ghosts-a-plenty, the horror is kept to a minimum, the ghosts here aren't some terrifying evil, but act more like normal people, some good, some selfish, others angry, but all acting like humans rather than monsters. The core part of the plot, discovering how everyone came to die that night, wasn't that interesting. The story became focussed on the catalyst for the terror that was to come, and when that was revealed it was very underwhelming. I did enjoy the time period, with the ghostly party taking place in the 1920's, so a real period feel to the piece. There are small moments of action, with a couple of decent enough fight scenes mixed in, and an ever present constant transition between the present day the film takes place in (I believe the 1950's) and the 1920's, which looked effective on screen.

Campton Manor was well made, and it told an enjoyable story. It may have not really hit the landing in terms of telling something completely unexpected, but the idea of having most the cast be ghosts was pretty cool. The award winning Campton Manor is set for Vudu TVOD release on May 7th.

SCORE:

Terrible Things (2021) - Short Post-Apocalyptic Film Review

Terrible Things is a post-apocalyptic short horror film that is currently streaming on ARROW, the streaming subscription service. Written and directed by Ciarán Hickey (Callus), this had quality in spades, though the ten minute story did feel a little bit disjointed.

Claire J. Loy (Beyond the Woods) stars as 'The Wanderer', the sole character to be found here. In an ash chocked post-apocalyptic Ireland she wanders the wasteland doing her best to survive in the new dead world. She eventually comes face to face with what may have been part of the reason for the apocalypse.

This short looked fantastic, with Loy in a gasmask and coveralls out in the misty and ash filled landscape it all looked tremendous. After a brief external prologue, the key scene in terms of dialogue comes when she has sought refuge at an abandoned house. Her dialogue gave life to the dead world, such as when she talks about how children now want to hear fantastical stories about birdsong and being outside in the sunshine, rather than about things like fairies and unicorns. During this exchange she is talking to a burnt out corpse, which helps show the desolate loneliness her character must be feeling. Without spoiling things, the final third of this ten minute horror has her back outside, where she encounters something that looked great on camera.

The costume design and the exterior visual effects were both tremendous. It seem a bit abrupt the seamless transition from wasteland to interior, with the middle dialogue heavy part of this not really feeling that well connected to the rest. Overall though, Terrible Things had a really good look to it, and the story left me wanting to know more about this dead world.

SCORE:

Protanopia (2024) - Horror Film Review

In hindsight, watching the very arty Protanopia after just three hours of sleep the night before was perhaps not the wisest decision I've made. A good indication that a film's theme and story has totally been lost on you is reading the synopsis after having watched it and not recognising anything it talks about.
A quick search of the word protanopia reveals it is a type of colour blindness in which the person is unable to perceive any 'red' light, I'm not sure how that fits into anything.
This Matthew Mahler (What Jack Built) written and directed horror may have gone completely over my head, but it did have some really stand-out aspects to it that kept me along for the ride. I will include both what I had thought the film was about, as well as what the general synopsis stated it was about in this review.

Luke's (Anthony Carey) step-sister has gone missing while under his care, and so he hasn't been able to concentrate on his job as a writer. The Detective in charge of the case (John Heerlein) starts to suspect that Luke may be involved somehow. Meanwhile, Alan (Timothy J. Cox - What Jack Built) has become the president of the local neighbourhood committee after the death of his father. Here he finds himself in conflict with Janice (Paula Mahler), a busybody woman who obviously believes she should be the president of the committee. Their first order of business is to help search for a missing woman from the next town over.
The synopsis states that after Luke's sister goes missing he begins to have dreams of a strange house. The house is owned by Alan, and he appears to take care of the property in strange and unusual ways.

This was both very indie and very art house in its style. Despite the low budget look to much of this, the editing and camera effects were both very impressive, even if they did help in adding to my confusion. There are tints of various colours applied over the film, blue, green, and indeed red tints (I guess I must not suffer from protanopia to see that!), and often the film uses an effect of characters moving in weird frames, with after images of their movements staying behind for a few seconds constantly. 
The very best part of the film was the sound design. Both sound effects, general audio, and especially the music were fantastic, most impressive. There was nothing to complain about in that regard, with the music just perfectly fitting the surreal vibe. A highlight for me was roughly halfway into the seventy five minutes movie where Luke (in what I assume is a dream sequence) encounters his missing sister singing am atmospheric song, with her face distorted.

I would say my personal biggest issue with this is that I just could not follow what on earth was happening. It seemed that Luke and Alan's stories were both taking place at the same place, though reading the synopsis afterwards it seems much of Luke's side of the film takes place within the context of a dream. It appeared that the house was perhaps sentient, either that or Alan was quite disturbed, as at several points he is shown talking to the twisted ghost of his father. The constant use of an insert shot of some type of rotting animal carcass with bugs crawling over during the first part of Alan's side of the film was a bit off putting, it wasn't really for me, but Alan himself was a strange character who was fun to see simply existing. I don't really understand where the story went, or what it was really trying to say, the IMDB tagline simply says 'A surreal horror film about greed and masculinity in American suburbia'.

On the one hand, Protanopia was quite impressive. From the somewhat basic text font used it is obvious this was low budget, but this is hidden very well with the variety of visual effects used constantly throughout. Then there is the soundtrack that was just perfect. I am hit and miss when it comes to more arty films, and as is apparent, I just could not follow what was happening here, leaving me confused, but not frustrated with the movie.

SCORE:

Silence of the Prey (2024) - Horror Film Review

A lot of the films I have been watching for review lately have turned out to be quite good, thankfully that trend continues with the Karyna Kudzina and Michael Vaynberg co-directed Silence of the Prey (Kudzina also co-writing this alongside Saro Varjabedian as well as starring). This was the first horror I have seen that directly references the awful war going on in Ukraine, while also taking a critical look at certain American's viewpoint of immigrants in their country. The film states it is inspired by true events, how much this is true who knows, regardless the stark statistics about missing undocumented people that plays at film's end at least suggest something like this could potentially have happened .

Nina (Kudzina) is an undocumented immigrant who is in the USA with her young daughter Isabella (Isabella Bezell), having fled her home country of Belarus due to getting into trouble for protesting against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. She has the luck of getting in contact with a charity who have a network of people sympathetic to undocumented immigrants. These people are happy to offer the illegal immigrants paid work and lodgings when no one else would. Nina is matched with Luther (Chris LaPanta - John Wick: Chapter 2), an eccentric old man who lives on a remote property out in the country, there she is to be his caretaker. There is something strange about Luther though, and while she is grateful to be given this opportunity, a variety of red flags begin to have her questioning her apparent safety.

The film looks fantastic, with the camera work, the pacing, and the editing of the film all delighting. There is a relatively small cast, ten in total, though for much of the run time it is just Nina, Isabella and Luther. Normally I don't rate child actors, but Bezell was fantastic in her role, it never seemed like she was acting, and she brings with her a real innocence, even more trusting in her environment than her overly thankful mother. Kudzina was also great, having an outsiders perspective, she is hesitant to believe that things really are not normal with Luther, with it seeming she is explaining things away internally by not understanding the culture she now finds herself in. Then there is LaPanta who was fantastic as the perhaps antagonist. The amount of times he would be creepily staring at Nina, or suddenly appearing out of nowhere was a lot, but he had a kind of style to how he acted that you could never really tell his intentions. Usually he is very polite, occasionally snapping and revealing a bit of his true nature. He is someone who sees the balance of nature being very important, with his home adorned with antlers and mounted deer heads.

This wasn't a story that I hadn't seen before, though it did have a spin on things to make it that bit different. Spell was the movie that most came to mind, another film where the protagonist finds themself in a seemingly innocent situation, but with the sense that everything really is not ok. It isn't too much of a spoiler (what with this being a horror and everything) that there is horror that lays in store for Nina. This is breadcrumbed throughout, from the ever locked basement that strange noises sometimes come from, to the large barn that is kept locked, and which Luther sternly tells the woman never to go into. That breadcrumbing is present for the first two acts, before the final act devolves into the terror that had been bubbling under the surface the whole time. I liked how long Silence of the Prey held its hand for, with it never seeming like it was dragging despite only the occasional glimpse into hidden darkness.
Being based in the UK, I look with worry at the division that seems to be trying to tear the US apart. The antagonist figure here seems to be playing into some of those rotten views that some people in that country hold. It does lead to some moments of humour, such as at a small dinner party Luther holds, with one of the guests so inward looking that they had thought Belarus was a city in Ukraine much to Nina's bemusement.
Effects are used sparingly, but when they are called for they looked pretty decent, with a decent amount of blood being shown. As for the soundtrack, it was mostly decent, though one of the more urgent themes reminded me a lot of the main theme from the 28 Days Later films which was slightly distracting.

Despite a slight feeling of familiarity to the story, I found myself getting increasingly engaged with the plot, and I was pleased with the direction it decided to go into for the cathartic finale. This was a well made and entertaining film whose modern day issues didn't feel tacked on in a cheap way. Silence of the Prey released on April 2nd on VOD and digital platforms in the United States, UK/Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

SCORE:

Dead Island: Riptide - Definitive Edition (2016) - Zombie Horror Video Game Review (Xbox One)

You have to feel sorry for the Dead Island series of first person survival horror zombie video games. The release of Dying Light in 2015 really took the wind out of its sails, an extremely similar game but looking better, controlling better, and having a better story to it. Dead Island will always hold a special place in my heart though, when I first re-discovered the person who would become my best friend, she was raving about a Dead Island novel, completely unaware it had been based on a game.
With Dead Island 2 recently heading to Xbox Game Pass I figured it was about time I caught up with the story of the previous games I had yet to play. Dead Island: Riptide was a confusing entry when it first came out. While it seemed to be a sequel to the first game, the lack of a number '2' led to many people (myself included) unsure if this was a new game or a definitive version of the first game. Speaking with a friend about this recently, he summed it up perfectly, describing it as a stand-alone expansion. I also felt at the time that I wasn't sure if I wanted to return to the world of the game so soon after having completed the first, especially as this really did look like it was more of the same. Spoilers for Dead Island to follow.

I do love it when a sequel picks up immediately after the end of the first, and that is very much what happens here. Having left the zombie infested island of Banoi in a helicopter, the four survivors (Xian Mei, Logan, Purna and Sam.B) find their chopper running out of fuel, spying a military vessel they decide to land on it. Their relief is short lived when they find themselves being imprisoned below deck once it is known they are immune so that experiments can be performed on them. Knocked unconscious while resisting, they awaken some time later to find the ship overrun with the undead. Out of control, the ship has crashed into the nearby island of Palanai where the survivors discover to their dismay that the zombie virus has also ravaged this place. Forming an uneasy alliance with Colonel Hardy (the person who was in charge of the ship), the group make it their aim to travel to a military base in the nearby city of Henderson, where it is hoped they will finally find sanctuary.

It may be a new island this sequel takes place on, but it is very much business as usual. Unlike the first game that was split into a variety of areas, this time there are two main ones, the flooded jungle and the city of Henderson. It took me around fifteen hours to complete this, with about two thirds of the game being in the jungle, with the city both smaller in size and with less missions to it, though very well designed. My initial thoughts were very negative. Despite playing the Xbox One 'Definitive Edition' the game still looked very ugly. Even worse were sound issues that led to characters constantly speaking over each other in cutscenes, and music that would get stuck and keep repeating the same few bars over and over again. I played the game as Xian Mei as I did previously, but it doesn't really matter what character you pick as you only really get proper story in the cutscenes. 

The focus is mainly on melee weapons that you can get blueprints to upgrade at work benches to do all manner of status effects, such as poison, fire, and electricity. There is a big skill tree that soon has you much stronger, being split into three segments, the rage metre part (once a bar is filled up you basically become invincible for a limited time), the attack part, and the healing part. Fighting zombies is a load of fun, you lop off limbs and heads constantly. There were 'boss' style undead as well, but when it is so easy to run past these rather than fight them, their inclusion felt a bit pointless. The big new thing for Riptide is the defence missions, where you and A.I survivors must survive against waves of zombies attacking wherever your current base happens to be. To help you can set up electrified fences and gun turrets, but this is all very slight and unexciting. At least, despite being a bunch of these they were all easy to complete.

The meat of the game has you completing a variety of quests and side quests in order to make your way to Henderson and find safety. The side quests take you to optional areas, but the quests themselves were unexciting and felt like far more could have been done with them. The core story was fine, but unexciting, your mission to safety had already been done better in Dead Island, so it felt like things were just repeating here. There was nothing that occurs here that felt remotely original or compelling, I didn't care about any of the characters, and it leads up to a final boss fight that didn't feel like a great way to end the game. Dead Island: Riptide hasn't aged too poorly, it does look dated, but gameplay wise it is perfectly fine. This only really exists for people who loved the first game and wanted more. The setting felt familiar but not as fun to traverse, with less interesting looking areas, the story was a low effort repeat, and the revelations about the source of the virus were very generic. Least it is out of the way now, so will move onto apparently terrible prequel, Escape Dead Island, which I am going to have to dig out my Playstation 3 to play.

SCORE:

Basket Case (1982) - Comedy Horror Film Review

A fair while ago, before I even started doing this blog well over a decade ago, I got a DVD boxset of the Frank Henenlotter (Frankenhooker) written and directed Basket Case 2 and Basket Case 3. While I enjoyed them, I always wondered what the first entry in the series was like. This was before I had the internet easily accessible and so I had to try and work out what had happened myself rather than be able to read any kind of plot guide. With Basket Case both getting a 4K UHD Blu-ray release, and streaming in 4K on ARROW, the streaming subscription service for the first time ever, I jumped at the chance to finally have a decent excuse to check out this classic comedy horror.
Apologies for the state of this review, I first wrote it on a notepad earlier today during my lunch break at work, and due to having to go back to my day job, I had to rush it a bit.

Duane Bradley (Kevin VanHentenryck - the Basket Case series) is a young man with a mission that has taken him to New York. He hides within a wicker basket that he carries with him everywhere a terrible secret. As a child he was born with a conjoined twin attached to his side. This heavily deformed twin that came to be named Belial, exists only as an oversized head with two short arms attached to it. Separated in a procedure that Duane was given no choice in, Belial was believed dead, but unknown to the doctors, Duane rescued him and has looked after him ever since. Now Duane has headed to New York at the behest of Belial, in order for them both to be able to get bloody revenge on the people who separated them from each other. While in the city however, Duane befriends a receptionist he meets, a development that doesn't sit well with the possessive Belial.

Described as a comedy horror, Basket Case is a classic horror movie that certainly appeared better than what my memories of the sequels were. The relationship between the two bizarre brothers is at the hear of the movie, and for a mostly static puppet there is a surprisingly good report between the two. Despite Duane appearing relatively normal (outside of a huge scar on his side), he has an obvious lack of social skills, and to many it appears his innocence of how to operate in the city will be his downfall. Belial is always around though, and despite not being able to talk out of guttural screams, he has a psychic connection to his brother that allows him to communicate silently with him. This ability isn't reciprocated though, and so Duane's constant one sided arguments with his brother leads to plenty of amusing chaotic scenes.
The story is split mainly between the madcap goings on at the seedy hotel the pair are staying in (full of a large collection of eccentric characters, with Robert Vogel as the hotel manager being my favourite), Duane's growing relationship with the receptionist Sharon (Terri Susan Smith), and the more horror based crazy kill scenes.

As far as Belial goes, while he never looked amazing, he had a lot of charm to him. He appears as a puppet, with just his eyes and mouth moving. He is occasionally shown moving around on his own, with jerky stop-motion effects used to display this, but more often than not he is in the arms of other characters, whether it is his victims who are spinning around the room as he is apparently attacking them, or Duane himself carrying him around. These moments of attacking people never looked realistic at all, but leads to plenty of great looking claw wounds and lots of blood, due to Belial being very strong with his sharp teeth and claws. Some of these kills looked great, such as a couple of victims who are sliced in half, and one poor soul whose face is shoved into a drawer full of sharp scalpels!

There were moments of comedy, but other than the look of Belial and the scenes involving him, this did feel more like a horror than a comedy horror for the most part. While there were some laugh out loud moments (including a particularly painful looking testicle lift!), the seedy look of early eighties New York was represented well, with run down hotels, drug dealers, sex shops and hookers. The story was pretty simple, but I thought the film had a good pace to it. It even saw fit to include a five minute or so flashback sequence that took place back when Duane was twelve in the middle of the movie. That made for a lovely little diversion. Special mention goes to the wonderful soundtrack, it really added a lot, especially in the finale.

I really enjoyed Basket Case, it felt like a stone cold cult classic that had a really unique feel and style to it. Full of interesting characters and fun ideas, this was a real blast from beginning to end. Basket Case will be available on 4K UHD Blu-ray and streaming in 4K on ARROW from 30th April.

SCORE:

Haunted: The Audio Drama - Season 2 (2023-24) - Horror Audio Drama Review

I loved season one of Haunted: The Audio Drama and so was excited when I heard it was going to continue into a second season. I wondered how a second season would fare, as the core plotline of season one; investigating a signal that had the ability to send homicidally mad anyone who hears it was such a cool thing. I feared that like many subsequent seasons of shows, that the focus would fall onto exploring the hidden backstory of one of the cast. This is exactly what did happen, but it was more engaging than I gave it credit for. While the overarching story this season wasn't as good as last time around, this was still a wonderful show that I only had a few complaints about. Unavoidable spoilers for the first season to follow.

This season is split over thirty eight episodes that take place over nine interlinked but separate stories. After the events involving the signal, paranormal enthusiast Abigail Corbin (voiced by Isabella Barbieri) has gone on a road trip with jaded alcoholic paranormal investigator James Hunter (Jamie Evans) and police officer Dan Cowell (Luke Hunter). Their aim is to locate James' former partner Karl Trevino and stop whatever evil plan he has came up with. They soon learn that the man aims to destroy the shady organisation who him and James had been captured by as children. Along the way James discovers revelations about his past that causes an ever growing rift between him and his partners, as well as what the true intentions of the organisation really are.

I needn't have worried about how they would come up with ideas for a second season, even if at times they seem to be be heavily influenced by Resident Evil. There are several lines taken from that game and used like Easter Eggs, at one point someone says the iconic line "Blood! I hope this is not Chris' blood", in the 'The Cry of the Abyss', the story here is basically Resident Evil 4 but set on a mysterious island, with a character questioning at one point if the relentless villagers who suddenly call off their attack have all gone to bingo, much like Leon Kennedy questioned in that game.
The idea of a time loop was played with before, and here you instead have time travel with 'Presque Vu' that finds Abigail back in time during a haunted pub crawl. The idea of pocket dimensions is introduced, and these were always fun episodes. The highlight of the pocket dimension ones being mid-season finale 'Darkness Falls' that sees our heroes discovering an apartment block full of vampires hidden away in an abandoned town.

Variation to the formula creates some different feeling episodes. Two-parter 'What the Spirit Saw' was guest written by Marc Smith. Perhaps the weakest of the stories here, but at least it was only two episodes. I thought 'Triptych' had a great idea to it, with Abigail and James relegated to background characters, with Dan brought to the forefront. I really didn't expect Dan to be that great an addition to the main cast, but I enjoyed his growth over the season. Having him interact with a mysterious woman, Eliza Wu, whose motives appear unknown over the course of the season was fun and gave his character more to do than just arguing with James and Abigail. I can't say I really liked the ultimate path his character took, with him getting duped painfully easily towards the end of the season in penultimate story 'Divergence'.
The season seemed to be leading up to revelations about James' lost past, but while there were indeed revelations, these were very heavily signposted, and so didn't land with as much impact as they could have. It culminates in season finale 'The Children of Little Hope', while this wasn't as dramatic and action packed as the season one finale, it still left on enough of a cliff-hanger that again I am intrigued to see where the show goes next.

For people who haven't listened to season one, this isn't going to be a good point to drop in. Many of the stories fed into each other, but I thought the show could be at its best with its more stand-alone moments. My favourite story of the who season was one of these, 'The Dark Menagerie' which had the protagonists under attack from a possessed doll that was basically Annabelle from The Conjuring universe, with versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren also appearing here to give a neat twist on what you would expect out of this.
I loved listening to this continuing story each week, and while some of the voice actors were not as good as others, for the most part the voice work is excellent, and the stories told wonderfully, so that it is easy to picture the events that are taking place. With two more seasons to come, I am excited for the future of Haunted: The Audio Drama.

SCORE:

Night Shoot (2024) - Horror Film Review

From the brief synopsis of the terribly titled Night Shoot I figured this was going to be a found footage movie, but it turned out to be a more traditional shot film that used elements from that sub-genre of horror. Written, directed and co-starring Taylor Katsanis, this featured a likable cast of characters, some intimidating antagonists, and some excellent pacing.

A group of art students tasked with creating a documentary have decided it will be about a homeless person encampment out in the woods near to their college. The group, made up of Elisha (Alexia Bailey - Barney & Friends TV show), newcomer Troy (Zach Ball - The Walking Dead TV series), sound operator Niko (Katsanis), leader of the group Zach (Derek Evans - The Walking Dead TV series), and actress Olivia (Andrea Vertuca) initially plan to do 'a day in the life of' style documentary about the homeless, focussing on the eccentric and likeable people they find living there. Thinking of fame and fortune, Zach decides he wants to go down a darker path, and begins to insist that they go to the encampment at night, hoping to put a dark spin on the story. Unknown to the group is the fact that three psychotic wandering homeless people (played by Eddie Davenport, Ken Jackson and Truly Magyar) happen to be in the area, and are none too impressed with the college kids intrusion.

One of the things I really liked about Night Shoot was how it was paced out. The film is full of mini-title cards, mainly detailing what day of the shoot it is. I liked how there is a definite feeling of unease when they are at the camp, but that at the end of each day they head back home to safety. You can sense the increasing tension that something bad is going to happen to them, but I was impressed with how deep into the film it gets before things really begin to fall apart for them. I'm used to annoying protagonists in films lately, so it was nice to have a cast of characters that for the most part were fun people. I thought that Troy was the best of these, the film begins following him on his first day in college, and while he is a jock, he soon integrates him well into the documentary group, I loved his interactions with them. Most interesting was Zach, who has a bit of a stereotypical super serious student director type vibe to him. He had a bit of a heel-turn due to his controlling ways, leading up to some really fun moments with his character later on. Special mention goes to Jason Francisco Blue (Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water TV mini-series) as Officer Hodges, a fun role.
Despite the three psycho characters being the root of most the horror that happens here, I thought it was cool how much of an impact they are able to make with barely any screen time. They get a few scenes at the beginning of the movie to show how murderously crazed they are, and then they only pop up a couple of times more. Even in the final twenty minutes their on-screen time is very short. They left a big impression however. The Man (Davenport) is the leader of the trio, he is full of threats and malice. Then you have The Boy (Jackson) who mainly stands around with his old style camera looking very creepy. Best of them was Thin Woman (Magyar) who looked freaky as Hell, by far the most unsettling character in the film. These were great bad guys, and being under used really worked in making them feel more of a threat than if they were constantly on camera.

While mainly shot traditionally, there was about five percent of the film that was shown via found footage captured footage. This was always great stuff, especially liked the part right towards the end of the film. There was a mild body count to be found, with victims usually dying in a way that looked good on camera, but the effects were not over the top. Favourite kill had to be someone who was stabbed while they were smoking, with the smoke they had inhaled then blowing out of the wound in their neck!
The film did a good job of keeping you guessing who would survive and who wouldn't, with some surprising moments that played with viewers expectations. It leads up to a enjoyable finale, with some entertaining scenes playing out next to the end credits.

When the worst thing about your movie is the title then you are onto something good. I thought Night Shoot was an excellent horror that took what could have been a generic story and transformed it into something really entertaining. A great cast of actors, and a neat story created something that felt that little bit special. Night Shoot was released on Vudu TVOD on 3rd April.

SCORE:

Hunting for the Hag (2023) - Horror Film Review

Hunting for the Hag is the third and final horror film I am watching for review today (at the time of typing). Coincidentally all three films have revolved around the use of social media, something that seems in vogue at the moment. This Paul A. Brooks directed and co-written horror uses a blend of traditional film making and found footage. I stated in my review of Dagr that I was quite in the mood for found footage, that itch had been sated by the time I rolled around to watching this one.

The film opens with Tara (Jasmine Williams) at a police station being interviewed by a lawyer (Daniel Roebuck - 3 From Hell, Phantasm: Ravager) about a tragic event in her recent past that she was the sole survivor of. Tara insists that rather than question her, he should instead watch a video she has edited together from footage her and her friends had shot. That footage is then where the story moves to.
Tara, Beth (Alexa Maris) and Candy (Sierra Renfro - The Last Exorcist) had headed to Illinois, to the location where a woman accused of being a witch was said to have been killed by angry villagers hundreds of years back, and whose evil spirit now curses the land there. The girls plan to make a documentary about the topic for a school project. On the night they visit the supposed site of the historical murder the girls are attacked and taken hostage by three local rednecks, angry Ray (Thomas A. Jackson), cowardly Danny (Brooks), and friendly Clint (Steve Christopher). When it seems like things can't get any worse for the girls, it starts to seem like the legends of the witch might hold some truth to them after all.

In the press release there is a quote from Brooks stating 'I wanted to make a horror movie that toys with your expectations.' In that respect, he does exactly what he stated. This started out feeling like it was going to be a traditional supernatural based found footage. The first thirty seven minutes are purely that, lots of fake camera glitches, characters constantly jump scaring each other, and some really grainy footage. I had my fill of that type of horror with Dagr earlier today, so I wasn't in the mood for more of the same. Much like that movie, this one improves when the slow opening is finally done with. I have to say, the shift into home invasion was something I didn't expect, and it is relatively rare still to get home invasion found footage films. The three antagonists were horrid people, but I liked the actors playing them. I didn't think much of the protagonists. I found their interactions with each other to not feel natural, and it does the terrible thing of characters instantly getting over allegedly close friends deaths, upset for all of a second before acting like that event hadn't even happened. That's not a spoiler, as one thing I did really like was having sole survivor Tara in the prologue instead of the typical black screen with on-screen text saying the footage had been recovered.
The movie culminates in an epilogue that was kind of ridiculous, I can't decide if I was there for that particular twist or not, but was something that I hadn't expected.

The on-screen violence was ok looking, aside from one death scene that was fantastically crazy. Much of the film is in found footage format, there is the prologue and epilogue scenes shot traditionally, and there is a ten minute stretch towards the end of the second act that was filmed normally. The rest is shot with shaky hand cameras, hard to see grainy footage and no end of irritating camera glitches. As much as I hated this style of showing the film, it made the true antagonist looked much better than if they had just appeared on traditional camera. Being chased by a crazy person in a first person perspective is so much more effective than being shown in third person after all. The make-up design for that villain really wasn't the best, but the grainy footage did much to hide that. Better were the sound effects, some really chilling screams are to be found in this film.

Hunting for the Hag has moments of found footage methods that should have been left in the past. Occasionally however there are moments of greatness to be found here also. Look past the bland cookie-cutter protagonists and you have a passable horror whose biggest crime was dedicating so much time to not much at all in the lengthy first act. Hunting for the Hag was released throughout the US and Canada on April 2nd.

SCORE:

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

I'm back with another beginner's experience of playing as a killer in the asynchronous multiplayer game Dead by Daylight. For March, the killer I randomly chose to try was The Cannibal, better known to all as Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series of films. They kind of shot themselves in the foot regarding this type of character, as The Hillbilly was an original creation from the team behind the game who was their blatant stand-in for Leatherface and released long before this killer (before they were able to get that licence). As such, Leatherface is the second killer to rely on a chainsaw, and so he had to act differently to The Hillbilly.

I really wanted to spend more time playing as the killer this month, after only playing as Wesker three times last month. Leatherface arrived with 'Chapter 5.5: Leatherface', and consists solely of the killer himself. The lore based backstory has Leatherface entering the entities realm right at the end of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. He goes from being scared that the escaped victim is going to call the police on him and his family, to fear at finding himself in the new realm. Determined not to fail the entity like he believes he failed his family, Leatherface realises immediately what he has to do.

I can't say I was that great at using Leatherface, but I still enjoyed playing as him better than I did Wesker. His default weapon is a sledge hammer he effortlessly wields, his special ability being of course the iconic chainsaw. When activated, Leatherface moves forward slightly faster, swinging the chainsaw side to side. If you hit an object while using the weapon, Leatherface goes into an uncontrollable tantrum where he wildly swings it around for a few seconds. What I really liked about this ability was that it is an instant down if it connects with a player. He may be slow, but there were many times I was able to easily down players trying to escape. His special perks are a mixed bag, one of them causes players to drop any items they are carrying when they are hit, another causes players to get the blindness status when hit, while the final one, 'Barbecue & Chilli' allows Leatherface to see the auras of all players for four seconds after he hooks a survivor. Many of his add-ons revolve around changing elements of the chainsaw attack slightly.

Being a licenced killer, his alternate costumes were limited. As I hadn't played as him before, I spent the month with his iconic default look (the mask made out of human flesh and the butchers apron). I only managed to play five games as him, the final one I was a bit cheeky as I had a secret perk to gain the ability to kill survivors after hooking them twice. This led to be killing three of the four survivors, each time I got a fun animation of me clubbing them to the ground with my sledge hammer, before sticking the chainsaw right the way through them and bringing it upwards.
I had fun with the killer, but all these months in and the game still hasn't really clicked with me. There is a reason I don't play it much during the month, and that is down to still not really being comfortable with how to properly play in an effective way. Next month's killer is to be The Hag, one of the original killers released for Dead by Daylight. Check back around this time next month to see how I got on using her.

Dagr (2024) - Horror Film Review

Dagr (Welsh for 'Dagger') is a British found footage horror film that is set in Wales, directed and co-written by Matthew Butler-Hart. It describes itself as a comedy horror film, but I think that is being a bit down on itself, and would state this is just horror. Being quarter Welsh myself I always like seeing films set in that part of the world. It had been a while since I had last watched a found footage, and while this does fall into some of the issues the genre is known for, when this finally gets going it wasn't bad at all.

Louise (Riz Moritz - stunt work on The Witcher) and Thea (Ellie Duckles) are two social media personalities who have fame of a kind from their many videos which I guess they would dub 'social experiments', but in fact is just them doing anti-social behaviour, low level crimes, and thievery. For their latest video they are pretending to be catering staff for the cast and crew of an advert being shot at a remote Welsh mansion. The aim is to steal as much as they can, while also getting plenty of footage of them being around the cast and crew. When they finally arrive late to the mansion there is no one else to be found there. Discovering some discarded camera equipment they decide to watch the day's footage and they are surprised by the haunting events they discover. Thea is convinced it is all part of a prank being played on them, but Louise becomes increasingly convinced that all is not right.

With forty minutes of runtime before the horror begins, this fell into an all too familiar trap of the genre. I understand that we need to get to know the protagonists, but having them spend almost two thirds of the movie not really doing anything other than driving around and making silly videos wasn't the best use of the time here. It is a shame as the film really picks up quite rapidly once they eventually arrive at the mansion. To counter this at least was the cool idea of having a second found footage story also going on. There is the usual blurb at the film's start stating that the footage being presented has been edited together by the police, maybe a bit too professionally edited, but it made for some nice pacing. Louise and Thea were terrible people, so obsessed with social media that they don't really care about the crimes they commit. They state it is to poke holes at the rich, yet they themselves hardly look poor themselves.

For around twenty minutes Dagr is at its peak, sublime and wonderful to watch. Then it goes slightly too far the other way, with the final ten minutes or so containing more confused shaky camera work out in the darkness.

The second story follows the cast and crew at the mansion as they go about filming their advert. These scenes are mixed in with those of Louise and Thea and appear to be running concurrently. Once at the mansion this subplot then becomes something the protagonists start to watch alongside the viewer, with both of us shown the much more horror based events at the same time. The idea of the characters arriving at a place where true horror has only recently taken place was such a cool thing. Having them stood around in the same rooms where this horror has occurred helped build up the tension. I thought the way the plot and the subplot intersected was nicely done. The use of other characters discovering found footage was interesting, we even get a third found footage moment where an old videotape from the late 90's starts playing.
The horror is supernatural, with it revolving around a cult. There are the usual camera glitches to indicate something is not right, with doors opening and closing on their own, and split second images of robed figures appearing on the footage. I absolutely loved how the cultists were shown, they seemed to be at a different frame to the rest of the footage, leading to jerky, vaguely stop motion movement from them. Their constant chanting however, I could never really decide if it fell on the cheesy side of things, or if it was a bit creepy.

When it finally gets going, Dagr was a lot of fun. I enjoyed how the two separate found footage films mixed together, and how it played slightly with the version of events being presented to the viewer. It was a heck of a slow build up to this, I can't but help this first part was a bit self indulgent and slow in places. I get that is all the process of trying to make it like like the footage is real, to make the more strange events all the more freaky, but I did get a bit bored in that large first part. When it comes together there was a lot to enjoy here, it helped I was in the mood for a found footage. Dagr is set for release on digital platforms on April 8th from Studio Dome (formally Entertainment Squad).

SCORE: