Phantoms (1998)

Part of the 90's teen horror fad, Phantoms is one of the best teen horrors released in that decade. Starring a young Ben Affleck,  Liev Schreiber, and Joanna Going. The film is set in a small mountain town in Colorado. 150 of the towns folk are dead and 350 are missing. Joanna Going and her sister return to the small town (their home town) to find the place deserted. They soon find Ben Affleck (the towns sheriff) and Liev Schreiber his deputy.

The group roam around the small town trying to figure out has happened to its population. The film reminds me a bit of The Andromeda Strain -- with the eery , dark atmosphere of the deserted town. Strange things start happening to the group of survivors, they start finding piles of jewelry that appear from no where, receive strange phone calls, and a giant bat-like creature attacks them. 

Eventually the army arrives, along with Peter O'Toole. O'Toole is a journalist and paranormal investigator of sorts, he believes the town is infected by an ancient evil for that has existed inside the earth for million of years . 

O'Tooles performance, as always, out classes the rest of the cast. Affleck is good as well, and Phantoms remains my favorite Affleck performance. The army send a team of scientists and marines in to try and kill the creature. Things soon go wrong and the creature starts to infect the scientists by injecting them with a  black oil like goo that turns them into pawns of the giant melevilent creature. 

The special effects are quiet good, with some decent CGI for the time. The script was original and the acting from all is very good (for a teen horror anyway) O'Toole eventually comes up with a scientific method of killing the creature. It's a race against time for the few remaining survivors to kill the creature before the it escapes the town and spreads.

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V/H/S 2 (2013)

Unlike previous horror anthologies like Creepshow and Trick 'r Treat ,V/H/S 2 fails to deliver on what was a good idea.

Found footage films are usually cheap, low budget affairs, and must be done right to have the desired affect; not many films have achieved this, with the exception of  REC, REC 2, The Blair Witch Project, and The Last Broadcast. V/H/S 2  takes found footage and anthology horror and puts the two together. The result is the horror equivalent of  "You've Been Framed".

The film is basically made up of four found footage shorts, the of which is a tale about a man who has an experimental eye implant that makes him see ghosts, which is all shot in the first person perspective of his eye implant. The hole thing feels like you're playing a survival horror video game, the ghosts look like the ghosts in games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. The digital interference that keeps cutting into the display of his implant video, is cheap and video game looking. The film just follows him around his house trying to get away from the comically bad looking ghosts that aren't scary at all. Its just a really silly and boring film.

The second film is basically like a bad episode of  The Walking Dead, in which a man (conveniently wearing a helmet cam) sets out on a bike ride through the woods, and is suddenly attacked by a pack of zombies.  To cut a long story short,  he gets bitten, becomes a zombie, and runs around the woods infecting unsuspecting bikers and hikers before taking part in a blood bath at a camp site, where he and the pack of zombie tear apart a group of people celebrating a birthday party. Its all predictable, boring, and some of the acting is truly zombies-like.

This third film is about a team of journalists who go into a monastery school of some kind which is run by mad man. It turns out the loon and his followers are all devil worshipers, and intend to kill all of the journalists, besides a pregnant one, who they intend to use as a sacrifice so the devil.

I quite liked this one. Its the best episode in the film. The special effects were "ok" with some truly stomach churning moments. When the devil eventually surfaces and is let loose from the monastery, he takes chase after the only surviving journalist. When he finally catches up with him, the devil himself looks like a cheap donkey costume with horns on the head, its really comical. Overall though, this one wasn't bad at all.

The final short film, is set in a lake side house in which a group of middle-class teenagers are having a sleepover/party. The camera work is done by one of the kids as they document their exploits. They start playing pranks on each other during the night. During one such prank, a bright light suddenly engulfs the house -- coming from the direction of the lake. The house starts shacking, the lights flicker off, and then suddenly aliens with extremely long fingers burst into the house, and start terrorizing the group of teens. The aliens don't probe the idiot teens, but instead display their staggering ineptitude when it comes to kidnapping. They are within two feet of all of the group many times, but instead of grabbing or fingering them, they lightly stroke them and dance like homos. In the end no one gets fingered, the aliens go away and book some dancing lessons.

At the end of the day, V/H/S/2 is three poorly made low budget short films and one passable one. I hope the current surge of found footage films ends with this terrible example, because the fad is wearing a little thin. Don't be in a rush to see this one.

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American Psycho (2000)

Adapted from the dark and brilliant book of the same name, American Psycho is an ironic, dark, and dam right hilarious social satire.

Its central character, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), is a yuppie of 27 in Wall Street in 1986, obsessed with status symbols, self-confessedly as empty of feeling as his gleaming desk top is of honest labour.
He escorts us through his morning agenda of toilet ablutions, bathroom anointment and wardrobe adornments as if man were the sum of his beauty products.

Feeling alienated by his yuppie lifestyle, he embarks on a psychopathic killing spree: murdering colleges, homeless people, animals, and prostitutes.


His wall-flush stainless-steel refrigerator is stocked with a human head, for snacks. Before he teasingly deliberates whether to use chainsaw or nail-gun on his female victims, he treats them to an extended criticism of the CD he feels suits his slaughterous mood. Phil Collins comes off best.

The social satire and subtle critique of the yuppie culture is apparent throughout. Everyone looks the same--perfectly groomed, nice haircuts and expensive suits. They share one interest --money--and that's all they care about. Everyone is having an affair, and getting up all sorts of debauchery in private, but in public they are all respectable, well educated, pillars of society.

However, the facade of respectability is beginning to slip for Patrick Bateman. A detective begins to investigate the disappearance of the college he chopped up with an axe, and his secretory becomes concerned about his erratic behavior.

In the end though, no one suspects him of anything, even after he confesses to his lawyer. Even the detective seems to respect him, and at no point suspects him of foul-play. As far a society is concerned, Patrick Bateman remains a respectable business man. If the film proves anything, its that money talks.

 

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The Thing (1982)

The Thing is one of my favorite horror films, and in my opinion John Carpenters best. The combination of groundbreaking practical special effects, and a great script and cast, make The Thing a true classic. I must have seen the film at least forty times, and every time I've enjoyed it just as much as the first.

The plot follows a scientific research team stationed in Antarctica; who find an alien creature buried in the antarctic ice. Over the course of the film the mysterious creature begins to absorb and duplicate the team members. The tension and suspense builds slowly as the team members begin to suspect each other. They all begin to loose the plot. he The lead scientist of the team, Dr. Blair, completely looses it and destroys all the radios leaving the group stranded.

The one thing that has made the film stand out over the years are the special effects, which still hold there own against today's CGI laden affairs. The animatronics in the film are some of the best ever seen. The only film that comes close to the The Thing in terms of practical effects is Tremors (1990), another classic. There are some great gore effects in the film. The highlights being the transformations of the dogs in the kennels, and Palmer's transformation in the image above. The scene when they all cut their fingers open to draw blood always makes my skin crawl as well.

Kirk Russell plays the strongest character, Helicopter pilot M.J. MacReady. Russell's performed is superb. He takes charge towards the end, and using a test devised by the teams doctor, Dr Copper, he forces the elusive creature out into the open. Slowly the remaining team members become victims of The Thing, leaving only two left at the end. The film ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers ever. Thirty years on and The Thing is just as fresh,exiting, and trilling as ever, and is a must watch, both for horror fans and others alike.

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Contracted (2013)

This films should be used as a sex education video used to shock teenagers into using contraception, because its not very good as a horror film.

Things start off at a party at witch the main character (Samantha) and her annoying friend get very drunk while party hard through the night; with some equally annoying and stereotypical party goers -- the fat guy that everybody likes, the nerd, and the bitch that no one likes. After the party ends Samantha ends up in the back of a car having sex with some mysterious get she met.

A few days pass, and it becomes apparent Samantha is not well. Her annoying and loopy mother doesn't notice the severity of her illness, nor does her incompetent doctor until its too late. Her useless doctor speculates that she has contracted an STD.

Samantha is caught in a love triangle with her girlfriend, her friend, and some guy that keeps hitting on her at work. As her condition worsens, making her body basically rot away-- her eyes turn dark red (making her look like a Twilight vampire), her skin turns dry and grey, her hair turns grey and falls out, and her pussy becomes infested with maggots -- her girlfriend and friend keep their distance, making her turn to the guy.

The dialog throughout the film is awful. Whenever Samantha's friend says something to her, she either says: "what the fuck", "fuck" or "are you ok?". The last and most ridiculous sex scene in the film is no exception with much quotes as: "oh it feels all tingly" and "oh my god you're so wet!". 

The final result of Samantha illness is a cross between a zombie and a vampire with rotten pussy; which, by the end of the film, I feel no sympathy for -- hasn't she heard of hospitals? . The ending is boring and anticlimactic, and will leave you pissing more blood then Samantha did.

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I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

The original I Spit On Your Grave, was one of the infamous video nasties of the 70's and 80's. The remake of 2010 was even better in my opinion -- more disturbing and extreme then it 70's predecessor-- with some truly brilliant revenge scenes.

I Spit On Your Grave 2 follows the life of a budding young fashion model, Katie, who is trying to find work in New York. She stubble's upon an advert for a photo shoot were shes photographed by some eastern European creep and his friends.

One of the bunch takes a liking to her--a retarded looking looser wearing thick glasses-- remind you of anyone? Anyway, she arrives home and is attacked and raped by the aforementioned retard and his fashion photographer friends. She is knocked unconscious and the next day wakes up, hog tied, lying on a dirty mattress in a basement somewhere.

The films unfolds into a web of conspiracy and depravity, with Katie taking out her revenge in savage and brutal ways. But heres the problem, the film was basically the first I Spit On Your Grave, with different people and locations. There was nothing surprising, and the film was 90% predictable up to the point of the final revenge deaths, which were brutal and gory but at the same time completely diabolical. The way Katie finds all the instruments of torture she needs just strune around a sewer is just ridiculous, and she even manages to find an electric supply down there as well-- I mean come on!

Overall very poor, and should not have been made. I Spit On Your Grave is one of those films that should remain a singular endeavour, anything else, and you'll have the film equivalent of the Call of Duty games.

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The Colony (2013)

When I first saw the trailer for The Colony I got quite excited and I expected a new and original take on the post-apocalyptic sci-fi film.What I got was a condensed mixture of  The Day After Tomorrow, 30 Days of Night, 28 days later and The Thing, which was barely watchable.

The film is set in an ice age future where global warming has run a muck and whats left of mankind is barely surviving in underground bunkers. The leader of one such group of survivors is Briggs (played by Laurence "I should find better work" Fishburne), who must maintain his authority over his increasingly discontented second in command, Mason (played by Bill Paxton.)

I found the first hour quite interesting. The plot basically follows Briggs and a few members of his team trekking out into the wilderness to another outpost, which they lost contact a few days earlier. The trip basically involves Briggs taking on the stereotypical tough guy leader role, in which, every chance he gets, he reminisces about his tough past and the terrible things he's seen...etc..etc.truly tiresome stuff.

I don't want to give too much away, but there is a huge plot twist halfway through that completely ruins an already lackluster viewing experience. A twist so ridiculous and poorly conceived that it left me in shock and amused at the same time. To cut a long story short, there's nothing original here, only lots of snow, a shitload of climate change propaganda, a hot blonde with dreadlocks plus Laurence Fishburne.  If you've had few beers on a Saturday night and stumbled home with a kebab in hand, then this is the perfect film for you, otherwise stay well clear.

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The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring is easily one of the scariest films of the last 10 years. The film has is the complete horror package: great effects, lots of scares and great acting. The Conjuring reminds me of the great 70's horrors The Exorcist and The Omen, which weren't just good horror films, but good films in general - which made them more appealing to a broader audience.

The script is a classic haunted house story in which Paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse.

Ed Warren, collects haunted artifacts from the couples many paranormal investigations, and keeps them lock away in a specially blessed room in the their home. In the case of this house, the haunted artifact is a little girls doll.

The dark, unsettling atmosphere and constant suspense kept me on the edge of my seat in expectation of the next big scare, especially during the moments when the Warrens venture down into dark basement of the house. The scares in the film are perfectly timed to give the maximum effect.

The acting was great from all the cast with Vera Farmigi's performance standing out  for me. The majority of haunted house films tend to get a little boring, but The Conjuring was non stop thrills and scares all the way. The subtle way the story and unfolded set the perfect pace, and the final twenty minutes were truly thrilling.

The Conjuring is a breath of fresh in a stagnated horror genre, and I would highly recommend it to seasoned horror fans and others alike. Five skulls, enough said.

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Martyrs (2008)

Pound for pound, Martyrs is probably the most disturbing film I've ever seen, and also one of the best horror films of the past fifteen years.

The film starts as a blood-splattered child is found fleeing an industrial complex in 1971. Fifteen years later, she and a friend seek revenge. Some very bad shit happens. The girls plan works perfectly, resulting in the grizzly murders of a family they suspect of kidnapping the one them fifteen years prior.

However, things for the girls quickly take a turn for the worse. As it turns out the family are members of a sinister secret organization of people who enjoy inflicting enormous amounts of pain and suffering on people in secret dungeons, which doesn't bowed well for the girls.



When the organizations heavies arrive, one of the girls, Anna, ends up being imprisoned in a bunker/torture chamber. Then her long ordeal begins, during which time she becomes victim to all manor of degrading, demoralizing and torturous abuse. This period of imprisonment is where the film gets its notorious reputation from, the torture scenes are truly hard to watch, and a times left me wishing that they would just put her out of her misery.

There are curtain religious undertones in the film. The idea of purification through psychical pain is a part many religions, Christianity especially. The film, in its own extreme and graphic way, brings the questions of our mortality, god and the existence of the afterlife to light, making it a more thought provoking film then one might expect. Martyrs is a technically brilliant, emotionally resonant, disturbing, mind-bender of a film, that will stay in your head for along time after viewing.

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Alien (1979)

Many hours of my youth were spent tucked up in bed watching Alien,  with my sheets in hand ready to cover my eyes. Like most kids, I'd watch films my parents told me not to watch, and Alien was one of my favorites, and still is.

This seminal sci-fi-horror released at the end of the 70's, the decade that produced some of the greatest horror and sci-fi films, Alien remains as unique, enthralling and dam right creepy as is was thirty years ago.

The plot is rather simple: a group of workers aboard a commercial towing vessel headed back home have their journey interrupted by a mysterious transmission from a nearby planetoid. They stop to investigate, only to end up bringing an extraterrestrial threat back on board their craft.

The film is basically like a slasher movie set  in space. Alien started an entire sub-genre we now know as sci-fi horror, and has influenced countless films with its effective blend both sci-fi and horror, and is a landmark in both genres.

The first hour of the film consists of a slow build up, concentrating on tone, mood and atmosphere. As would be expected on a deep space journey, tensions between the crew members would be inevitable, hence the rather amusing exchanges between Ripley, Brett and Parker. Ripley's relationship with Captain Dallas is also turbulent at times, stemming from Ripley's sometimes pedantic adherence to protocol, but despite their little tiffs you also get the feeling that they are also really good friends.

The film is basically like a slasher movie set  in space. Alien started an entire sub-genre we now know as sci-fi horror, and has influenced countless films with its effective blend both sci-fi and horror, and is a landmark in both genres.

The first hour of the film consists of a slow build up, concentrating on tone, mood and atmosphere. As would be expected on a deep space journey, tensions between the crew members would be inevitable, hence the rather amusing exchanges between Ripley, Brett and Parker. Ripley's relationship with Captain Dallas is also turbulent at times, stemming from Ripley's sometimes pedantic adherence to protocol, but despite their little tiffs you also get the feeling that they are also really good friends.

From special effects perspective, Alien was way ahead of its time. The use of practical effects is a rarity in today's world of CGI graphics. Alien along with 'The Thing,1982' are in my opinion the two greatest examples of the use of practical specials effects, and still hold their own even by today's standards. The chest-burst scene remains as shocking and unsettling now, as when I first saw it. If the same scene were filmed today, with cheap CGI blood added afterword, the effect would just not be the same.

The cinematography is dark, moody, and really adds a level of dread to the claustrophobic service tunnels and corridors of the ship. All the sets look fantastic and gives an authentic feel a space vessel, with computers, lights, beeping noises. Everything in the ship has a dark, scratched, worn look to it giving the realistic feel of a well living-in and overworked vessel..

Jerry Goldsmith's score is compelling, and the heart beat like thumping during key scenes is a real nice touch. Ridley Scott provides some superb, subtle directing, showing a real flare for building tension and mood. Alien was the precursor to Ridley Scott's timeless sci-fi masterpiece: Blade Runner, 1982, which shares the dark mood, tension and unique directorial style that has become synonymous. Seldom has any film been so consistent in design, cast, direction, and out-and-out fear factor,

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We Are What We Are (2013)

Boring...sums up the majority of this film. Set in a remote small town outside of the Catskill Mountains, the film centers on the Parkers, a fairly reclusive but otherwise normal-seeming family that, every year participate in a grizzly religious ceremony which has been a family tradition for centuries, and must be performed by the mother of the family.

The film opens with the death of the mother, leaving it up to the eldest daughter to perform the ceremony.  Still reeling from his wife death, Frank, the domineering father, kidnaps a young girl and imprisons her in the basement of the Parkers house in preparation for the ceremony.

The two teenage daughters in the family, Rose and Iris, are not so enthusiastic about their new responsibilities. Unbeknown to the Parkers, the locals are beginning to suspect them, especially the local Doctor (Micheal Parks) whose daughter disappeared with out a trace only days earlier.

The film has a style all its own - dark, gothic, macabre and unsettling; just a bit too slow paced for my liking. Which is a shame because the film had the makings of a cannibal classic like Ravenous - which is the only film I can compare it to in terms of style and plot.

The film culminates in a frenzy of cannibalism and stomach-churning gore, with an amazing scene which ranks amongst the best I've seen, in either a zombie or any other type of horror film. The ending however, doesn't make up for the slow paced, uneven, and at times tedious eighty minutes that precede it.

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Them! (1954)

Them! is a classic b-movie sci-fi horror directed by Gorgon Douglas. After strange goings on and several unexplainable deaths in the New Mexico dessert, the police and army call in a scientist to investigate.

The British scientist and his daughter soon discover that a race of gigantic ants are living under the dessert, and are mutations created from latent radiation left over from earlier atom bomb tests.

Them! is well acted, frightening, and engaging from start to finish. The cast is pretty damn good, especially James Whitmore as the pretty intelligent cop who found a five year old girl, aimlessly walking through the terrain of the desert— miles from her family's wrecked travel trailer—unresponsive by some catastrophe.

After a failed attempt to kill the ants in the dessert, they soon spread to the city and its a race against time to prevent them from breeding and spreading all over the country. Given the year this film was made, the special effects are very convincing, and a great soundtrack adds to the atmosphere. The last battle at the end of the film, between the army and ants in the storm drains of L.A. was the perfect ending, well acted and filmed. Them! is one of the best monster films ever made. Certainly the best horror of the fifties, and is a must watch for all horror fans.

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Aftershock (2012)

Aftershock is a poorly produced mediocre survival film that has no scares, lots of cliches and bad acting. The major problem with the film is the unknown cast who were really bland and characterless in their roles. The dialogue was laughable in parts and the hole thing just felt cheap and thrown together.

The duration of an earthquake is only a few seconds long. During the aftermath of which the film didn't seem to know what to do with its self.  The budget must have been an issue as well, because most of the sfx set pieces looked like scenes from those crappy b-movie monster movies like Sharktopus. 

In no part of this was I shocked to see what came next; the whole thing was predictable as hell. Which can be put down to an underdeveloped plot - which the makers of  Sharktopus would actually be proud of.

The first forty minutes of tedious setup seemed more like a documentary about club-18/30 party holidays to Ibiza, and consisted mostly of the leftovers from scripts of the Hostel films. The fact that Eli Roth produced and didn't direct this film is very apparent, it just didn't have the style of dark sadistic torture and gore that I have come to expect from him.

One thing that this film proves without doubt is that Eli Roth can not act, and should stick to the directors chair. He was awful in this, and should have focused his talents on the lackluster script. Things become slightly more interesting towards the end with some moments of suspense and a big plot twist, but can't make up for the rest of this torturous ill conceived guff.

All in all a pretty poor effort, not what I've come to expect from Roth. I just hope he can redeem himself with his next feature.

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