Black Death (2011)

According to Wikipedia, the Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history and is estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe’s population, reducing the world’s population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. This has been seen as having created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe’s population to recover.

The death and pestilence spread by this deadly plague was of Biblical proportions, and it seems that the dark mark it left upon history would be the perfect material for a horror film. Lucky for us, Magnolia Pictures’ Black Death has risen to the occasion.

The year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. In this apocalyptic environment, the church is losing its grip on the people. There are rumors of a village, hidden in marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is even talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life.

Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. He enlists the guidance of a novice monk, Osmund  (Eddie Redmayne) to lead him and his band of mercenary soldiers to the marshland, but Osmund has other motives for leaving his monastery. Their journey to the village and events that unfold take them into the heart of darkness and to horrors that will put Osmund’s faith in himself and his love for God to the ultimate test.

Black Death is a gripping film dealing with issues of faith, temptation, redemption, salvation…all huge issues back in the Dark Ages and still relevant today. It has a bit of Wicker Man-feel, only because of the dark secret the blissful and untouched village hides. It also has a much more somber feel and isn’t a film to take lightly. I liked how the film subverted the usual Christian vs. Pagan dynamic and made the pagans vicious instead of their usual hippie-dippy selves.

Speaking of viciousness, the film also boasts some wicked medieval battle scenes, complete with swords, maces, axes and even an iron maiden, among other torture devices. Despite the bloodshed being far and in-between, I was surprised how bloody the film actually was, especially in contrast to the subdued tone of the film and stark beauty of the cinematography.

The film looks stunning, from the cobblestoned streets of medieval Europe to the dark woods the characters travel through to the sun-dabbled village they finally arrive at. The mostly cold and bleak visuals echo the overall ominous atmosphere of the film. The grand scope of the cinematography makes me wish I had seen Black Death in a theater, but even on the smaller screen its grandiose scope wasn’t lost.

I liked the storyline because it had an epic feel and because of the themes it explored. As mentioned previously, I liked how the Christian vs. Pagan dynamic was flipped, with the pagans persecuting the Christians instead of the other way around. I also liked how the film showed unwavering faith in the characters as they were faced with temptations and challenges. The film ends on a brutal, downbeat note that was definitely disturbing and shows how evil can corrupt even the most faithful.

The actors gave performances equally intense to the storyline and visuals. Sean Bean is especially good as the God-fearing Ulric, but I also liked Eddie Redmayne’s performance as the conflicted Osmund. In my opinion, though, Carice van Houten stole the show as the village’s necromancer Langiva.

Director Christopher Smith has crafted another unique film with Black Death and is definitively one of the most versatile directors of the horror genre. He gave us the spooky Creep, the darkly humorous Severance, the intense Triangle and now the bleak Black Death. His films are always engaging, entertaining and original, and Black Death is no exception.

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S&Man (2006)

Though the DVD cover of S&Man is extremely misleading (it makes it look like a crappy slasher), rest assured that the actual film is pretty damn brilliant, challenging and powerful. I was surprised to find that director J.T. Petty (The Burrowers, Soft for Digging) made this film and that I hadn’t heard of it sooner. Though it had a festival run way back in 2006, the film wasn’t released on DVD stateside until October 2010.

S&Man (aka Sandman, not S & M Man, like I originally thought!) is a film that explores the seedier side of horror that encompasses the “hardcore” mock-snuff films like the August Underground or Guinea Pig series that are infamous for their shock value and hyper-realism.

Set up like a documentary, S&Man was originally supposed to be a vehicle for Petty to do a film on a local peeping tom from a suburb he grew up in, but this plan fell through when the man refused to do the film. However, Petty still wanted to pursue doing a film on voyeurism, so he turned to the underground horror world and found three purveyors of low-brow horror films to feature.

First and probably the most well known is Fred Vogel of Toe Tag Pictures, creator of the August Underground series. Vogel is certainly not the originator of fake snuff films, but over the years his extreme films have probably become the most well-known. Featuring brutal violence on grainy film, stunts including real bodily fluids (vomit, feces, you name it), graphic nudity and so on, Vogel’s films, most of which he stars in, really do look like home movies of serial killers.

The next filmmaker is the seemingly perpetually drunk, middle-aged metalhead Bill Zebub, whose films usually feature  busty women in distress, some blood, and not much else. Zebub’s films aren’t really fake snuff or as extreme like Vogel’s and come off as little more than exploitation. He states he makes films for perverts and not much else, which is pretty much echoed in all the scenes shown from his films. In one sad scene he putters around a set in a bar for hours while one of his actresses is forced to lie ass up in a spread-eagle position wearing a thong, bikini top and not much else. The exasperated and bored look on her face pretty much says it all!

The last filmmaker interviewed, Eric Rost (Erik Marcisak), is the only fictional one, as Vogel and Zebub do exist in real life and you can purchase their films. At first, Eric appears like any other horror fan-boy with dreams of making it big with his own “vision” for horror films. He shows up at a horror convention Petty is attending and gives Petty his own horror films, called the S&Man series. The series is very voyeuristic, and features women being filmed seemingly without their knowledge before they are kidnapped and killed. The films look entirely realistic and Petty spends the documentary trying to get more information from Eric, like if he can contact the actresses that appeared in S&Man, but Eric isn’t very forthcoming. In fact, Eric won’t give Petty a straight answer on whether he obtained consent from the women before stalking and filming them. Petty soon becomes suspicious and thinks Eric may be a real snuff filmmaker who is killing his victims.

In between talking with these three filmmakers, Petty interweaves interviews with psychologists, a self-professed “scream queen” (can just any woman that bares her boobs in a few crappy horror movies be considered a “scream queen” nowadays?), and feminist author of Men, Women and Chainsaws Carol Clover (yay, one of my favorites! I adore this woman!). These interviews add to the overall weight of the faux documentary, but the most interesting scenes occur when Petty turns his camera on the three filmmakers.

I found S&Man to be a challenging film to sit through at times, but the issues it addresses like voyeurism, gender, exploitation of actresses and how this exploitation eerily mirrors the exploitation of real-life victims, how far is too far, etc., etc. are what ultimately makes it rewarding. If you are anything like me, you’ll be equally parts repulsed and intrigued by Petty’s film, though in the end it will hopefully make you think and question your own personal limits.

Buy it on Amazon!

The Bunny Game (2010)

The terror you witness on-screen of The Bunny Game is real. Let me clarify…it’s not just realistic…it actually happened. It’s like watching a snuff film, only no one really died during filming (as far as we know). The actors weren’t merely acting, but they were subjected to most everything you see on film. Ballsy actress Rodleen Getsic gives a graphic blowjob, pees in public, is shaved bald and is actually branded in the film, not to mention the preparation that went into her role as an emaciated, drug-addled prostitute. Getsic fasted for over a month to prepare for her role! As you probably have guessed by now, The Bunny Game isn’t your ordinary horror movie. In fact, it feels more like a brutal snuff film coupled with avant-garde performance art.

The film is about a hard-knock prostitute named Bunny (Getsic) who trolls the streets of LA turning tricks and snorting coke whenever she gets the chance. This prostitute certainly doesn’t have a heart of gold, but nonetheless you feel pretty bad for her as you watch her engage in graphic sexual acts, get high, get raped and get robbed. Things go from bad to worse when she is picked up by a trucker (Jeff F. Renfro) who takes her out to the desert and brutalizes her for days on end.

While the plot might make it seem like just another torture flick, let me assure you that The Bunny Game is anything but. Is there torture? Well, yes, but it’s more the nasty psychological kind that sticks with you for days, rather than straight-up blood and guts. And the intense psychological wringer that the film puts both the victim (Getsic) and viewer through makes the film seem that much more realistic, which, believe me, will further raise the audience’s anxiety! And after all the things the cast (namely Getsic) went through, it is no wonder the film feels so authentic!

Director Adam Rehmeier, who co-wrote the film with actress Getsic, says the film wasn’t written with a strict script (there is very little dialogue) and most of the performances came organically from the actors. They were just sorta let loose on one another and given license to go as dark as they could…and, boy, did they ever go dark! Not only were the performances spontaneous, but so was the camerawork. Most scenes were filmed in only one take (usually unheard of in a film), which only adds to the immediacy and realism of the film.

The film also has a very voyeuristic feel, which adds to the snuff-like, performance art quality of it. The shaky camera angles, the constant zooming in and out and so on really make you feel like you are right there with the characters. And no matter how hard you try and get away (or look away), you just can’t.

Despite its shocking brutality, there isn’t that much blood and gore, if that’s what you’re hoping for. Most of its terror comes from psychological torture. Bunny is just as mentally broken down by the trucker as she is physically abused. He locks her up for days and submits her to all kinds of torment – stripping her down, humiliating her body, flashing a spotlight in her eyes, chaining her up, taking her for walks on a leash, shaving her head, etc. And that doesn’t even begin to detail the physical and sexual abuse he perpetuates against her. It is this kind of damaging psychological horror that is most effective, at least in my opinion. Anyone can do gross-out blood and guts, but it takes real talent to get into the audience’s brains and truly disturb them.

Congratulations are in order for director/co-writer Rehmeier and co-writer Getsic, because they have crafted a hauntingly unsettling film! It may be intensely difficult to sit through, but at least it looks stunning and isn’t just a point-and-shoot affair. There are even some beautifully dynamic shots in the film that momentarily relieve you of the brutality on-screen. It is filmed completely in black and white, which gives it a monochromatic and artistic look.

However, even the way the film is shot echoes the manic madness of the film, for juxtaposed against the gorgeously framed shots are choppy, disorienting edits, frantic shaky cam shots, voyeuristic zooms and more to make the viewer experience even further discomfort. Even the music, which features chaotic metal in the first few scenes but devolves into a creepy score as the film progresses, adds heightened emotion to scenes that are already difficult to watch…And just when you think you can’t possibly take anymore the next scene comes up to further test your limits.

I can only use “disturbing”, “unsettling” and their derivatives so much to describe The Bunny Game, but hopefully by now you get the point. This film definitely isn’t for most people, but if you like challenging films that push limits, you should give The Bunny Game a view. It’s probably the closest you’ll ever get to a snuff film!

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Something Just (2010)

After being impressed with Scott W. Perry’s film Insatiable, I was eager to check out his new short film, titled Something Just.

Something Just stars Alan Rowe Kelly, Jerry Murdock, Evan Robert Smith, Joslyn Jensen and Joseph Zaso. It was written, produced and directed by Scott W. Perry and co-produced by Jeremiah Kipp. If you are a fan of indie horror, more than one of these names is probably familiar to you!

Synopsis: In order to stop a child killer, the guardian of one of his victims seeks the aid of a shady figure from his past.

Alan Rowe Kelly, a regular figure in the independent horror scene, stars as the creepy child killer and delivers quite an imposing performance as a psycho. The first scene where he kills a young girl is very disturbing. It’s not that there’s a lot of blood, but the scene has more of a psychological impact with the disorienting score and echoing effects of the sounds and images on screen.

Don’t expect this film to be your cookie-cutter psycho story, though! Perry weaves a surprising twist into the proceedings with the introduction of one of the victim’s guardians who would do anything to stop the killer, including dealing with a mysterious man from his past. I like how this twist makes the film unique and gives it a much more layered, complex story. And the ending, which I won’t give away, is both surprising and satisfying!

The film also looks fantastic and the cinematography by Dominick Sivilli is great. In the beginning we are in the killer’s dingy house and dark basement, but later the film takes on a dreamier atmosphere with soft, washed-out colors and a park setting.

Something Just just goes to prove how much Scott W. Perry has grown as a filmmaker. Not only has he put together another fantastic cast, but the film feels more mature than previous efforts and deals with the more serious subject matter of child predators. With this steady progression, I can’t wait to see what Perry does next…perhaps a full-length film?

Make-Out with Violence (2010)

Zombie movies are usually brainless (ahem, pardon the pun) but fun romps in the horror world. However, lately many have become disenchanted by the subgenre, usually forgoing seeing a zombie film with the assumption that it’ll be like all the rest, with nothing new or interesting to contribute. For most films, these assumptions would be correct. However, the zombie film Make-Out with Violence is an entirely different animal and takes the zombie film to amazing emotional depths.

Make-Out with Violence tells the story of twin brothers Patrick (Eric Lehning) and Carol Darling (Cody DeVos), newly graduated from high school and struggling to come to terms with the mysterious disappearance of their friend, the bright and beautiful Wendy Hearst. When a drive through the countryside surrounding their posh suburban community leads to the discovery of Wendy’s mysteriously animated corpse, the boys secretly transport the zombie Wendy to an empty house in hopes of somehow bringing her back to life. As the sweltering summer pushes on, they must maintain the appearance of normalcy for their friends and family as they search for ways to revive the Wendy they once knew, or, failing that, to satisfy their own quests for love amongst the living and the dead.

Make-Out with Violence feels more of like a drama rather than a horror film, and in fact focuses more on the trauma of growing up instead of inundating us with blood, guts and hordes of zombies. In fact, there is only one zombie in the movie, the lovely in life and death Wendy, and there are only a few instances where she is really scary. In fact, most of the time she just lays there, staring at nothing with her glazed-over eyes (until she tries to move, and then her jerky movements will send shivers up your spine).

You might be thinking that the plot line of teens keeping a pretty girl zombie as a “pet” sounds an awful lot like Deadgirl, which is what I thought before viewing the film. However, Make-Out with Violence takes an entirely different route than Deadgirl. The boys don’t ever sexually exploit the living corpse, but instead take careful care of her and try to get her to do normal things, like sit at a dinner table and eat some birthday cake. Instead of being shocking, vulgar and offensive like Deadgirl, Make-Out with Violence is a much more subtle film on the loss of innocence and growing up, with no less traumatizing results.

I also thought that all the actors did an amazing job. You really believed what they were going through and came to relate to them, especially through their unrequited loves. Eric Lehning and Cody DeVos were the standouts as the Darling twins. They expressed so many different emotions as their characters went through so much. Special mention must also be made of Brett Miller, who played the twins younger brother Beetle. For his young age, he was very impressive! Leah High was commendable as Addy, the twins long-time friend and Carol’s love interest. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the lovely Shellie Marie Shartzer, who played Wendy. Though she is silent and still most of the movie, she does an excellent job conveying the hopelessness of her situation and just how truly changed she is from when she was alive.

This is the first feature film from the Deagol Brothers, which I never would have guessed from watching Make-Out with Violence because it looks so stunning and polished. The visuals perfectly captured the bittersweet feeling of summertime, from singing cicadas to melty milkshakes. The melancholy feel and dreamy-like visuals reminded me of the film The Virgin Suicides, which also explored death and the malaise of summertime.

Make-Out with Violence isn’t for everyone, and if you go into it expecting a regular, run-of-the-mill zombie flick you’ll probably be disappointed. However, if you don’t mind introspective and intelligent films that are beautifully haunting and heartfelt, you just might want to cozy up with Make-Out with Violence.

Available from Amazon!

Book Review: Sick Things - An Anthology of Extreme Creature Horror

As a follow-up to their Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror anthology, Comet Press has released Sick Things: An Anthology of Extreme Creature Horror, edited by Cheryl Mullenax. Does it live up to its “extreme” tag and the high-quality of Comet’s past releases? Read on to find out!

From the back cover:

Over-endowed aliens invade earth with one purpose: to mate with human females. A filmmaker documents a devil-worshipping blood cult – and becomes the main subject. A farmer with an unnatural affection for his livestock gets a special gift when his wife is bitten by a werewolf. An employee finds his new boss sexy and attractive – and so do the flys. Pissed off, flesh-eating cows take over a dairy farm. A musician returns from the dead to avenge his wife’s murder, with the help of a mysterious black possum. The Allies find a secret weapon, a monstrous blob with an insatiable appetite for dead human flesh. A chef creates his ultimate dish: an anatomically correct golem made out of leftovers. A mythical demon preys on unsuspecting college girls. And many more…

Wow, Sick Things is definitely one deviant, extreme collection of stories! I made the mistake of reading this during my lunch break and it was definitely a challenge to keep my food down! If you can think of the most vile, disgusting thing imaginable, it’s probably in one of the tales of this collection.

While all of the stories are effective, one stood out as my personal favorite. The Hansel and Gretel-themed Evil, Bent and Candy-Sweet by Tim Curran is a grotesquely beautiful short story with imagery so strong you can almost smell it. I loved the author’s descriptions (“The sky had been slit open, oozing tangles of red blood and seams of yellow fat at the horizon.”) as well as his characters, including Brother, Sister and of course the evil witch. There is just something so malignantly magnificent about this story, weaving its dark, twisted perspective into the fairy tale imagery. The collection is worth buying just for this story alone!

Other favorites of mine included Heat by Daniel I. Russell, about a farmer who is into bestiality that gets more than he bargained for when his wife turns into a werewolf, Jimmy Sticks and the Outlaw Critter of Doom by Michael Boatman, about a murdered man that comes back as a zombie to extract revenge on his and his wife’s killers, and The Special Son by Jeffrey Hale, about a special needs boy who discovers just why he is so special when his semen mixes with spider eggs to produce a whole new ghastly creature.

While the four stories above were my personal favorites, all of the seventeen stories in Sick Things are worth checking out. All of them have a high gross-out factor and gorehounds will be delighted by the visceral scenes contained in each tale.

If you are an extreme fan of horror looking for the ultimate in disgusting, vile and disturbing fiction, Sick Things: An Anthology of Extreme Creature Horror is a must-read…just make sure you have your barf bag handy!

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The Killer Must Kill Again (1975)

Expecting another typical giallo, I was surprised to find how sadistic The Killer Must Kill Again really was. This is definitely not your standard Italian giallo, but something much more sinister and disturbing.

It begins with Giorgio (George Hilton) being nagged by his crazy, but rich, wife Norma (Tere Velázquez). Going out for a drive, Giorgio witnesses a serial killer (Michel Antoine) dumping a body, so he then blackmails the killer and hires him to kill his bitchy wife, making it look like a kidnapping so her rich daddy will pay the ransom.

Well, during the kidnapping/murder things go awry as two kids (Alessio Orano and Cristina Galbó) steal the serial killer’s car…with the body of Norma in the trunk. The serial killer then tracks the two kids down to a seaside town where he indulges in some sadistic revenge.

I wouldn’t call The Killer Must Kill Again a giallo, but rather a mean-spirited and violent crime thriller. First off, we know who the killer is all along, so we don’t have the standard giallo whodunit. Secondly, the killer is only after the two kids, so all other victims are people that get in his way. However, the film is just as suspenseful besides these facts and does a wonderful job at ratcheting up the tension while we anxiously wait for the killer to catch up to the two oblivious teens.

While we wait for the killer to arrive, we begin to feel closer to the two teens, making what subsequently happens to them (especially the innocent character that Cristina Galbó plays) all the more hard to watch. When the killer arrives, he finds the virginal girl all alone in an abandoned house (her loverboy is off getting busy with a slutty local, played by Femi Benussi, but annoyingly dubbed – almost to the point where I wanted her to hurry up and die). The killer brutally rapes her in a very uncomfortable and shocking scene that cuts back and forth between the chilling rape and her boyfriend getting it on with the other woman. You are simultaneously disgusted and titillated by the two different scenes, making for a very awkward viewing experience. Kudos to director Luigi Cozzi for making us feel such dissonance with this scene!

Besides the character development that makes us feel for the victims, I thought the actors also did a wonderful job. The real standout was Michel Antoine (aka Antoine Saint-John) as the killer. Not only were his cold, chiseled features scary, but his silent demeanor was also menacing. Without his stoic performance the film might have fallen apart, but he owned his role as a sociopath. The other actors were equally good, though George Hilton faded into the background when the killer/kids storyline took precedence. I especially liked Cristina Galbó as one of the kids – she brought such innocence to the role! I also thought the handsome Alessio Orano did a great job as the sleazeball boyfriend.

Though the likable kids suffer thoroughly at the hands of the killer, their outcome is not as expected. I also liked the tidy wrap-up at the end of Giorgio’s storyline, but after witnessing such disturbing violence I had hoped the ending would have a bit more resonance. While The Killer Must Kill Again has its fair share of nasty brutality (especially towards women), its ending was a bit too “happy” for me. It is a solid film, but probably one I’ll only watch once. Take that to mean what you will…

Available from Amazon!

Book Review: Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth

What if Dante’s Inferno was based on truth? What if in his life Dante faced such insurmountable horror that he wrote it all down but had to pass it off as fiction because it was just too unbelievable?

Well, that is the premise behind Kim Paffenroth’s new novel, Valley of the Dead.

From the back cover:

Working from Dante’s Inferno to draw out the reality behind the fantasy, author Kim Paffenroth unfolds the horrifying true events that led Dante to fictionalize the account of his lost years…

For seventeen years of his life, the exact whereabouts of the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri are unknown to modern scholars. It is known that during this time he traveled as an exile across Europe, working on his epic poem, The Divine Comedy. In his masterpiece he describes a journey through the three realms of the afterlife. The most famous of its three volumes, Inferno, describes Hell.

During his lost wanderings, Dante stumbled upon an infestation of the living dead. The unspeakable acts he witnessed – cannibalism, live burnings, evisceration, crucifixion and dozens more – became the basis of all the horrors described in Inferno. Afraid to be labeled a madman, Dante made the terrors he experienced into a more ‘believable’ account of an otherworldly adventure filled with demons and mythological monsters.
But at last, the real story can be told.

This may sound like another piece of classic literature being updated to include monsters like zombies (see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, its sequel and a ton of other reconstituted classics), but Valley of the Dead is different. First off, it doesn’t take the original text and warp it to fit the author’s goal. Instead, VotD is an entirely original work, and the only text used from the original epic Inferno are a few lines before each chapter. Author Kim Paffenroth delivers another original, stunning and exciting novel that weaves an epic journey through a zombie-infested landscape with philosophical leanings. Through his story, Paffenroth perfectly captures the sheer ruthlessness of the human race as well as showing their compassion.

The cruelties that the living humans inflict not only on the zombies but on each other are truly shocking. It seems that with each new page Paffenroth has Dante encounter some truly horrific stuff – an army slaughtering innocent men, women and children, rape, cannibalism, witch burnings and many more evil acts besides all the zombie slaughtering going on. However, contrasted against the chaos and depravity are the virtuous lead characters of Dante, soldier Radovan, pregnant peasant Bogdana and monk Adam.

I am not intimately familiar with Dante’s Inferno, so I can’t really say what scenes in Paffenroth’s book take their cue from the classic poem, but the scenes in VotD are truly horrific and quite hellish! I really enjoyed how Paffenroth created such a vivid picture of the surrounding countryside Dante and his companions must traverse to escape the zombies. It starts off with green fields and lush forests, but as they are forced to escape higher and higher into the mountains the landscape becomes more desolate and otherworldly…and yet it seems the undead dwell there nonetheless. Despite the hopeless evil that seems to surround Dante and his friends, they grimly continue on in hopes of escaping the zombies and I was rooting for them the whole way.

As in his previous novels (Dying to Live and its sequel), Paffenroth’s character development is extremely strong. We care for each and every one of the main characters and through their journey really understand who they are and what they stand for. This makes the horrors they must face all the more cringe-worthy and terrifying for the reader. The characters seem to always be in constant danger, whether from the undead, the approaching army and from the strangers they encounter. This creates a tension that makes the book hard to put down! And when the characters do have to stand their ground and fight (which they do plenty of times in the book) we are treated to suspenseful battles.

However, to balance out all the action is the somber tone that permeates the story. Like in Inferno, Dante laments the horrors occurring around him and is disheartened by all the violence. While it isn’t quite Hell in VotD, it’s damn close! The tone reflects this and is more thoughtful, pensive and philosophical. I think this restrained, downbeat tone works beautifully within the confines of the story and perfectly matches the appalling actions that Dante and his friends are witness to.

Valley of the Dead is another stunning novel from Kim Paffenroth that mixes philosophical meanderings with gruesome zombie action and a creative re-telling of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s inspiration for his most famous work, Inferno. Any fans of intelligent and sophisticated zombie stories will no doubt enjoy VotD!

Available from Amazon!

Home Movie (2008)

Home video cameras offer families a chance to capture precious moments, whether it’s in the backyard, on vacations, during holidays or just everyday life. Home videos are usually meant to capture the best of times, but sometimes they can also capture the worst. Usually this footage ends up on America’s Funniest Home Videos or Break.com, but what if home videos showed something truly disturbing, like every parent’s worst nightmare that their kids are not the sweet and innocent children they thought they were raising but instead sick and twisted little bastards? What if a family’s home videos revealed the extent of their children’s sadistic nature?

This is the basic premise of Home Movie, which uses “found footage” to document one family’s desperation as they watch their creepy kids commit unspeakable horrors, all through the lens of the family camcorder. I hadn’t heard anything about Home Movie before watching it and wasn’t expecting much, but it delivers a truly sinister and disturbing story.

The film shows us the Poe family, comprised of dad David, mom Clare, and siblings Jack and Emily. They’ve just moved to an isolated house in the country and also bought a brand spankin’ new video camera to record their adventures (well, according to David…Clare originally bought the camera for her psychology practice). They seem like a normal loving family…except their kids, twins Emily and Jack, are pretty creepy. They don’t say much and just stare into the video camera with empty expressions. And then there’s an instance where David gets hit with a baseball…which could be construed as an accident, until Jack starts throwing rocks (“Turn the camera off…He’s throwing rocks at me”). The kids’ bratty behavior begins to escalate and goes from petulant (throwing rocks, behaving badly at dinner) to downright shocking (crucifying the family pet on Christmas). Clare recommends counseling/medication and tapes her sessions with the troublesome twosome. She also begins to suspect that David is abusing them and causing them to lash out. However, David, a Lutheran minister, thinks the kids are possessed by evil spirits and believes an exorcism is in order. Through all this, the twins’ progressively violent and shocking behavior only seems to be getting worse…are they being abused? Are they possessed? Or are they just burgeoning sociopaths?

I am really surprised that this film hasn’t been given more attention, because it’s a fine flick. Writer/director Christopher Denham creates a chilling story and shocking visuals. The children are just creepy to begin with (kudos to child actors Amber Joy Williams and Austin Williams for their convincing performances), but Denham creates so much tension by giving us a voyeuristic view of the Poe household. We feel as if we are a fly on the wall while watching the horrific events unfold.

Also, Denham uses the home video footage wisely, so it appears realistic and believable (which is much harder than it looks). For example, the parents are always saying “shut that camera off!” when something bad happens. The footage that is shown comes off as very natural and is never forced. Every disturbing detail is captured and there are plenty of shocks throughout the film as well as a twisted ending. The story builds subtly, but the intensity levels keep rising with each new “incident” the family experiences. It takes a little patience to get through the first part of the film, but the tension keeps mounting and mounting until you just can’t look away.  I also enjoyed how the story explored many different explanations for the children’s behavior. Are they being abused? Are they demon possessed? Is something evil in the house influencing them? Are they just pure evil? These different possibilities kept me on my toes and on the edge of my seat.

Considering there were only four characters in the film and the action was always focused on them, the actors all did a phenomenal job. As mentioned previously, real-life siblings Amber Joy and Austin Williams did a very convincing job of portraying evil children. The film could have easily gone campy if they gave over the top performances, but they played it very subtly, which ended up making their characters VERY unsettling. Props must also be given to director Denham for really getting these stellar performances out of child actors. Adrian Pasdar and Cady McClain were equally brilliant as the befuddled parents. Their performances came off as very natural and completely believable. You could really feel their frustration, confusion and fear through their performances and couldn’t help but sympathize with them.

This is a rare independent film whose atmosphere and psychological terror deliver unrelenting dread, tension and suspense. Home Movie is an underrated film that deserves more attention from horror fans and is one of the best “found footage” or “faux documentary” indies to rock my world. You should definitely check it out…

Buy it on Amazon!

Sick Girl (2009)

Sick Girl is an independent production that I eagerly looked forward to seeing. I mean, how can you go wrong with a twisted and disturbing story who’s synopsis describes the crazy lead character as someone who “wants to f**k her older brother, protect her younger brother and torture everyone else out in her barn”?!

I was looking forward to a brutal characterization of a take-no-prisoners female character, but when I finally got around to seeing this flick I was pretty let down. It features plenty of disturbing and shocking imagery, but that’s pretty much all the film offered and therefore was devoid of any depth or real reason for even being made.

In Sick Girl, Izzy (Leslie Andrews) is left to care for her little brother Kevin (Charlie Trepany) after her older brother leaves to fight in the war overseas. Their parents passed away many years prior and the only adult in Izzy and Kevin’s life is big biker Barney (John McGarr), who looks after Kevin while Izzy is off terrorizing people. And terrorize she does – she blows away a random bunch of Catholic schoolgirls on a bus, teaches her brother’s bullies a lesson and even castrates a random dude. She’s got her own little torture barn out behind her house, where she brings victims she wants to get a little more intimate with. Yup, Izzy is a sadistic killer, but neither Kevin nor Barney has any idea about her crazy, murderous streak.

The film felt like it was made solely for shock’s worth, but hardcore horror fans won’t really be fazed by most of the violence in Sick Girl and more mainstream audiences won’t pick it up in the first place. It just feels like an unbalanced, pointless exercise in “shock cinema” that ultimately fails in the end.

The acting ranged from mediocre to pretty competent. I thought Charlie Trepany (as little brother Kevin) and John McGarr (as gentle giant Barney) did a consistently good job with their characters, but I can’t decide if I liked or loathed Leslie Andrews’ acting as Izzy. At times it felt like she was more wooden than an actor in a school play, but other times her far-away stare and sudden violence felt very real. Or was it the character that was really that disjointed? Either way, I am torn on Andrews’ performance.

I will say that I enjoyed the gritty, natural look of the film. The rural atmosphere, with its rolling fields and red barns, was a nice break from the urban atmosphere of most “disturbed killer” movies. The stark, empty setting complemented the emptiness and loneliness of Izzy’s character. Director Eben McGarr (who also wrote the film) perfectly captured the washed-out, naturally lit look of ‘70s exploitation flicks.

So, the film looks pretty, but what is it trying to say? That life’s not fair? That some of us just can’t handle the stresses of life and snap? The message definitely isn’t clear, and in fact the lead character of Izzy isn’t even sympathetic. Izzy is so f’ed up that you don’t feel sorry for her, and in fact, begin feeling sorry for her intended victims, even though they themselves are far from innocent. In fact, in her barn Izzy has tied up a horny teen, a bitchy schoolgirl and a sadistic bully. Her punishments for these predators turned prey include castration, rape with a handmade strap-on and allowing a starved rat to eat someone’s face off (while they are still alive). You end up feeling sorrier for these victims than for Izzy. And is she just trying to protect her family or does her violence extend to anyone and everyone? These guidelines are never really set up, so by the time the disturbing conclusion rolls around, you really don’t feel anything at all. There is no emotional impact, and I for one was glad the movie was finally over and that I never had to watch it again.

I love a good, shocking movie, especially when so many play it safe. What makes shocking cinema so good, though, are the underlying themes and ideas that really make you think long after you’ve seen the films and been bombarded with their disturbing imagery. Unfortunately, Sick Girl fails to accomplish this and just shows disturbing imagery for the shock value and nothing more. Which, to me, made it a displeasure to watch and very forgettable upon its conclusion. Sorry, Sick Girl, but I just wish someone had put you out of your misery before I watched you.

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The Last House on the Left (2009)

Another week, another horror movie remake. This time around, it’s Wes Craven’s cringe-worthy classic, The Last House on the Left (which is loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring), being remade by director Dennis Iliadis and written by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth. Wes Craven’s original is a gritty and shocking film whose disturbing subject matter should at least be experienced once (that’s as much as I could handle). The remake, while competently made, lacks the down-and-dirty look and intense feel of the original. It is among one of the better reboots out there, but if you look at recent remade films out there like Friday the 13^th, it’s not saying much.

Following the story of the original pretty closely, the remake tells the story of upper class family the Collingwood’s – doctor daddy John (Tony Goldwyn), overprotective mother Emma (Monica Potter) and 17-year-old Mari (Sara Paxton) – who are heading to their isolated summer house for a relaxing vacation. The first day there, Mari begs mom and dad to take the car into town to visit her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). They acquiesce, and Mari roars into town, looking to have some fun with Paige.

They meet twitchy Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), who invites them back to his motel room to get high. Once there, the impromptu party is interrupted by Justin’s dad and recently escaped convict, Krug (Garret Dillahunt), Uncle Francis (Aaron Paul) and Sadie (Riki Lindhome). Turns out they are all on the run after killing some cops and don’t want to leave the girls behind as witnesses. They drag Mari and Paige out to the woods, torture them, rape one of them, and leave them both for dead.

The quartet of killers seeks respite from a harsh storm in the nearby house of the Collingwood’s, not realizing that they are the parents of Mari. When the parents realize what they have done to their daughter, they seek swift revenge on the murderers.

This is a pretty cut and dry remake with just a few changes made to the script (well, and one big and glaringly evident change that you can see in the trailer). Nothing is really done to make it its own film or to make it a better film, period. I will credit the writers with not dumbing down most of the film (well, except for the dialogue) like other remakes, but they really should have risked a bit more with the script and written something different to make this remake stand out. Unfortunately, while it’s a well-made and watchable film, it is easily forgotten whereas the original will be seared in my mind forever.

As for the brutal rape scene, yes, it is graphic and seems to go on forever, but the rest of the girls’ tortures seemed easy and breezy in comparison. Where in the original film their entire ordeal was horrific and humiliating, in the remake it is the rape scene that is the most brutal. Why is this a problem? Well, with the rape scene being the most disturbing, all of the other scenes that are supposed to be filled with tension pale in comparison. The rest of the film is just easy to sit through, which made it rather dull. Even the blood-splattered revenge sequence, while ultimately satisfying (except for the SILLIEST use of a microwave this side of Microwave Massacre!), felt like it lacked viciousness.

Also lacking viciousness was the acting from Garret Dillahunt, who played Krug. He was about as scary as a box of kittens and didn’t have a glimmer of intimidation in his glare. As the leader, he was supposed to be the most frightening of the killers, but I was no way threatened by him and felt he did a poor job portraying a sadistic psychopath, especially when compared with David Hess’ unnerving original performance. Aaron Paul and Riki Lindhome did a much better job playing Krug’s thugs, Francis and Sadie, both giving creepy and menacing performances. I also thought Sara Paxton did a fantastic job playing Mari, with fantastic performances also coming from Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn as her parents.

The original The Last House on the Left was a fantastic social commentary on the paranoia of the changing times (Craven was inspired to write the film in response to the atrocities going on during the Vietnam War), loss of innocence, not trusting strangers, and a “what if” scenario to see what people would do when pushed to their physical, emotional and psychological limits. The remake sticks to these original concepts, but doesn’t realize that times have changed and these themes have been done to death and that perhaps new, more current ones should be explored. Therefore, it brings nothing new to the table and is ultimately a forgettable movie. However, I will say that it is much better than the teeny-bopper, bubblegum horror remakes like Friday the 13^th, Prom Night, etc. that the studios insist on putting out. If you have your mind set on seeing a remake, I would tepidly recommend this House…but not without reservations.

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Grace (2009)

I’ve been looking forward to Paul Solet’s full-feature Grace ever since I saw his short of the same name. Grace deals with a lot of my biggest fears – pregnancy, children, motherhood, etc. As a woman, the prospect of pregnancy scares the poo outta me and is one of the many reasons I don’t want to have kids. Also, the alien nature of babies just creeps me out, what with their big googly eyes, babbling language, constant crying and incessant hunger, not to mention how much self-sacrifice goes into raising a child. Grace taps into these fears and more, but its not just to unnerve women…men will also be very perturbed by Grace’s turn of events.

Grace tells the story of Madeline (Jordan Ladd) and Michael (Stephen Park), a married couple trying to conceive a baby. When Madeline finally gets pregnant, she is determined to deliver the baby au natural with a midwife instead of going to a hospital, much to the chagrin of her meddling and traditional mother-in-law, Vivian (Gabrielle Rose). Madeline is also a committed vegan and is very eco-conscious, which irks Vivian even more.

Madeline and Michael joyously await the birth of their baby girl, but a tragic car accident leaves both her husband and her unborn baby dead. Against the wishes of her midwife, Patricia (Samantha Ferris), and mother-in-law, Madeline decides to carry the infant to term. When the baby is delivered, it miraculously comes back to life and Madeline names her Grace.

Madeline dotes on Grace, but she soon notices there’s something not quite right with the baby. Grace attracts flies, smells a bit funky, gets bleeding sores on her skin and seems to prefer human blood to breast milk…

Soon, Vivian starts to nag Madeline about seeing her precious granddaughter and even going so far as to send the family doctor, Richard Sohn (Malcolm Stewart), to check up on her. With Grace craving more and more blood, though, Madeline isn’t exactly ready to show her off. Patricia starts poking around too, concerned about her friend but more interested in putting the moves on the new baby momma. As Madeline deals with the mounting external pressure of intruders, she also tries her best to satiate the hungry Grace…but she soon realizes that her own blood will not be enough to satisfy the bloodthirsty babe…

While more subdued and slower-paced than the shocking short, this feature-length Grace still packs a punch. The woman-centric issues of pregnancy and self-sacrificing motherhood are rarely featured in horror, so it’s nice to see these addressed. The prospect of going through a pregnancy and giving birth to another person is scary enough, but think of if your baby was born…unnatural…how much would you sacrifice for them then? The bond between a mother and child are strong, so like Madeline, I’m willing to bet you would sacrifice everything and anything for them. Madeline breaks her own ethical beliefs to ensure that Grace gets what she hungers for…blood…and is prepared to stop anyone that would try to take her baby away. Sacrifice and a mother’s bond to her child are just a few of the many themes explored in Grace and are among the many intelligent layers to this intriguing film.

Though Grace isn’t your “typical” horror film, the script and story are smart and I squeamishly enjoyed its many different layers, including the “meat is murder” subtext that peppers the film (the real footage of animals being slaughtered/tortured will unnerve many). The character of Madeline was well-written as she was strong, resolute and firm in all her beliefs – beliefs that would soon be challenged by her bloodthirsty monster of an infant. And yet, the film never falls into being an exploitative “killer baby” picture, but maintains a somber, tragic and straightforward tone throughout its running time.

Jordan Ladd absolutely glows as Madeline. Her portrayal of a mother who will do whatever it takes to care for her child felt incredibly realistic, even though Ladd herself has never had any children. The fact that she was able to tap into such a maternal role is amazing in of itself, but she actually made us care about the heartbreaking tragedy of her situation. In fact, all of the women in the film portrayed very strong, maternal roles. Gabrielle Rose as mother-in-law Vivian had her own psychological issues, including being obsessed with being a mother and wanting to breast feed again though she was now a grandma. Rose played the condescending Vivian with a “mother-knows-best” vibe that will make your skin crawl. Even the knowledgeable midwife Patricia, in a commanding performance by Samantha Ferris, was concerned with Madeline and was constantly checking up on her, though most of that came from personal feelings she still had for Madeline; the two used to be lovers in college. Each and every one of the female characters was written to be a strong woman, which is quite refreshing for a horror film! The men, on the other hand, were mainly secondary characters or villains, as is the case with the creepy Dr. Richard Sohn, played by Malcolm Stewart, who almost orders Madeline induced early after she starts having chest pains…until Patricia intervenes. And Dr. Sohn gives Madeline one of the most intrusive and disturbing home exams I’ve been unfortunate enough to witness! It is always a pleasure to see a horror movie that features smart, caring women as the main characters instead of just relegating them to T & A shots or “scream queen” roles.

Besides excelling at writing a compelling script and engaging characters, Solet’s direction is also impeccable. The sharp contrast between the early scenes that are bathed in bright sunshine and warm colors and later scenes where shots are veiled in shadows, sickly greens and muted colors complements the accompanying action perfectly. There are also great shots showing Grace’s room adorned with fly traps and the birthing scene itself is quite traumatic.

Solet has taken a dramatic turn away from the current crop of immediate, in-your-face mainstream “horror” that scares with jumpy editing and fake frights. Instead, he has crafted a restrained film that manages to crawl under your skin and squirm there, increasing the discomfort until the satisfying finale. It’s not a perfect film by any means, and is definitely not for everyone, but it is a very well-done and quiet character study that shows off Solet’s skill as both as a writer and director as well as the amazing range of its actors.

Grace slowly gestates, until it ripens from quiet character study to full-blown horror show. If you can enjoy the slowly unfolding dread, Grace definitely delivers.

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Book Review: Vile Things - Extreme Deviations of Horror edited by Cheryl Mullenax

Horror anthologies are the perfect bite-sized treats to discover new authors as well as appreciate established ones. Though it’s always nice to see a story by a “master of horror” I much rather like discovering new talent within a good horror anthology. Much to my delight, there was plenty of “fresh blood” to be found within the pages of the horror anthology Vile Things – Extreme Deviations of Horror.

Unlike some horror anthologies, there is no clear theme of zombies or vampires in Vile Things – just solid short stories from the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, C.J. Henderson and many other horror authors, including some new names I’m now glad to be acquainted with. All of the stories are not for the faint of heart, as many times I found myself squirming and cringing at the disturbing and disgusting tales of horror held between the anthology’s pages. The title of Vile Things definitely says it all! In this fast-paced collection of 15 stories, I thought all were horrific, but a few stood out more than the rest.

My favorite short story was Maggots by Tim Curran. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, both on the killing fields as well as the main character’s hometown of Paris, Maggots is a grotesque tale of cannibalism and possession. Except that instead of a demon taking possession of the main character’s body, the host’s body is invaded and taken over by maggots that force him to eat the putrefied remains of humans. There is a lot of gore within this particular story, all made all the more disturbing in the detailed descriptions the author gives of the main character feasting on the bloated and rotting remains of corpses, all the while all too fully aware of the atrocities he is committing.

Another one of my favorites was Z.F. Kilgore’s tale, The Devil Lives in Jersey. I love Jersey Devil stories and this one definitely doesn’t disappoint. An ex-police detective moves to the Pine Barrens after inheriting a house from his deceased grandparents hoping to give himself and his son a fresh start. Soon, though, the town’s dark secrets involving a witch burning, mysterious disappearances and grisly murders come to the surface, and the ex-detective discovers his family is inexplicably linked to the town’s bloody past…and now it seems that something is killing again. This short story was extremely well-written, with heaps of disturbing imagery (characters eating baby corpses and a witch having sex with something otherworldly, among other graphic scenes) and felt like it had so much to offer that it would be better suited as its own book. I hear that Kilgore, a retired police detective himself, has more short stories planned around the main character, and I eagerly await them!

Other favorites included the cheeky Tenant’s Rights by Sean Logan, in which an off-kilter, nerdy tenant gets revenge on his playboy roommate/landlord, but with disastrous results. I loved seeing the arrogant landlord get his comeuppance, but it was also satisfying to watch the creepy roommate get his at the end of the story! I also enjoyed Coquettrice, by Angel Leigh McCoy, a disturbing look at a satanic cult hatching their very own cockatrice…and watching the main character change from innocent to deviant was pretty jarring as well! What You Wish For by Garry Bushell was an extremely satisfying tale as well, and much like Tenant’s Rights, we get to watch a vile character meet her bloody end.

I’ve only mentioned a few outstanding stories, but with few exceptions all the tales within Vile Things are marvelously macabre! They will make you feel nauseous (Fungoid by Randy Chandler), give you the creeps (The Worm by John Bruni) or just plain scare you (Again by Ramsey Campbell). The anthology’s stories contain incest, rape, deformities, abnormalities, the disabled, infestations, demons, monsters and plenty of graphic gore, blood and other bodily fluids that will have you wishing you read it on an empty stomach! The book definitely lives up to its title of Vile Things – Extreme Deviations of Horror so prepare to be disturbed and make sure you have a barf bag handy before reading!

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Deadgirl (2009)

Deadgirl is a beautifully twisted, if not slightly flawed, exploration of how childhood innocence is so easily lost in our disillusioned world. It is easily one of the most disturbing films I’ve seen in recent memory and while it’s a more coming-of-age drama than straight-forward horror movie, this film still managed to shock and deeply perturb me.

High school burnouts Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez, who looks like a mix of Joaquin Phoenix and Johnny Depp) and J.T. (Noah Segan) cut school one hot day and decide to seek refuge in an old abandoned mental institution. After trashing the place and downing some beers, they set off to explore the dank basement where they are shocked to find a seemingly dead woman’s naked body chained to a gurney and wrapped in plastic. While Rickie decides to high-tail it out of there, J.T. has nefarious designs on the naked dead woman…except he soon figures out she isn’t dead and, more so, can’t be killed!

Rickie soon discovers that J.T. has made the dead girl into his own personal sex slave. Yet, Rickie can’t bring himself to turn his best friend in, not even after more and more people find out about the dead girl and join J.T. in his perverse necromance. As the situation spirals out of control and the line between right and wrong blur, Rickie must decide where his loyalties lie.

Deadgirl is definitely not a fun film to watch, but then again I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from the grotesqueries on display. That’s not to say that it is at all gory or bloody, but instead the shock aspect of the film comes from the seemingly moral ambivalence of all the characters. It seems that no one really cares that what they are doing is wrong, and even Rickie, one of the few remotely likable characters, seems only worried about the repercussions if they are caught by the police. This is where the real horror lies…that these teens don’t seem to have any moral compass and that the scenario seems so plausible in real life.

Though the film never explicitly shows the many rape scenes, we know exactly what is transpiring. The film never eroticizes the rape, instead making it a vile, degrading act to watch (though the characters treat it very nonchalantly). The dead girl (played bravely by Jenny Spain) is like a hunk of meat to the characters, just another thing they can use to satisfy their teenage libidos. I’m not sure if the writer Trent Haaga or directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel intentionally wanted to make a statement about rape victims and their attackers, but J.T. and his cronies treat her like a rapist would treat his victim…they say “she’s not even human” and act like she is just a commodity to be used explicitly for their pleasure and then discarded. You end up cheering for the dead girl (the characters never even give her a name and we never find out her back story, making her appear even more like merely an object) but her rapists never seem to get the punishment they deserve.

Another theme the film explores is the “loss of innocence”, but more from Rickie’s and J.T.’s perspectives than from the dead girl’s. The characters go from rebels without a cause to perverse exploiters of human life rather quickly, and, as mentioned above, treat the dead girl as not even being human and repeatedly rape this “object”. Though “zombie” is never used to describe the dead girl, that is what she truly is and the film really turns the zombie genre on its head. Usually, the zombies are used as metaphors for our mindless consumer society, but in Deadgirl the living lead characters are the ones senselessly and coldly using up the “zombie” just as if she is another product. It says a lot about our society and how we as consumers voraciously devour any products we can get our grubby mitts on, without thought to consequences. Kudos to writer Trent Haaga for offering a new perspective and social commentary on the zombie genre. On the more distressing side, it also speaks of how ambivalent we as a society are towards rapists and the “boys will be boys” mentality.

On the visual side of things, directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel do a fantastic job of capturing the angst and alienation of youth in the film (especially accompanied by the moody soundtrack that includes Iron and Wine, Radiohead and Animal Collective). The opening scenes and subsequent framing shots really depict what it feels like to be an outsider in high school. It is a poignant journey until the twisted horror of the dead girl is revealed. From then on most of the action takes place in the dark, dank belly of the abandoned mental hospital, which J.T. slowly converts to his new crash pad, complete with softly glowing Christmas lights and a Lazy-Boy. The gritty setting coupled with the despicable acts the boys perform on the dead girl really makes your stomach turn. The setting reminded me much of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door.
 
Despite a few shaky instances, the actors in the film did an amazing job. Noah Segan really made us hate his character of J.T. and Shiloh Fernandez made us alternate between hating and loving his character of Rickie. Other cast members did a terrific job as well, especially the dead girl herself, Jenny Spain, who we both felt sorry for and terrified by.

The film does have a few flaws, namely some slow pacing and failure to wrap up some loose ends. The film already has a pretty languid pace, but there are a few instances where the story really gets bogged down. I thought the subplot of Rickie’s mom’s boyfriend didn’t add anything to the story and could have been left out. Also, I really wanted to see some justice and prolonged torture befall J.T. and others for their part in making the dead girl their sex slave, but their fates were rather tame. The film’s grim ending was shocking (though you can see it coming), but it never followed up on what happened to some of the characters or the dead girl herself. Had the script and/or editing been tightened up, the pacing and storyline would have flowed much more smoothly, but still would have been no less perverse.

Deadgirl is a hard film to recommend. On the one hand, it is hard to watch, has its moments of misogyny and the rapists never quite get all they deserve, but on the other hand it is beautifully filmed and is just so damn disturbing! The moral ambivalence of the characters and the objectification of women speak to a greater extent of how we as a society have a nonchalant attitude not only towards the loss of innocence, but also towards rape. And that perhaps is the most frightening thing of all about Deadgirl.

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Book Review: The Kult by Shaun Jeffrey

The long days of summer just beg to be spent reading a good book. A book that keeps you glued to its pages and sweeps you up in its story. I found one such book to keep me company as I lazed on the porch these hot days of summer, and that book is Shaun Jeffrey’s The Kult. I was so engrossed in this book that my lazy day of relaxing on the porch just whizzed by and I found myself under cover of darkness…and yet I still couldn’t put the book down, not even when the clock inched towards midnight!

The Kult is such an engaging book, that I finished it in just a few days because I wanted to find out what happened!

The book is about a serial killer called The Oracle who is murdering innocent people and making macabre artworks out of their bodies. He sends photographs of his “art” to the police, and Detective Chief Inspector Prosper Snow is put in charge of the case. Yet, he becomes distracted when his childhood chums come looking to him for help. They made a pact back in school that if any one of them ever needed help the rest of them must do whatever necessary to lend assistance. The group of friends called itself The Kult, and usually, they only beat someone up, but now Snow discovers that his friend wants someone murdered. And he wants The Kult to make it look like The Oracle did it so they get off scott free.

Snow and the others commit the murder and frame The Oracle, but now The Oracle is coming after The Kult members one by one for what they did…

With no where to turn, can Prosper Snow find out who The Oracle is…and live?

The Kult is a fast-paced, thrill-ride of a horror novel. It presents macabre tableaux when describing The Oracle’s disturbing “art”. There are some pretty sick and twisted scenes of depravity and perversion throughout the novel, giving it that cringe-worthy feel at times. Alongside the horror is a not-so-standard police procedural story, with cops trying to track down The Oracle along with Snow’s partner getting more and more suspicious of him as he loses his cool after being party to murder. Then there is the suspenseful part of the story where you have no idea who The Oracle is…though towards the end of the book you may have your suspicions. The book is just a perfect mix of horror, crime drama, thriller and serial killer story!

Author Shaun Jeffrey has crafted a fine novel with The Kult. His protagonists and victims are well developed, his nefarious villain is actually scary and the tense proceedings just make you want to keep reading to find out who The Oracle is!

If you decide to read The Kult (which you should!), make sure you block out an entire weekend strictly for reading because you won’t be able to put it down once you’ve started!

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Acolytes (2009)

Hailing from Australia, Acolytes is a slow-paced yet thrilling film that has quite a few surprises. Though the synopsis might make it seem like a straightforward story of kids blackmailing a serial killer to get revenge on a bully, the film is much more than that. It takes its time building up the tension for an explosive and bloody finale, all the while commenting on how evil can live behind the white picket fence just next door.

Our story opens with three teens – Mark (Sebastian Gregory), Chasely (Hannah Morgan Lawrence), and James (Joshua Payne) hanging out after school. Mark and James have been friends since they were little kids, but there is friction between them now that James is going out with Chasely, whom Mark is obviously infatuated with. When James and Chasely start to get into some heavy petting, Mark wanders off into the woods, where he comes across a man burying something. After getting a glimpse of the man’s distinctive SUV (it has a butterfly design on the back of the spare tire cover), Mark runs back to tell James and Chasely. The three return to the woods with shovels to see what the man was burying and discover a body in the shallow hole. When the cops don’t believe them, they track down the killer (Joel Edgerton) and try to blackmail him into helping them kill a bully (Michael Dorman) who caused them irreparable harm when they were kids. What they don’t count on is the killer’s truly sadistic nature as he quickly turns the tables on them.

Acolytes is quite a chilling, thrilling film from Down Under. The most chilling aspect of it was its suggestion that evil can live right next door with the seemingly pleasant married couple who have just had a baby. If you really think about it, our society is so distant from one another that it is not hard to believe you would ignore screams if they were coming from next door. Or is you saw your neighbor carrying what looked like a body bag into his house. Chances are, you would just ignore what you saw, mentally brushing it off as none of your business. So, living next door or in the same town as a serial killer really isn’t that hard to imagine. Neither is it hard to believe that if pushed far enough, you could also become a killer…

Director Jon Hewitt filmed Acolytes on a relatively low budget, but from looking at the picture you’d never be able to tell. There are some truly gorgeous shots in the film, like a panning shot of a blue-tinged dawn in the beginning of the film. The film on a whole looks great, from bright, wide-open shots at the beginning of the story to more dark and claustrophobic shots as the film nears its end. Though it does take a while to get doing, I thought the slow burn approach was appropriate as we get to know the characters and their pasts. Some viewers might find it a bit languid, but I felt the pacing was near perfect.

The story, written by Shayne Armstrong, Shane Krause and Jon Hewitt, is intriguing and surprising. Even if the synopsis seems straightforward, it really isn’t and the story takes you dark places you didn’t think the film would go. While the first half of the film focuses on the teens, the latter half focuses more on the killer as he turns the tables on them. The characters are all realistically portrayed and even the bad decisions the teens make seem entirely plausible. Plus, there is a wicked twist towards the end that explains the whole “acolyte” (meaning a “devoted follower or attendant”) title.

Most of the violence is reserved until the last half of the film, but there is a jarring opening sequence that shows a young, half-naked girl being terrorized in the woods. As for the rest of the action, we get lots of exciting car chases (and crashes), cross-bow hunting, a head getting repeatedly bashed in by a large rock, stabbings, kidnappings and so on. While the first half of the film has a tense, ominous feel to it, the last half revels in the release of pent-up aggression.

I’m not sure what I expected out of Acolytes (perhaps a standard slash ‘n’ hack movie) but what I saw far exceeded my expectations. It’s moody, atmospheric beginning slowly gives way to bloody violence that eventually leads to a grim conclusion.

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Mum and Dad (2009)

Family can be a touchy subject for some people. While some people absolutely adore their family and wouldn’t trade it for the world, others are embarrassed or had such an unpleasant upbringing that they want nothing to do with their relations. Regardless of whether you love or loathe your family, chances are that there are usually more than a few skeletons hidden in the family closet.

In the British film Mum and Dad, the family has its own share of skeletons (and corpses and body parts) in their home. You see, Mum (Dido Miles) and Dad (Perry Benson) are two deranged psychopaths that like to kidnap young adults from the nearby airport and torture them. Polish immigrant Lena (Olga Fedori) escaped her oppressive family and has fled to England to start a new life for herself. She works as a janitor at the airport, where she meets Birdy (Ainsley Howard), a chatty girl who invites her out with her introverted brother, Elbie (Toby Alexander), for drinks after their shift. Lena declines, but when she misses her bus she is forced to follow Birdy and Elbie to their home. Yet Lena has no idea of the horrors that await her at the hands of her new Mum and Dad…

Mum and Dad is an extremely disturbing and engaging horror film! It is probably one of the better recent horror flicks to come out of England and it just had me gaping at the screen in shock for its entire running time! The film is supposedly loosely based on the real-life horror story of serial murderers Fred and Rose West, who raped, tortured and murdered their victims, including their own children. While the atrocious crimes committed by the West’s are appalling and no film could ever truly show the horror experienced by their victims, Mum and Dad does a very good job of creating an unpleasant atmosphere and showing us how depraved the two killers are.

Mum and Dad certainly captures the perversion and savagery of the two title characters. One of the early scenes shows “Dad” pleasuring himself with a bloody body part while another shows the family gathered for a normal-looking breakfast while a hardcore adult film plays in the background. It also doesn’t shy away from showing the two killers’ sexual perversions as well. The level of depravity isn’t there just for exploitation, but to show just how completely psychopathic and dysfunctional the family is. The film by no means cheapens the experience by solely focusing on the gore (which there isn’t a lot of, though it has its fair share of torture), instead it is more of an intense psychological study of a seriously fucked up family who exist far beyond any normal moral standards.

I really enjoyed how writer/director Steven Sheil made the characters of Mum and Dad try to have a “normal” façade – especially in one of the first scenes after Lena’s abduction where the family as a whole is introduced. While the family acted like monsters the night before, at breakfast everyone is amiable and acts like a normal, happy family. Mum cooks up breakfast, Dad reads his morning paper, Birdy chit-chats and Elbie cleans up bloody body parts. Meanwhile, Lena sits very confused as a porno plays on the kitchen television. You definitely don’t see such unsettling scenes like this in your average horror movie! Also, the fact that Dad worked a normal job and had friends really upped the creep factor in the film. I mean, this family of psychos could be your next door neighbors and you wouldn’t know it! Besides Mum and Dad, the characters of mean-spirited Birdy and remorseful Elbie are equally effective. While the tortures that Mum and Dad inflict on Lena would be enough, the manipulative nature of Birdy and the forlorn attitude of Elbie contribute to her suffering. Even though Birdy and Elbie went through the same ordeal as Lena, they offer her no help and no support.

While the characters were very well-developed by Sheil, the wrong actors could have spoiled the careful tension between everyone. Luckily, Sheil cast a dynamic cast to make sure the characters were played to their full potential. First off, Olga Fedori was fantastic as Lena! She really makes you sympathize with her character and gives a very strong performance. I also liked that her character tried to outsmart her captors and waited to see when she had an opportunity to escape. Next we have Ainsley Howard as Birdy. She made her character extremely likable in the first few scenes, but when we find out who she really is and how mean-spirited she can be our opinions are soon changed! Howard handles this switch extremely well and makes it believable to boot! Toby Alexander doesn’t speak any lines in the film, but his tortured puppy-dog eyes speak volumes as to what he is going through. Finally, we have Dido Miles as Mum and Perry Benson as Dad. These two play their characters so well that even though they were committing heinous acts I couldn’t wait to see them back on screen. Benson brings a repulsive quality to his blue-collar dad and nearly oozes with unpleasantness. Miles is both doting and dangerous as Mum, who “plays” with her “children” by cutting deep gashes all over their bodies.

As for the direction by Sheil, I couldn’t have asked for better. The house where the horrors take place is equal parts dingy (in the torture rooms and where Lena sleeps) and cozy (in the kitchen and living room areas, which look normal). I also liked how the focus wasn’t on the torture and the gore, but went deeper and really showed the twisted relationships between the members of the family. The film was shot in just 17 days, but nothing feels rushed or out of place. The deliberate pacing works perfectly and there is a palatable tension throughout the entire film. The film is set right next to an airport, lending even more credence to the fact that the family had an endless supply of transients (and their luggage) to pick from.

It seems that the issues of the perverted family and/or killer kids has been a staple for horror films for years (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Frightmare, Children of the Corn the more recent Eden Lake), but Mum and Dad really hits a raw nerve with its grim tone and its “real” aspect. This is one film that will surely leave you feeling disturbed and a little dirty after watching it! It is certainly one of the best British horror films I’ve seen and will definitely make you appreciate your own family more!

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Experiments in Terror 3 (2008)

Experiments in Terror 3 is a collection of horror shorts covering a wide variety of time periods and sub-genres. From silent slapstick to avant guarde, there are six shorts (plus one extra) and within these is something for anyone looking for something slightly off-kilter than the usual horror-fare.

The short films in Experiments in Terror 3 are on the surreal, hallucinogenic side, offering glimpses into the dark unknown and into the very blackened heart of evil. Let me introduce you to each of the six short films contained in the collection…

First is the clever The Psychotic Odyssey of Richard Chase by Carey Burtt. Made in 1999, the film utilizes Barbie-type dolls, stuffed animals and sets made out of construction paper to tell the true story of cannibal-killer Richard Chase, “the Vampire of Sacramento”, who believed he needed to drink blood to stay alive and killed many people (and animals) to sustain his “need”. The way Burtt decided to tell the story with dolls instead of actors was really effective. It was creepy the way the innocence of toys was used to tell the story of such a twisted individual as Chase. I really got a kick out of this inventive short!

Next is Satan Claus, a nightmarish fairy tale created by cult director J.X. Williams in 1975. The short is told in a very surreal way and tells the story of a young boy who is left alone on Christmas Eve by his neglectful parents and summons “Satan Claus”. This hallucinogenic orgy may only be three minutes long, but it is nonetheless one of my favorites of this collection. Williams made this short, cobbled together from other films, to get back at a theater owner he worked for and who owed him money. When he didn’t pay up, Williams showed Satan Claus before a children’s film and many angry patrons demanded the theater owner refund them for the “traumatizing” experience! Everything from the washed-out appearance of the film to Satan’s otherworldly Hell and even his garish appearance reminded me of a Rob Zombie music video in the best possible way!

An excerpt from the full-length feature film Loma Lynda is next, titled “The Red Door”. This is a nasty, grim scene that shows an evil old scumbag belittling and then raping a young woman before her alter-ego gets revenge. Shot in HD, this film looked professional and slick. The disturbing subject matter along with the dark characters reminded me of a David Lynch film. I especially liked the odd music used as well as the blacked out eyes of the girl’s alter ego. Though this was one nasty piece of work, I can’t wait to see the full-length film from filmmaker Jason Bognacki (it is currently still playing in film festivals, but should be released on DVD soon).

In Ben Rivers’ Terror!, he deconstructs the horror genre by splicing together countless scenes from different horror movies like Friday the 13^th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Burning, The Beyond, Halloween, Zombi and many more to show the genre conventions of horror. He follows the structures and clichés of horror films, showing similar scenes from different movies and how they all add up to the big, messy finale. Though the beginning is a bit slow and repetitive as Rivers shows all the similar “set-up” scenes used again and again in horror, this really makes the viewer take a hard look at our favorite genre and understand why we love it so, even if it is sometimes predictable. Besides, you’ll have a ton of fun playing “Name that Horror Movie” with each clip shown and the bloody finale is well worth the wait!

After the first four stellar shorts, the remaining two are a bit of a letdown. Born of the Wind is a cheap 1961 film about a scientist that falls in love with a mummy princess he has resurrected, but its slow pace and amateur production make it hard to sit through. Then there is 2007′s Manuelle Labor, another silent film that tries to mimic the style of ’20s vaudeville. The story, about a sister that gives birth to a pair of hands, just feels like its trying too hard to be cutesy and artsy and comes off just plain boring.

There is also an extra short in the “Extras” portion of the disc, entitled It Gets Worse. It too is shot like a silent film, but features plenty of lowbrow gags to overcome its slow pace.

All in all, Experiments in Terror 3 is a fine collection of varied styles of horror. It has something for everyone, and though my favorites included the first four films, I’m sure that even the silent films will find some fans! It is usually very difficult for horror fans to find such a diverse collection of shorts, but Provocateur Pictures has indeed assembled some shorts that are definitely worth your time!

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Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

If you have the balls to put “gore” in your film’s title, you better be prepared to live up to your audacity! With that thought, I popped Tokyo Gore Police into my DVD player, not expecting to be overwhelmed with a maelstrom of morbidity that my eyes hadn’t seen since…well, it had been a while. Yet, there I was – feeling queasy and getting ready to pray to the porcelain god for forgiveness that I had questioned the grue quotient of Tokyo Gore Police. I quickly discovered that “gore” was too tame a word to have in its title…and that I would be hard-pressed to find something a word to describe its cartoonish yet no-less-hurl-worthy avalanche of blood and guts.

In the future, Tokyo’s privatized police force is facing their biggest threat yet, something they call “engineers,” which are humans who are able mutate parts of their bodies into fleshy weapons. Ruka (Eihi Shiina, best known for her role in Takashi Miike’s Audition) is head of the police force’s elite engineer hunting squad and specializes in chopping up offenders with her samurai sword. She is also haunted by her father’s assassination and is out for revenge against whoever killed him. As Ruka cuts a bloody swath through Tokyo, simultaneously searching for her father’s killer as well as the one who created the engineers, the elusive Key Man, she doesn’t realize that the killer is closer than she thinks…and that she might have more in common with the engineers than her beloved police force.

Tokyo Gore Police plays like an over-the-top comic book. It’s flooded with bright colors, unbelievable villains and a kick ass heroine. It definitely lives up to the “gore” in its title. The film is a tsunami of blood, flooding each scene with wave after wave of the red stuff. There is also plentiful gore (not surprising since the director of this flick is none other than special effects genius Yoshihiro Nishimura, who was behind the special FX in The Machine Girl and Meatball Machine, with heads being popped open, human flesh being hacked into indiscernible pieces, people split in two, people morphing into mutants with chainsaws, guns, knives and even crocodile jaws as deadly appendages, boobs shooting out killer acid, penises as well as eyes turning into guns and so on and so on. The effects were all cartoonishly realistic and darn it if I didn’t begin to feel queasy after a little while! This is definitely one of the most gruesome and stomach-churning horror films I’ve seen in quite some time!

The storyline was pretty transparent, but it served its purpose well enough. The real focus of the film is of course the gore and carnage, but the story itself keeps you pretty interested. Plus, Ruka is one hot badass, so you have her to root for the entire time. I really thought the commercials and recruitment videos sprinkled throughout the film were pretty clever! I especially liked the ad that made suicide trendy and offered razor blades for cutting yourself in several different stylish colors! I thought these were clever stabs at consumerism and the privatization of government agencies.

My only problems with the film were several strange shots that slowed the pace of the film to a crawl and seemed to serve only as filler (filler was not needed…the movie is overly long at almost two hours). There were a few too many slow motion shots that just went on for too long and didn’t really serve a purpose. Case in point, in the scene where Ruka cuts the hands off an overly handsy train commuter, she pops her parasol to protect her from the rain of blood and the film tracks her as she walks towards the camera…and tracks…and tracks….and tracks some more. Thirty pointless seconds at least could have been edited from this scene, and there are several others like this that bog down the action.

When the action remains unmarred, though, it is a whirlwind of vicious destructiveness! I’ve already spoken highly of the gore, and the fight scenes are wicked as well. The scenes that feature Ruka and other police officers fighting the various engineers are thrilling, bloody affairs. The engineers are twisted, perverted creations – take the one scene set in an S&M club where engineers are the entertainment – one girl has stapled boobs, the other has been turned into a snail-like creature, another has a long, phallic nose and another has been turned into a flat, chair-like creation that pisses over everyone in the audience. Another engineer’s lower body turns into crocodile jaws, giving a whole new meaning to the term “vagina dentata,” while a male engineer sprouts a penis-gun. There are more and more insane creations in the film, many that you have to see for yourself to believe!

If you’re interested in a title like Tokyo Gore Police, you better be expecting tons of grue because that’s exactly what you get with this film! The blood splatter alone, with many, many shots of high-pressure arterial sprays that drench everything in their path – including the camera – would be enough to make this film a bloody cult classic, but it’s the inventive, gut-churning gore that really sets it apart. Except for a few flaws in pacing and editing, Tokyo Gore Police is a must-see for gorehounds everywhere!

Available from Amazon!