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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The Manitou (1978)

We all bitch and moan about the state of horror and the death of originality in Hollywood, but looking back on older flicks perhaps they had a bit too much creativity! Take, for example, the zany 1978 film The Manitou, which features, among other things, a midget medicine man, ghostly lizards (well, actually, someone dressed in a lizard costume), Tony Curtis dressed as a psychic, a levitating granny, Native American demons that look like a giant eye and lots of colorful, bright lasers!

The film starts with Karen (Susan Strasberg) visiting her doctor after discovering a fast-growing tumor on her neck. The doctors aren’t sure what to make of it, but it definitely looks like a fetus, so they schedule her for surgery. Concerned that the doctors aren’t telling her everything, Karen contacts her old flame Harry (Tony Curtis) for help. Harry is a psychic who scams little old ladies out of their money, one of the reasons why Karen left him. Nonetheless, Harry agrees to stand by her as she goes through the surgery…only it doesn’t go as planned. The doctors are unable to remove the growth because their scalpels are turned against them. Karen is moved to another room and monitored and Harry contacts some his psychic friends to hold a séance and find out if an evil spirit is behind Karen’s affliction. It turns out the evil spirit is none other than Misquamacas, a 400-year-old medicine man who plans on raising hell as soon as he’s reborn.

Harry visits an old professor (Burgess Meredith), who wrote something in a book about reincarnated medicine men, and he suggests that Harry hunt down his own medicine man to “fight fire with fire”. Harry tracks down John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara), who agrees to help him fight the evil medicine man.
When Misquamacas finally “hatches” from Karen, the real showdown begins…can Singing Rock and Harry save Karen and the world before it’s too late?

The Manitou is one crazy, over-the-top flick! The first half of the film starts off pretty solidly (who doesn’t love to watch Tony Curtis prance around pretending to be a psychic or watch a little old granny become possessed, speak in a Native American language and levitate before being tossed down a flight of stairs?) but the last half of the film, where the midget-sized medicine man is born, just devolves into pure schlock. I seriously question how any of the actors could take their roles so seriously when there were rogue lasers and ghostly lizards to deal with. How many takes did it take for them to act with a straight face?

The director behind the film, William Girdler (who also co-wrote the film), is behind such schlocky fare like Grizzly and Day of the Animals, but The Manitou is beyond bizarre. It takes a special kind of horror fan to really appreciate this odd and “out there” horror flick, but purveyors of the peculiar will no doubt enjoy The Manitou for its sheer strangeness.

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Beyond the Door (1974)

Feeling very much like a mix of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, Beyond the Door (aka Chi Sei? and The Devil Within Her) tells the story of Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills), a seemingly happy ‘70s housewife with two bratty, potty-mouthed kids and husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia) who is a successful music producer. Things take a turn for the worse when Jessica discovers she is pregnant. When Robert finds her in the bathroom puking up blood, Jessica swears that the baby is trying to kill her. She begins hearing strange, guttural voices and laughter and acting strangely. Upon visiting the doctor, she is shocked to find out that the fetus is developing at an accelerated rate. There is also a strange man named Dimitri (Richard Johnson) hanging around, who is either intends to help or harm Jessica. It all comes to a head when Jessica becomes possessed by the devil inside of her, spewing bile and threats to all around her. Can she be helped or will she give birth to the damned thing inside of her?

Beyond the Door is a great Satanic possession film form 1974. It probably isn’t a must-see for all horror fans, but those that enjoy films in this particular sub-genre should definitely give it a look. Though it sometimes has an unintentionally funny feel to it, it has a great atmosphere, a few nice scares and enough gross-out puke to give The Exorcist a run for its money!

Beyond the Door came out just a year after The Exorcist, and though it is similar I wouldn’t call it a direct rip-off. Though, like Regan in The Exorcist, Jessica takes on a whole new, unflattering look, spews a lot of groddy greenish-brown puke and turns her head all the way around, the similarities don’t make the film any less engrossing. The film also shares some close similarities with Rosemary’s Baby, like when Jessica eats a rotten banana peel off the street just like Rosemary eats raw meat in Rosemary’s Baby. Even though Beyond the Door has been called a “rip-off” of earlier horror flicks, I still found it to be an enjoyable film and worth seeing.

One thing that makes it such a treat is the crazy kid characters. The little boy, Ken (David Colin Jr.) loves to say curse words and his older sister, Gail (Barbara Fiorini), loves to talk like a hep cat and has fifteen copies of the same book she always lugs around with her. I’m not really sure what the point of making these kids so weird was, but it sure kept me entertained!! The characters of the parents, Jessica and Robert, were a little more normal, but they certainly didn’t act like normal parents!

Besides the quirky characters, the narrative of the story flowed pretty normally. I loved how it opened upon this candlelit church with an eerie voiceover of the “star” of the story! Though there were some plot holes and things that were never quite tied up, overall I enjoyed the story the film presented. The story was engaging, the characters were unique, the situation was scary and the location was visually arresting.

Speaking of locations, Beyond the Door’s location of sunny San Francisco, with additional scenes filmed in Italy, gave the film a beautiful, dreamlike quality that juxtaposed well with the horror later in the film. The protagonists’ apartment and surroundings are all beautiful…but things start to take a sinister turn as Jessica becomes possessed by the devil inside her. The children’s toys take on a sinister look, cupboards slam on their own, plates are hurled against the walls before breaking into hundreds of pieces and Jessica herself becomes menacing as the demon takes over her body. The contrast between the airy apartment before the possession and the dark, isolated apartment it becomes during the possession really heightens the tension and illustrates the dramatic change Jessica has gone through.

Beyond the Door is a forgotten possession film that really should be seen by fans of the sub-genre. Though it obviously “borrowed” heavily from The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, it is still a pretty good film that deserves to be seen!

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The Ugly File (2009)

When a woman becomes pregnant, isn’t it always her and the father’s greatest fear that the child will come out abnormal or deformed? What would you do if you learned that your unborn child was going to be mentally retarded or be physically deformed so that they could never have a normal life?

The short film The Ugly File, director Mark Steensland most recent film, deals with this very subject, but in a disturbingly skewed way that creates a heartbreakingly horrific film.

Photographer Roy Hubbard (Mike Lechner) visits a woman’s home to take pictures of her baby girl…except there is something terribly wrong with the baby. Back at the studio, Roy adds the photographs to his “ugly file” and delivers said package to a rich man on the outskirts of town who has his own sadly disturbing use for the photographs.

The Ugly File is a subtle film that has a heavy, sad feeling throughout the proceedings. Based on the story by Ed Gorman with a screenplay by Rick Hautala, The Ugly File is a subdued, downbeat horror film that’ll leave you counting your blessings…and your toes!

This 10 minute short starts with a feeling of dread as the photographer drives under overcast skies to a woman’s home to take pictures of her baby, which she says most people can’t even look at. We never see the baby, as Steensland uses clever camera angles to obscure its face, but this only heightens the tension and makes the final “reveal” in the film that much more shocking. The special FX at the end are pretty horrific, even with the limited budget the film was made on. Special FX makeup artist Mark Kosobucki did a fantastic job with creating the look of the baby. I was also surprised to learn that the story by Ed Gorman is actually based on a woman’s true story, which just makes the film even more tragic and horrifying.

The Ugly File works on subtle suspense and pronounced creepiness, so there isn’t any blood or gore contained within the short, but the overall dark atmosphere of the film is what really sells the film. The fear of having a child born with deformities will resonate with many people, even if they don’t have kids of their own (like myself), so check The Ugly File out when it comes to a film festival near you!

Visit Mark Steensland’s Official Site!

Book Review: Eternal Vigilance 2 - The Death of Illusions by Gabrielle Faust

In Gabrielle Faust’s second installment of her cybergoth vampire series Eternal Vigilance, she builds upon main vampire-savior Tynan’s story and the plight of the world as the evil Tyst organization prepares to usher a horrifying vampire god named the Vicinus into the world. Tynan must battle against and defeat the Tyst’s advanced technology as well as facing the Vicinus in its own realm before it is birthed by the Tyst’s Queen and unleashed upon the world to wreak chaos and destruction.

Tynan must also deal with the weight that being the savior of the world places on his shoulders and taking orders from his Immortal Elders as well as the rebel leaders of the Phuree. He also wonders at the relationship between himself and the Tyst Queen Moria, whom he rescued from the Tyst fortress when he was just supposed to end her life and that of the Vicinus inside her.

As the time quickly approaches for the Vicinus to tear into this world, can Tynan defeat the vampire god that was responsible for creating his kind before the world is lost to chaos?

As with her first Eternal Vigilance novel, Faust has woven a gorgeously gothic tapestry that glimmers with pieces of cyberpunk placed into the fabric of the story. This mix of old and new, crumbling and glittering, creates a very exciting backdrop to the story. It really does feel like a whole new world, from the underground tunnels where hackers live to evade the Tyst’s advanced tracking systems to an old cave that used to be a tourist destination where Tynan hides Moria to the castle the Immortals reside in to the Tyst fortress.

I also enjoyed how Faust could now put more action and battles into this book. As the previous book established all the characters, the second book is all about fighting the Tyst and the Vicinus instead of just planning for these battles. Though more time is committed to these exciting battles, Faust still manages to keep her characterizations strong. Of course we get to see reoccurring characters from the first novel, but we are also introduced to a few new characters, including Queen Moria. Faust continues to make things interesting by complicating the relationship between Tynan and Moria and throwing some twists and turns to other relationships within the novel. There are quite a few surprises in Eternal Vigilance 2: The Death of Illusions!

Faust continues to use an elegant, almost elevated, way of speaking that we saw in the first book. There are times when this penchant for the dramatic becomes overly pretentious, but this captures the formal way of speaking that Tynan is used to and really helps to show us his character.

My only real complaint was with a few misspelled words, especially the incorrect use of the word “until.” In the novel it is spelled “till,” instead of the correct way of ” ’til.” This misspelling is a big pet peeve of mine (almost as bad as spelling “grisly” like “grizzly” – god, that annoys me!), so it stuck out a lot and detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel.

Nonetheless, Eternal Vigilance 2: The Death of Illusions is a wonderful addition to the Eternal Vigilance series. The characters are so likable and intriguing that I just can’t wait until the next in the series to see what happens to them all!

Screw Twilight! Eternal Vigilance is the vampire series everyone should be reading!

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Timber Falls (2007)

Some horror movies are so derivative I bet I could use the same review over and over, only needing to change names. The message behind this collective review would be that these unoriginal and woefully tired movies SUCK!

Timber Falls is no different than most horror films that feature religious backwoods fanatics. It’s pretty uninspired and unoriginal…but it does have Josh Randall’s rock hard abs on display!!

A yuppie couple is trying to “get away from it all” and decides a trip into the West Virginian State Park system will do the trick. Acres of forests, mountain peaks and rushing streams do little to soothe the soul when they encounter “the locals” that seem to pop up whatever trail they take. After a night of sweaty tent sex, the woman, Sheryl (Brianna Brown), awakens and decides to skinny dip. I don’t know about you, but after encountering a bunch of mostly lascivious weirdoes the LAST thing I would do is strip naked and give anyone secretly watching a free show. Nonetheless, this seemingly brainless beauty does and promptly gets kidnapped by a disfigured man. Cue our “hero,” Mike, (Josh Randall) who wakes from his slumber and runs around looking for his girlfriend, who by this point is nowhere to be found. When he returns back to camp after a few minutes of hollering, everything – their tent, gear, etc. – is gone! Woe is he! He then stumbles into a giant bear trap and passes out…

Mike wakes up to find himself in the cozy home of a local woman, Ida (Beth Broderick), who at first appears pretty darn normal, but soon enough he discovers her collection of human fetuses in the basement. He also finds Sheryl all tied up there with the hulking brute that kidnapped her. It seems that Ida, her husband Clyde (conveniently a park ranger, played by Nick Searcy) and disfigured brother Deacon (Sascha Rosemann) have been kidnapping couples in the hopes that one of them would conceive and carry a baby to term for them. You see, Ida can’t carry a baby to term and has miscarried countless times (hence the fetuses in jars). They marry the couple so their baby won’t be born out of wedlock and tell them to fulfill their marital duties. One problem, though, the couple just doesn’t feel too romantic under the circumstances and decide to fight back.

This is just another “crazy backwoods hillbillies” movie, but instead of featuring slobbering inbred villains it features a family that just wants a baby…and I guess they can’t afford a surrogate or don’t want to go through the adoption process. Rational and logic clearly gets thrown out the window on this one, but I wasn’t expecting anything brilliant, just a movie I could kill some time with. Unfortunately, the pacing on this movie was so slow that it felt like time was killing me!

It takes at least a half an hour for the film to get anywhere, all the while cycling through the same boring clichés. Perky city couple in the woods? Check. Clueless authority figure? Check. Hostile hillbillies? Check. Creepy religious types? Check. Disfigured bad guy? Check. And that is only within the first part of the movie! The tired, unoriginal storyline limps on through to the end.

Besides the cliché-ridden plot, it seemed silly that the overly muscular Mike (and his spectacular abs), who pretty much dwarfed everyone in the cast, would be overpowered by The Three Stooges of backwoods baby-makin’. He really needed to stop wussin’ out and go Hulk on everyone’s asses (“MIKE ANGRY!!!!”). At least that would have seemed more plausible than dear ol’ Momma Ida beating him up (or at least more entertaining).

I will give credit to the actors for putting on a jolly good show despite the uninspired story. Josh Randall and Brianna Brown do a convincing job of playing the couple, though their character development doesn’t go too deep. The rest of the cast was great as well, but my favorite was Beth Broderick (probably most recognizable from TV show Sabrina, The Teenage Witch) who played Ida. She was definitely this film’s saving grace. Her maniacal mind contrasted sharply with her seemingly sweet demeanor and you never knew what she was going to do next! I felt the character of Deacon, though played very effectively by Sascha Rosemann, was unnecessary. I also wish the film had given more screen time to the two hunters that offered some comedic relief.

Still, despite good performances I just can’t bring myself to recommend this derivative film. It is just overly predictable and bland for my tastes, though Broderick’s performance does kick it up a few notches. And I do have to thank writer Daniel Kay for featuring a scene where actor Josh Randall is strung up and his rippling muscles bathed in sweat and candlelight are in full view.

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Frontieres (2007)

After I heard so much buzz about Frontière(s) (aka Frontier(s)), I was eager to check it out. After the recent French filmmaking triumphs of Haute Tension, Them (Ils) and Inside, it seemed destined that Frontière(s) would be another notch in French horror cinema’s belt. Despite the high praise that Frontière(s) has been receiving, I found it a disappointment. It lacks the ingenuity of past French films. Behind the fountains of blood and gore (enough of an endorsement on its own to get some of you to see it) cowers an unbelievable and “been there, done that” story.

With massive riots rocking Paris, a group of friends are on the lam after a robbery. Farid (Chems Dahmani) and Tom (David Saracino) head out of town and into the countryside, while pregnant Yasmine (Karina Testa) and baby daddy Alex (Aurélien Wiik) take Yas’ brother Sami (Adel Bencherif) to the ER after he suffers a gunshot wound. When Sami dies moments later and the cops are hot on their trail, Yas and Alex high-tail it out of town to meet up with Farid and Tom, who are holed up at a hostel deep in the countryside. What they don’t know is that the hostel and the nearby farm are run by a mad old man and his neo-Nazi family. When they discover that Yas is pregnant, their nefarious plans for “pure blood” are focused on her unborn child.

Frontière(s), written and directed by Xavier Gens, uses convenient plot twists and contrived situations that require quite a suspension of belief. Not to mention that we’ve all seen the “crazy cannibalistic family in the countryside” before. Frontière(s) doesn’t really add anything new to this delightful subgenre, which is just fine if you want the comfort of the familiar. If you are looking for something to knock your socks off, though, I’m afraid Frontière(s) won’t do the trick.

The contrived plot turns are probably what annoyed me most about this film. The way things unfold seem awfully convenient…that, or the characters really are dumber than a bag full of rocks. For example, when Yasmine has multiple chances to escape and run far, far away, she always manages to muck it up and get herself caught again. Also, in a brutal scene involving a table saw, the way things unfold (man turns on table saw, man walks away from table saw, man is pushed backward, falls on still-running table saw) seemed too much like a set-up. The scene felt forced, unnatural, unbelievable and in no way surprising. There were ample scenes like this that just made me roll my eyes. Another example would be the anti-climatic use of guns throughout the film, especially in the shoot ‘em up finale. Sure, people get their brains blown out aplenty, but this method of killing just seems too easy and dull for a horror movie.

On the positive end of the spectrum, the film offers plenty of grue – most of which ends up plastered all over one particular character by the end of the film. If you are looking to satiate your blood thirst, Frontière(s) will definitely help you quench it. There are also several nifty death scenes (the saw scene does look cool, even if it feels contrived, and there’s a sadistic steam death sequence that’s pretty gruesome) along with plenty of violence.

The acting is also quite good, with all the actors giving great performances. The backwoods family, featuring three grown daughters, three sons and the evil Nazi Vater (that’s “father” for all you non-German speaking folk), was pretty brutal but intriguing. You just couldn’t wait to see what they would do next. The group of friends caught in the middle each had their own personalities and each character was adequately developed, something that most horror movies woefully forget to do. Karina Testa as Yasmine was the most effective, going from distraught to confused to determined to enraged in a steadily building crescendo of emotions and vengeance.

Still, no amount of good acting or bloody gore could make me fully enjoy this film. There was too much of an incomplete storyline, too many convenient plot developments and too many loose ends the film fails to tie up. Even the beginning of the film, which featured footage of riots, didn’t have any bearing on the rest of the story and the Nazi family’s intentions for “pure blood” weren’t quite explained adequately.

Though I found Frontière(s) to be seriously lacking, I would still recommend it over the heinous American remakes currently being churned out. There is plenty of blood and grue to entertain gorehounds, just don’t expect a cohesive or original story.

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Bloodlines (2007)

Bloodlines (aka Stickville) is I Spit On Your Grave meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s a brutal and shocking film that relies on strong characters that we want to see survive.

In the backwoods of Kentucky, a family of inbreds is intent on keeping their family bloodline alive...they begin seeking out pretty women who can continue their heritage without the deformities that are a result of inbreeding. They kidnap women and force them to fight to the death to determine who is the strongest. The winner is then raped by the “man of the house,” Billy Bob (Jason Padgett), in hopes that she will get pregnant and give birth to the family’s future. When the family abducts Amber Strickland (Grace Johnston) after her car breaks down on a desolate stretch of road, they learn that they’ve messed with the wrong woman. Amber is smart and tough-as-nails, and soon her own vicious family comes looking for her…

Bloodlines is a nasty tale about a family of murderous, backwoods inbreds. Despite its familiar story, it manages to draw the viewer in with some excellent character development and brutal, hard-to-watch scenes. While the film does have its gore, it doesn’t rely on just that to entertain the audience. Instead, the film is brutal and hard-to-watch because of its excellent character development, which makes us care a great deal about the captive women, especially when they are being brutalized. Thankfully, this is not an exploitative film and the violence toward the women is never eroticized or “sexy.” No matter how terrorized by the inbred family the women are, though, (especially Amber’s character) the women always hold their own and fight back.

What I enjoyed most about this film were the female characters. The women aren’t all strong like Amber, but the each finds her strength by the end of the film. Amber, played by Grace Johnston, is a very well developed character and as the film progresses you keep caring more and more about her. She sticks up for those weaker than her, doesn’t back down, is loyal, is determined and is extremely gutsy! The villain of the piece, Billy Bob (Jason Padgett) is a vile piece of backwoods misogynistic trash, talking down to his sisters, violently abusing women, raping women and leading his family and friends to do very nasty things to the women they capture. There is no way anyone could empathize or support such a sick, sadistic piece of work like Billy Bob (at least, I sure as hell hope no one could relate to him!). Both Johnston and Padgett (as well as the rest of the cast) do a fantastic job at playing their characters.

Along with the character development, the story is also very well-developed. The pacing is quick and there are few moments to catch your breath. There is enough depth (and a few twists) to the story to make it interesting, but not too much that would otherwise bog the story down.

This is an independent film, but it looks surprisingly great. It was mostly filled in one location (the isolated cabin home of the inbred family), but it also utilizes some great scenes in the forest where the inbreds are hunted by Amber’s own family. The scenes within the cabin are appropriately claustrophobic, frightening and tense.

I only have a few complaints about the film, one of which is the climactic scene, which seems to drag on a bit too long. Also, there are so many women that Billy Bob and his family are holding – I think they should have stuck to the original three hostages that were first introduced.

Besides these minor quibbles, Bloodlines is a film with a story and characters that will have you glued to the screen. I highly recommend checking it out when it is released by THINKFilm, tentatively scheduled for July 31, 2007.

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Masters of Horror - Pro-Life (2006)

In the second season of Masters of Horror, John Carpenter returns with Pro-Life, wielding mixed results. Carpenter has chosen to tackle the controversial issue of abortion, but the story of Pro-Life is mildly entertaining at best.

Fifteen-year-old Angelique is running from something in the woods when she suddenly emerges onto the road and is nearly hit by two abortion clinic doctors. They want to make sure she is ok, so they take her into the guarded clinic. Little do they know Angelique is the daughter of pro-life supporter Dwayne Burcell, who shows up just a few minutes after Angelique is taken into the clinic. The doctors soon find out that Angelique is pregnant and that she desperately wants an abortion. Beyond the guarded clinic gates, Dwayne impatiently waits, demanding his daughter be taken out of their slaughterhouse. The pressure mounts when the doctors discover that Angelique’s baby is developing at an accelerated rate and is violent. Dwayne and his three sons storm the clinic with guns to retrieve Angelique and protect the baby on what they believe is a mission from God. Everyone might have bigger problems to deal with, though, as Angelique goes into labor and delivers a baby spawned in hell…

I was expecting a lot on the social commentary front, but Pro-Life seemed to be on the fence with the whole abortion issue. Its focus was more on presenting specific characters than presenting a fully formed opinion on abortion. Those interested in more of a socially conscious movie won’t get much here, though they could read deeper into it than I have. I was hoping for another creepy Carpenter Masters of Horror episode like last season’s Cigarette Burns, which I thought was one of the best, but was sadly disappointed.

The story doesn’t hold much tension or scares, but instead focuses on the siege aspect of the Burcell’s breaking into the clinic. I found this a little boring and the gunfire got old fast. You can only see so many heads blown off before it becomes dull. The torture sequence with one of the doctors was pretty cringe-inducing, but the rest of the movie just got silly from there. Everything seemed to go downhill with the birth of the demon baby and I lost interest fast.

The acting was ok, but there were no great performances. Ron Perlman’s performance as Dwayne Burcell came off as flat and uninteresting, which was a pity. Caitlin Wachs did a good job as the scared and desperate Angelique Burcell, but she overacted in some parts. Mark Feuerstein as one of more familiar faces in the cast did a competent job, but he quickly got lost towards the end. No one performance really stood out in this episode. In defense of the actors, the dialogue really wasn’t that great and the story was pretty forgettable.

What really killed the episode for me was the ending. It seemed overly hokey and while the monster effects were passable, I think they could have been much better. It was also anticlimactic and resolved a little too quickly for my taste.

All in all, Pro-Life was a pretty unremarkable episode in the Masters of Horror series that suffers greatly from its lack of tension and suspense. I’d pass on this one…

Available on Amazon!

Baby Blood (1990)

Let me just preface this review by saying, pregnancy scares me…having something growing inside of you for nine months is just a little creepy. Forget about maternal instincts, because I’m not sure I have any. I avoid little kids and their destructive paths at all costs and to think about one growing inside of me…ugh! Heebie jeebies all the way…

Baby Blood is a French movie that just about hits on all these fears. Yanka works in the circus as part of the lion’s tamer show. She is also the circus manager’s girlfriend, and he’s not a very pleasant fellow. He abuses her, both emotionally and physically, and she wants nothing more than to leave her life. One day, a leopard is delivered to the circus from Africa, acting agitated and in turn agitating the other lions and tigers (but no bears, oh my!). The other animals start behaving strangely towards Yanka, and a tiger almost attacks her in practice. That night, the lion tamer finds the leopard completely eviscerated, almost as if it burst from the inside out. Something, in fact, was nesting inside the leopard and the snake-looking thing makes a bee-line for Yanka’s trailer. Asleep inside, Yanka doesn’t realize the creature crawling its way under the bed sheets and up inside to her uterus. The next day, Yanka realizes she is pregnant and leaves the circus, moving into a dilapidated building in the city. Whatever is growing inside of her can talk to her and tells her what to do. This baby needs blood, and urges Yanka to kill to feed it. Yanka develops a love/hate relationship with her “child,” and bloodily murders many a stupid man who crosses her path. Yanka steadily grows in girth as the baby inside her develops, heading toward the blood-drenched delivery and aftermath.

This was a very horrifying film with black comedy elements scattered throughout. Emmanuelle Escourrou plays the conflicted Yanka with truthfulness and believability. Her unconventional and voluptuous beauty is just right for the role. The rest of the cast play unlikable, stupid and horny men, all who are indefinitely disposable to Yanka. The story, while not original, works quite well and in no way feels like a rip-off of other horror films. The interactions between Yanka, her baby and the men that enter (and violently leave) her life are all very entertaining and feel very real. Director Alain Roback does a great job capturing the bloody action and adding flair to the proceedings. The look and techniques used throughout the film are very different from the typical horror movie and set the dark tone of the film.

As for the gore, this film delivers geysers of the red stuff! Yanka violently dispatches men with throat slittings, stabbings, decapitations and oodles of blood splatter. There are some very memorable, very bloody scenes throughout the film.

There has been talk of the film’s feminist leanings in regards to how the men are portrayed – boorish, horny, stupid slobs – but while the film can perhaps be viewed as a feminist commentary, it is never heavy-handed in its approach. I will admit that it was quite amusing to see such low-life, scummy men get their balls handed to them on a platter. Call it cinematic catharsis, but men get their just desserts in this film.

Baby Blood is a little known gem of a horror film, one that has finally been given a wider release by lovely Anchor Bay. It is now presented remastered and uncut, therefore some scenes are still in the original French (with English subtitles) instead of being dubbed. The Anchor Bay release is the only one that will do, as I hear the original 1990 US release (released under the title The Evil Within) is hacked to bits and indecipherable from the original film.

If you want a reason to avoid pregnancy and having kids, pop this bloody little piece of film in! You’ll be sure to be disgusted, repulsed and will definitely lay off that baby talk for good!

Available on Amazon!

Grace (2006)

Imagine losing your unborn child. Now, imagine having to carry that dead, unborn child to term. Upon giving birth to your dead, decomposing baby, a miracle happens and your baby comes back to life…but things just aren’t right with your child. This is the premise of Grace, a stunning, clever and grown-up horror film by Paul Solet...

Madeline (Lisa Weil) is eight months pregnant and is determined to protect her unborn child at all costs. On a car ride with her husband, she refuses to have any more ultrasounds done because it might harm the baby. She also is adamant about having a natural birth. Her husband (Brian Austin Green, of 90210 fame) disagrees and insists that she get proper care at a real hospital. Suddenly, they crash head-on with another car. When Madeline awakes, she finds Brian and her unborn child dead. Madeline carries the baby to term, goes through a natural birth and gives birth to a dead baby. Still, she holds the decomposing baby, cooing and talking to it, telling her how much she loves her. When the midwife comes in to take the dead baby away, she finds Madeline nursing a very baby that is very much alive...A baby that Madeline names Grace.

Original, creepy and intelligent with vivid imagery, Grace succeeds on many levels. What woman hasn’t worried about becoming pregnant, losing her unborn child or having an abnormal birth? All these nightmares come rolled into one in Grace. I find it completely refreshing that Solet has chosen to focus on something from a woman’s point of view while still being able to freak out the males in the audience.

Shot on 35mm film (rare for short films), the movie looks great and has a professional quality. It has some really great scenes and sequences, especially the birthing scene. This scene is pretty nasty but not overly so, it just feels very realistic. Liza Weil (most recognizable from Gilmore Girls) puts on a great performance as a mother with an undying love for her child. She plays protective, heartbroken and loving with ease. I’ve never been pregnant, but I could easily relate to how she was feeling and what she was going through.

Solet does a great job setting up the story in a short amount of time. We get all we need to know about how Madeline and her husband feel about the pregnancy within the first few minutes and the story takes off from there. The story itself is extremely original and I’ve never seen anything like it before. It is a truly horrifying premise, one that hits close to home for many women. Solet plans on turning Grace into a feature-length film, and I can’t wait to see it.