The Furies
In which girls are abducted and then released in the middle of nowhere, Australia, to be pursued by masked mad axe-murderers. The girls all have retinal implants so their movements and fates can be viewed by a Mysterious Someone, and it quickly becomes clear that the connection between the Beauties (as the girls are termed) and the killers (the Beasts) is a little more complicated than simple slice and dice.
Crisply shot and edited in some stunning locations, this Australian splatter piece is very much a Frightfest highlight. The forest in which the girls find themselves lends an eerie, almost alien backdrop to the proceedings, and the violence is grim and graphic enough to get even the more hardened gorehounds cringing. Fast paced at a brisk 82 minutes THE FURIES is recommended stalk and slash viewing.
THE FURIES is out on Digital HD from Signature Entertainment on Monday 16th September 2019
Depraved
Tremendous low-budget interpretation of the Frankenstein story by director Larry Fessenden, for whom this represents a career best. A commentary on so much of modern American culture I'll leave it to one of the many splendid lines from Larry's script to sum this one up: "God is dead and all we have left is our technology and our nightmares." Superb.
Dark Light
With its subterranean humanoid lizards and bodies stored in pools of green goo there's something of old school Dr Who (perhaps mixed with X-Files) about DARK LIGHT. Unfortunately, while the monsters are excellent the human characters give us little to care about and in the end DARK LIGHT, while perfectly competent and serviceable, is nothing more than that.
Ready Or Not
Terrifically entertaining piece that's about to get a national release. Samara Weaving marries into a super rich family that has made its fortune selling games only to discover that after the wedding guests have gone home she has to pick a game to play with her new in-laws.
Unfortunately they just happened to have made a pact with Satan that demands they sacrifice a blushing bride every now and then to keep him happy. Hide and seek was never so bloodstained or as outrageously entertaining as this, a sterling effort from the Radio Silence team (who gave us the best episode of the original V/H/S).
The Sonata
Mad genius composer Rutger Hauer puts the final touches to his lifelong masterwork and then sets himself on fire in his isolated French chateau. His daughter, concert violinist Rose (Freya Tingley) inherits his property and his work, which turns out to have coded sections she needs to work out. Diabolical fiendishness ensues.
Nobody likes a good classical music-themed EuroGothic more than me, but even so I found THE SONATA plodding in its storytelling and in desperate need of some oomph to hold the attention. The lead lacks charisma and all the talk leads to a climax that's too little too late. That said, the music score is good and the locations are lovely. The script just needed to be less legato and have quite a bit more of the sforzandos.
No comments:
Post a Comment