A bang up to date addition to the 'corner of the retina' ghost story genre made famous by M R James, DEATH OF A VLOGGER details what happens after Graham (played by writer-producer-director Graham Hughes) gains fame on the internet for posting a video showing an apparent haunting.
Is he really starting to see weird things in his flat, or is it just all in his head? Made on a tiny budget but with some of the scariest scenes in Frightfest so far, this one's still awaiting a distribution deal. Look out for it when it gets one.
Ghost Killers Vs Bloody Mary
A Brazilian GHOSTBUSTERS spoof that takes about twenty minutes to rack everything up to eleven and then stays there for the rest of the film. In amongst all the blood, mayhem, possessed foetus-fighting and even more disgusting things crawling out of the toilet there's an entertaining, knowing wit to all of this that makes it worth a watch if you can put up with the almost constant barrage of over the top craziness.
True Fiction
A twisty-turny Canadian psycho thriller with a standout performance from lead Sara Garcia who goes from starry-eyed fangirl to raving madwoman and beyond. Director Braden Croft channels both Stephen King (especially Misery) and Michael Powell (PEEPING TOM) in this claustrophobic two-hander. One for the writers among us who favour the good old fashioned typewriter.
Feedback
Eddie Marsan in a film is always a treat, but having Marsan as the star is something that happens all too infrequently. Hooray, then, for Pedro C Alonso's British-Spanish coproduction FEEDBACK which stars Marsan as a journalist turned talk radio host of show 'The Grim Reality' Jarvis Dolan.
When the studio Dolan is broadcasting in is taken over by armed thugs, he finds himself being coerced into confessing to a crime he claims to have no memory of. Who is telling the truth? Or are both parties creating their own versions of it?
FEEDBACK does a fine job of confining its storytelling to pretty much a single location and ratcheting up the tension from there. It's not a perfect film but by halfway through you'll be on the edge of your seat wondering what's going to happen next, and as always, Marsan is excellent.
FEEDBACK is out on Digital HD from Signature Entertainment on Monday 26th August 2019
Extracurricular
A glimpse into the lives of high school psychopaths as we follow four teenagers plotting and executing mayhem and murder in a small American town. Sheriff Luke Goss is mystified when people suddenly start turning up dead in his town. Little does he know that his sons are two of the four behind the deaths. Such a killing spree can't last forever, though, and it's not long before things don't go quite to plan for our young killers.
Well acted, clever, and surprisingly bleak, EXTRACURRICULAR offers an interesting twist on the usual 'lumbering axe murderer going after teens' subgenre as the tables are turned and it's the young who prey on those older than them, solely for the purpose of kicks. Definitely worth a watch and one of highlights of this year's Frightfest.
EXTRACURRICULAR is out on Digital HD from Signature Entertainment on Monday 21st October 2019
The Dark Red
Sybil (April Billingsley) is in a psychiatric ward. She suffers from schizophrenia and believes she can hear other people's thoughts. She also claims her baby was recently cut out of her by a weird cult so they could use its blood. Is it all in her mind or is there really a house out in the middle of nowhere that's harvesting special infants?
Very much a film of two parts, THE DARK RED starts off very slow and measured, concentrating on Sybil's consultations with her psychiatrist. The final act, however, goes for full-on low budget action. A little less of the first and a bit more of the second, plus some judicious editing, would have been an immense help to this, a film that has an interesting story to tell but doesn't quite have the skill behind the camera to pull the whole thing off entirely satisfactorily. THE DARK RED does boast some originality and keeps its feet firmly on the ground with its essentially daft plot, all of which makes it worth a look.
THE DARK RED will be released on Digital HD on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment on Monday 18th November 2019
The Drone
The director of ZOMBEAVERS strikes again with this very funny take on technology gone bad. When police corner pervy psychopathic criminal The Violator a random blast of lightning sends his soul into the drone he is holding. Now possessed by the serial killer, the device flies to the house of Rachel (Alex Essoe from STARRY EYES) and her husband, where it proceeds to try and destroy Rachel's life, killing the family dog and framing her husband for murder.
Can Rachel defeat the drone? Can the film-makers find ways for it to just keep coming when it would be so easy just to turn it off / take out the batteries / hit it with a stick? There were laughs aplenty in the auditorium at the world premiere of Jordan Rubin's picture, as well as plenty of in-jokes for the seasoned horror fan in the form of classic movie scenes recreated, but with a drone instead. If you loved ZOMBEAVERS you'll love this.
Critters Attack
Those loveable bouncy, bitey alien balls of fur are back. CRITTERS ATTACK follows on from the delightful CRITTERS (1986) and its increasingly poor sequels. As those sequels go, CRITTERS ATTACK fits in as somewhat 'par for the course'. This time the alien Krites invade a small town and it's up to a gang of plucky kids (led by their babysitter) to stop the menace and...er...save the cuddly, smiley, big-eyed 'good' one.
CRITTERS ATTACK could have been better. Dee Wallace as one of the alien bounty hunters this time around is a plus, but the film is sadly lacking the original's sense of anarchic fun or its sense of urgency. In fact so lacking is the film in suspense or thrills that you wonder if everyone making it was on tranquilisers. Sorry CRITTERS ATTACK - I was looking forward to seeing you and you have disappointed me.
Warner Bros. are bringing out the film on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital as you read this. Extras include a commentary track with the director and a critter (!), plus three making of featurettes.
Madness in the Method
The director of ZOMBEAVERS strikes again with this very funny take on technology gone bad. When police corner pervy psychopathic criminal The Violator a random blast of lightning sends his soul into the drone he is holding. Now possessed by the serial killer, the device flies to the house of Rachel (Alex Essoe from STARRY EYES) and her husband, where it proceeds to try and destroy Rachel's life, killing the family dog and framing her husband for murder.
Can Rachel defeat the drone? Can the film-makers find ways for it to just keep coming when it would be so easy just to turn it off / take out the batteries / hit it with a stick? There were laughs aplenty in the auditorium at the world premiere of Jordan Rubin's picture, as well as plenty of in-jokes for the seasoned horror fan in the form of classic movie scenes recreated, but with a drone instead. If you loved ZOMBEAVERS you'll love this.
Critters Attack
Those loveable bouncy, bitey alien balls of fur are back. CRITTERS ATTACK follows on from the delightful CRITTERS (1986) and its increasingly poor sequels. As those sequels go, CRITTERS ATTACK fits in as somewhat 'par for the course'. This time the alien Krites invade a small town and it's up to a gang of plucky kids (led by their babysitter) to stop the menace and...er...save the cuddly, smiley, big-eyed 'good' one.
CRITTERS ATTACK could have been better. Dee Wallace as one of the alien bounty hunters this time around is a plus, but the film is sadly lacking the original's sense of anarchic fun or its sense of urgency. In fact so lacking is the film in suspense or thrills that you wonder if everyone making it was on tranquilisers. Sorry CRITTERS ATTACK - I was looking forward to seeing you and you have disappointed me.
Warner Bros. are bringing out the film on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital as you read this. Extras include a commentary track with the director and a critter (!), plus three making of featurettes.
CRITTERS ATTACK is out on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on 26th August 2019
Madness in the Method
Jason Mewes, star of Kevin Smith films including DOGMA and the JAY & SILENT BOB movies wants to gain more respect for himself in Hollywood by expanding his repertoire. Smith himself suggests a book he should read but his attempts to get hold of a copy and read it only lead to a series of murders as Mewes ends up trapping himself in an ever-worsening spiral of madness.
With an interesting cast of characters including Vinny Jones, Danny Trejo, Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher, MADNESS IN THE METHOD is a ramshackle, knockabout, sweary, gory journey through LA and the eccentrics who live there (in Mewes' mind if nowhere else). How much you'll enjoy it will depend on your affection for the kinds of films Mewes is known for. Others might find it all just a bit too desperate.
Are We Dead Yet?
Oh dear. My first (hopefully only) walk out of the festival. A gang of incompetent criminals find themselves in a haunted house in debut writer-director Fredi Nwaka's "horror comedy". Good British films of this type are exceedingly rare - the last was probably Matthias Hoene's 2012 COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES. Unfortunately ARE WE DEAD YET? isn't even on a par with the likes of I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE. With its broad London accents and even broader humour, it's probably all right if you're very forgiving and enjoy things like EAT LOCALS and STRIPPERS VS WEREWOLVES. Which I don't.
Volition
Time travel drama in the same genre as Nacho Vigalondo's TIMECRIMES. James (Adrian Glynn McMorran) is a grifter hired by a shady businessman to dispose of some diamonds. When he foresees his own death and tries to change things, it leads him down a road of revelation about a bizarre experiment it turns out he is the subject of. A good film that perhaps deserved an earlier slot so its complexities could be better pondered by the more awake.
Are We Dead Yet?
Oh dear. My first (hopefully only) walk out of the festival. A gang of incompetent criminals find themselves in a haunted house in debut writer-director Fredi Nwaka's "horror comedy". Good British films of this type are exceedingly rare - the last was probably Matthias Hoene's 2012 COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES. Unfortunately ARE WE DEAD YET? isn't even on a par with the likes of I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE. With its broad London accents and even broader humour, it's probably all right if you're very forgiving and enjoy things like EAT LOCALS and STRIPPERS VS WEREWOLVES. Which I don't.
Volition
Time travel drama in the same genre as Nacho Vigalondo's TIMECRIMES. James (Adrian Glynn McMorran) is a grifter hired by a shady businessman to dispose of some diamonds. When he foresees his own death and tries to change things, it leads him down a road of revelation about a bizarre experiment it turns out he is the subject of. A good film that perhaps deserved an earlier slot so its complexities could be better pondered by the more awake.
I Trapped the Devil
Has Steve (Scott Poythress) got the devil locked up in his basement? Or has he just seen / read Charles Beaumont's Twilight Zone episode The Howling Man too many times? I'm presuming writer-director Josh Lobo has, as here he stretches out that short story / 30 minute TV concept to 82 minutes (including credits). And stretches is being kind. This is one of those films where everyone seems aware they have to drag everything out, so dialogue is spoken very slowly and every action is done very deliberately and after a lot of thought, with the result that you start shouting at the screen for them to just get on with it.
This kind of thing can be riveting if you have the right kind of actors able to make that approach compelling (the likes of David Warner and Donald Pleasence immediately come to mind), but unfortunately that's not the case here. There are a couple of memorably weird scenes but I TRAPPED THE DEVIL ultimately stands as an example of how you can't turn a short subject into a feature unless you are very clever and very resourceful. Keep the fast forward button handy.
I TRAPPED THE DEVIL will be released on Digital HD on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment on Monday 21st October 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment