Crystal Eyes (2018)

One of the best films to premiere at 2018's London Frightfest is now available to watch on the Arrow Channel. 

It's the 1980s - at least it certainly seems that way from that music, those hairstyles and those fashions. A year after supermodel Alexis Carpenter dies horribly in a bizarre catwalk accident members of the fashion house she worked with are being bumped off by a killer dressed as a mannequin. Will anyone survive to inherit Alexis' diamante-encrusted tiara as Queen of the supermodels? Or will everyone be dead by the blood and glitter-drenched climax?

Written and directed by Ezequiel Endelman and Leandro Montejano, CRYSTAL EYES is a brightly coloured, fabulously ambitious, deliciously stylish tribute to giallo cinema that's all the more impressive because of what is achieved on an obviously very low budget. 

There are plenty of in-jokes for Italian horror cinema aficionados, both in character names and in the production design that manages to successfully homage Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA with sets probably made from plywood and prayers. 

The attention to detailing in the costume and accoutrement design is marvellous - even the umbrellas are interesting. Does one really curl one's eyelashes like that, though? I'm not so sure.

Tremendous fun and a must watch for any fan of the verve, sparkle and style of 1970s Italian horror cinema, CRYSTAL EYES is an assured and impressive debut for its two directors and is hopefully just the first of many projects from them. The music (by Pablo Fuu) is excellent as well. Come on, Arrow - let's have a double disc Blu-ray release of this with a soundtrack CD included. 

CRYSTAL EYES is currently available to view on the 

Arrow Channel

This Gun for Hire (1942)

"Thoroughly Enjoyable Briskly Paced Noir"

A couple of years ago I reviewed Arrow's Blu-ray release of THE GLASS KEY starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd. Now Eureka are giving us the chance to see the Lake/Ladd starrer that preceded that and made Ladd into a star.

Ladd plays Raven, an assassin for hire who bumps off a blackmailing chemist at the behest of villainous Laird Cregar (probably best known to readers here for starring in John Brahm's duet of mid 1940s classics THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE). Out for revenge Raven meets nightclub singer-cum-magician Ellen (Lake) on a train. Her boyfriend Michael (Robert Preston) is a detective on the hunt for the assassin. The poison gas the dead chemist was working on is due to be sold to the Japanese and Raven suffers a crisis of conscience as those looking for him close in, leading to a splendid confrontation in the wheelchair-bound master villain's skyscraper lair.

Adapted from a Graham Greene novel, the teaming of Ladd and Lake worked so well that Paramount had already put them together for THE GLASS KEY before THIS GUN FOR HIRE had been released. As well as those two stars the film benefits immensely from the presences of both Preston and Cregar, likeable and slimy respectively. But it's Ladd's show all the way and it's not surprising reviews of the period recognised this was a star in the making. 

Director Frank Tuttle never made anything approaching a horror film but that doesn't stop him staging a splendid bit at Cregar's isolated gothic country residence at night. With a power outage during a storm, Lake having revealed herself as someone who has to be done away with, and Ladd coming to the rescue it's all splendid stuff.

  Eureka's transfer is a 4K scan. Extras on the Blu-ray include a commentary track from film scholar Adrian Martin, two radio adaptations with the voice of Alan Ladd in both and Joan Blondell in the Lux Radio Theatre version and Veronica Lake in the Screen Guild Theater one. You also get a trailer and a booklet with new writing on the film from Barry Forshaw and Craig Ian Mann.

THIS GUN FOR HIRE is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 14th September 2020

The Tomb: Devil's Revenge (2020)

        "I'm going to blow your brains out all over that horse!" says William Shatner early on in THE TOMB:DEVIL'S REVENGE, out in a bit on digital platforms from 4Digital Media. Viewers who make it to the end of the film will, like that horse, wonder what they have done to suffer such an indignity. Yes, once again House of Mortal Cinema finds itself paying a visit to the realm of Truly Terrible Films with a movie that is less deserving of a review and more a funeral, which is just one of the things incompetently depicted onscreen in this one.

Watch out horses everywhere!

A team of experts explore a cave in Kentucky but find themselves challenged by a slight incline that causes them to swear mightily while one of their number falls down it and somehow ends up a bloody mess. The lead is archaeologist John Brock (Jason Brooks) who decides, after much hallucinating and a heart attack, that the best thing to do is go back there with his family including poor Jeri Ryan as his long-suffering (by now we know how she feels) wife. 

One of the shots that pops up at least four times

       He's searching for a cursed relic that causes Aztec demons in heavy metal outfits to appear at regular intervals and kill everyone. Or possibly not. They've been haunting the family for years according to William Shatner, again only possibly, because while attempting to explain all this Mr Shatner goes off on the kind of rambling incoherent rant that Ed Wood would have been proud of, so who knows what's actually going on? Certainly not the makers of this one, who in terms of narrative coherence demonstrate the highest levels of 'I Can't Be Arsed' we've seen so far this year.

Jeri Ryan in talks with her agent

Anyway, off goes John, family in tow, in his shit-stained falling apart Winnebago which we assume is in such a poor state of repair because it's going to get blown up or driven off a cliff (these things do not happen). A whole load of nonsense does happen however, none of which is explained by the shock horror "ending", and none of which distracts from the many questions we still have as the credits role which include: how many times are we going to see that identical flashback of an Aztec sacrifice? (Four). Will we even see the giant spider that has been leaving all the webbing in the caves? (No.) Why do they need torches in such well-lit caves and why do they keep shining them directly into the camera? (You can probably answer that one for yourself by now). 

A rare shot where the screen isn't a white-out

Sorry everyone but THE TOMB:DEVIL'S REVENGE is terrible. In fact it's on the nominations list for worst of the year. "You didn't see shit," says Mr Shatner close to the end. Oh yes we did, Bill. Oh yes we did. 

THE TOMB: DEVIL'S REVENGE is out on digital platforms from 4Digital Media on Monday 14th September 2020

Walkabout (1971)

"Excellent Presentation of Director Nicolas Roeg's First Solo Feature"

After co-directing PERFORMANCE with Donald Cammell in 1970, and before going on to 1973's DON'T LOOK NOW, Nicolas Roeg made WALKABOUT, a movie that's now getting a whistles and bells Blu-ray release from Second Sight.

A man (John Meillon, probably best known for appearing in Peter Faiman's CROCODILE DUNDEE) takes his daughter (Jenny Agutter) and son (Roeg's son Luc here billed as Lucien John) into the outback, where he attempts to kill them. Failing that he shoots himself and sets his car on fire, leaving the two children stranded. Wandering the wilderness, and becoming increasingly hungry and thirsty, they are saved by an accidental meeting with an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) who is on 'walkabout' - the traditional ritual in which he must learn to survive off the land. But the clash of cultures leads to tragedy.

One of the extras on Second Sight's Blu-ray is an 'Archive Introduction' by the director which looks like it's actually a snippet from a longer interview. In it he reveals that the original screenplay for WALKABOUT was 14 pages long. It's certainly a story told mainly visually, with Roeg's camera (he was also the cinematographer) beautifully capturing the landscape and the vibrant wildlife within it. 

Second Sight's 4K restoration transfer is excellent and a major improvement on Criterion's Blu-ray which was itself a major improvement over its previous non-anamorphic DVD. You may want to hang onto your Criterion disc, though because the Roeg and Agutter commentary track on there that was originally recorded for the laserdisc release hasn't been ported over. 

There is, however, a brand new commentary track with Luc Roeg and David Thomson, plus a host of other extras unique to this edition. These include new interviews with Agutter and Luc Roeg, another with producer Si Litvinoff (whose enthusiasm for the picture all these years on is quite charming) and a new interview with director Danny Boyle about Roeg's career. You also get the 2011 BFI Q&A with Jenny Agutter and Nicolas and Luc Roeg and the above mentioned archival introduction.

The disc comes in a rigid slipcase with new artwork. Also included is the novel the film was based on (which makes for an interesting read as some of it is from the Aboriginal boy's point of view), as well as the first draft of the screenplay after Roeg had plumped it up to make the studio interested, plus another book with new writing on the film.

       The bottom line: A must-have package for WALKABOUT fans. You'll want to hang onto your Criterion Blu-ray but there's enough new material and that great 4K transfer to make picking this up more than worthwhile.

Nicolas Roeg's WALKABOUT came out on Blu-ray (Region B) in a limited edition of 3000 from Second Sight on Monday 31st August 2020. It looks like you can now order it from Second Sight's site.

Frightfest 2020 Day Five - Monday

Enhanced

If you hang around at Frightfest for long enough, sooner or later a version of the kind of movie Empire Pictures used to do so well back in the 198os will turn up. Unfortunately ENHANCED is nowhere near as good as the films Charles Band and Co. used to turn out, saddled as it with a derivative script, uncharismatic performances, and a dead serious po-faced approach that makes the whole thing feel very much like a sub-par X-Men knock off.

AV The Hunt

Brutal and uncompromising, this Turkish film is the kind of thing that Frightfest showcases so well. As a result of an affair a woman finds herself on the run from the male members of her family who are determined to kill her to avenge the honour they feel has been besmirched by her act. Action packed from the off with plenty of nail-biting suspense as well as social commentary this could be the film of the festival. And of course I'm not going to tell you if it has a happy ending or not. 

Dark Stories

The final film for this year's August Frightfest is a French anthology picture with five stories and a bizarre (and at the same time somewhat perfunctory) wraparound where Kristanna Lokken tells stories to a talking doll that has her tied up in her basement. The first story is set in an art gallery and has a fantastic central idea about ghouls hiding in paintings. Other stories include a park filled with ghosts and a splendid tale of a girl who unwittingly brings a Jinn back from Morocco. The final story boasts Dominique Pinon (DELICATESSEN) and Michelle Ryan (COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES) and while pleasant enough doesn't really have the punch to end a horror anthology. Still, DARK STORIES was a decent festival closer.


And that's it! The first ever digital Frightfest! Somehow here we still feel almost as exhausted as if we'd been to London anyway. Huge thanks to the organisers, and to all our new friends on social media in the Frightfest and Phoenix groups who provided thoughtful discussion and barrels of laughs where appropriate. It looks like there are more digital festivals on the horizon, but until then I have to give special shout outs to star Tyler Gallant, screenwriter Joe Knetter, and director Marcel Walz who have demonstrated tremendous good humour in showing their appreciation for the tribute video we made to their film BLIND. Gentlemen we salute you! As it seems like a good note to go out on, here it is:

BLIND (not this one) is out on Digital HD from Signature Entertainment on their Frightfest Presents label on Monday November 16th 2020. 

House of Mortal Cinema will be back after a nice lie down

Frightfest 2020 Day Four - Sunday

Skull The Mask

The discovery of a skull mask by Nazis leads to a blood-drenched attempt to revive the Old Gods in Sao Paolo in this action-packed thoroughly entertaining movie from directors Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman. There's a 1970s feel and enough wit, creativity and ambition on display here (the depiction of the evil god sitting on his throne in the depths of the void of space is a delicious example of low budget cosmic horror) that this feels like a Brazilian Larry Cohen film, and that's praise indeed. Definitely two directors to look out for - their next movie could be even better than this.

Hail to the Deadites

A feature-length documentary on the remarkable number of fans who are mad on Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD trilogy and Bruce Campbell's character of Ash. Even people who aren't a fan of these particular films should be able to relate to the sheer joy everyone here has for the thing they love, and how important a role it plays in their lives. Interviewees include the cast of both EVIL DEAD & EVIL DEAD II (and at least one surprise from ARMY OF DARKNESS) with most of the talking left, quite rightly and appropriately, to Bruce Campbell himself. 

Two Heads Creek

A charming horror comedy with a strong League of Gentlemen vibe as a Polish brother and sister discover their birth mother is actually Australian. They leave the hideous English estate where they live and set off for the tiny town of Two Heads Creek ("You'll never want to leave") where they discover the town is part of a government-funded cannibalism programme to help deal with the immigrant population. TWO HEADS CREEK is crammed with plenty of funny gags about the intolerance of certain groups of both English and Australians to foreigners, plus some nice cultural references (there's a 'Neighbours' board game amongst the squalor, the locals drink a wine that's actually called 'A Nice Chianti'). Imagine if an early Peter Jackson (and yes I know he's from New Zealand) had directed Xavier Gens' FRONTIER(S) and you'll be on the right track. 

TWO HEADS CREEK is getting a digital HD release on Signature's Frightfest Presents label on Monday 7th September 2020

Hall

From the department of short film ideas steam-rollered out to feature length comes 75 minutes of people crawling down a corridor when they're not talking to each other very slowly indeed in hotel rooms. Of course 75 minutes isn't really long enough for a feature so hang around after the credits for what to do (or rather, not) if you've been told to make your film longer & decided to do so by tacking on a talking head that dispels what little tension you may have managed to achieve in what has gone before. Slow, dull and with little to commend it. [REC] played at 10% the speed. 

Aquaslash

Oh Reynaud Gautier what have you done? Failed to live up to the promise of DISCOPATH, that's what. The technique is a little more polished but the occasional glimpses of wit and style from that one are sadly lacking in AQUASLASH, a film that tried hard to compete with PIRANHA 3DD in the truly awful aquatic-based horrors department. It fails, thankfully. A maniac fits blades to a water slide and the film is one long build to the (poorly CGI-enhanced) carnage that ensues. Attempts at a giallo-style backstory and a very silly killer reveal indeed all help to harm this one. If you liked DISCOPATH or PIRANHA 3DD (did anyone like that one?) you might like this. Or not. 

A Ghost Waits

But let's not leave Day 4 on such a bum note. Also showing in a new version today was A GHOST WAITS, which first premiered at Glasgow Frightfest where it deservedly went down a storm. Here's what I had to say about that screening: Quite likely the funniest, most romantic, touching supernatural horror we'll see this year. A man has to renovate a house where a female ghost has been driving away the occupants and gradually they fall in love. A GHOST WAITS is superb, evoking the best of writers like R Chetwynd-Hayes while never losing its profound emotional core. Really, truly, madly, deeply wonderful. Loved it.  

Stumbling on to Day 5...

Frightfest 2020 Day Three - Saturday

The Columnist

Newspaper columnist Femke Boot (Westworld's Katja Herbers) decides she's had enough of the online trolling she's been repeatedly receiving on Twitter and Facebook and starts tracking down the perpetrators and killing them. This Dutch production treats its subject matter with broad strokes but does so in a way that allows it to be entertaining as well as providing social commentary. To be honest it's surprising there aren't more films dealing with the subject. And it's a shame they couldn't have called it TROLL HUNTER. 

The Horror Crowd

A feature-length documentary featuring a number of well-known (and some not so well-known) creative artists currently involved in the horror scene answering questions about how they got into horror, where they get their ideas from and how their love for the genre affects both them and those around them. Interviewees include Darren Lynn Bousman (after his excellent REPO THE GENETIC OPERA it's no surprise his big influences include THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and - yes - THE APPLE!); Jeffrey Reddick and Craig Perry, creator and producer of the FINAL DESTINATION franchise (and Perry suggests he's like to do another one); PARANORMAL ACTIVITY's Oren Peli; Adam Robitel (INSIDIOUS 4 and the ESCAPE ROOM movies); Chelsea Stardust (SATANIC PANIC) and Ernest Dickerson (TALES FROM THE CRYPT DEMON KNIGHT). Good use of clips breaks up the talking heads and while this isn't especially groundbreaking it's a decent enough genre documentary that's a reasonable timewaster for both those new to horror and those who feel they have lived the genre since birth.

Playhouse

The second of the day's films to feature a famous horror author as a major character. Playwright Jack Travis moves into a remote Scottish castle with the intention of writing a new work based on the building's murky past, but he reckons without whatever's walled up in the cellar taking advantage of him instead. Made with no money but a fabulous location, this first-time directorial effort by Toby and Fionn Watts feels like an attempt at a modern-day riff on Roger Corman's Poe pictures, and while they score points for atmosphere a bit more attention to the screenplay would have greatly improved things. Still, definitely two directors to watch.

Blind

From Marcel Walz, director of 2016's BLOOD FEAST remake, comes BLIND, a film so appallingly bad that the live chat running concurrently on the Frightfest Facebook Group was far more entertaining and a testament to both how little this one holds the attention and how terrible its many onscreen mistakes are. A blind woman who lives in a house filled with sharp edges and easily breakable objects? Who doesn't know if the lights work but has filled her house with lit candles? Who is in a support group run by a cut-price Jason Momoa who can't speak and has a machine that makes him sound like Ned from South Park? All so, so terrible. And I haven't even mentioned the panty-sniffing sushi delivery man, the speech by the threatened heroine at the end that goes on for longer than the running time of the film, the numerous full glasses of wine she drinks during the climax from a thin-stemmed easily knocked over and broken glass, how her makeup is suddenly immaculately restored after her shower, or the ending where everyone just gives up and sticks the credits on. This year's TULPA. In fact every year's TULPA. Except for the year TULPA was on. 

Don't Click

Don't watch torture porn or you'll end up in...er...torture porn appears to be the message of this heavy-handed, poorly thought out, overly naive tale of two university students who click on a website and find themselves in a torture dungeon. There's a very Japanese feel to the worrying zealousness of the torture scenes, emulating the style of movies like Koji Shiraishi's 2009 GUROTESUKU, the justification for all this being a story of ghostly revenge. I think. To be honest it's all a bit of a mess, stretched out from director G-Hey Kim's original short but needing rather more depth than we get here to make it at all effective. 

Crawling To Day Four...