The 'New York Post' called this 'The New SAW'; I guess there are obvious comparisons between those movies except that this one lacks the big-budget polish of the SAW franchise. That being said I must admit that I enjoyed this; it was relatively ludicrous in places but completely feasible that someone could make a suit of armour like the one in this movie and stomp around killing people.

If you think that those letters are big you should see the end of the film, with 'MAKINOV' stretched out across the screen in enormous letters to leave us in no doubt whatsoever as to whom is responsible for making this movie.

HOWEVER…

In 2010’s faux documentary Vampires, a film crew follows a fictional vampire family in Belgium as they navigate contemporary life as members of the undead. The film was an uneven yet compelling attempt at providing an original narrative surrounding the modern vampire mythos. At times a social commentary and critique on race and immigration, other times more of a spoof on the vampire legend, the film, while occasionally humorous, missed the mark tonally, never fully figuring out what type of movie it wanted to be.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

Three guesses what I was watching, ok you just need one guess unless you're being sarcastic. The film had a great reputation as being incredibly scary and to be honest my expectations on hearing that were that it was probably going to be just another hyped to the gills load of old rubbish.

I was pleasantly surprised. It was a good idea, told in a very minimalistic fashion, and had far more going for it than I expected it to have. Strong story, even stronger acting. The mother, Amelia (Essie Davis) had the arduous task of holding this picture together and really did an excellent job of appearing to be totally burned out by her son's behavior as Samuel (Noah Taylor) is seeing monsters in all of the usual places. The son in question is more one of those monster lunatics who isn't possessed by demons but has such a behavioral disorder that he'd be a poster child for Ritalin. The first half of the film had me wanting to strangle the little shit just to get some peace and quiet, which is fantastic as it shows that the film makers chose the right kid to bring life to what could in other hands be a totally dull film.

From J.M. Stelly director of 'We Knew Him Well' and 'Conjure' (DOWN) comes 'Within Madness', a descent into one man's madness inspired by the real-life video diaries of Ricardo Lopez who is better known as the 'Bjork Stalker'.

In 1996 Lopez had serious mental issues leading to his creation of around 18 hours of home movies in which he chronicled his obsession and his creation of an 'acid bomb' which he sent to the singer's home in London. Believing his work to be done he filmed his own suicide shortly after sending the package.

In 'Within Madness' Matt Story plays 'Donovan Summers', a personal trainer with a similar obsession, albeit for one of his clients 'Brandy' played by Kaci Champion.

Everyone has an opinion, and who is anyone to decide which opinion is correct.  So in all fairness Ginger Nuts of Horror presents not one but two reviews of what seems to be this years most decisive film to date.  

In Dark Summer, Keir Gilchrist plays Daniel; a teenager under house arrest. His probation officer, Stokes, is keeping an eye on him but so is something else – and it could either be a ghost or hallucinations brought on by the stress of his situation. His friends, Abby and Kevin, sneak in to visit him each day and become increasingly concerned as Daniel seems to be losing his mind, or is just hell-bent on his own self-destruction.

Frightfest Glasgow 2015

It's that time of year again. On Friday afternoon I settled into my seat in GFT 1 to gorge myself on horror for two days along with four hundred other weirdos. I missed the first film because of work, but here's what I saw.

Watching 'The Watermen' is a simple process and so, if I understood it right, was writing it. To call it formulaic is not doing justice to the thousands of hours that the writer must have spent trawling through 1980s low-budget slasher flicks to find the some of the very worst clichés so he could bundle them up and insert them into a film which is so pedestrian there should be a zebra-crossing in it.