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LUNCH LADIES- WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY CLARISSA JACOBSON

12/7/2018

by joe x young 

Lunch Ladies- written and produced by Clarissa Jacobson Picture

Clarissa Jacobson presents a canteen full of absurdity.
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You must have 19 minutes to spare, surely you do. I mean, what can you do in 19 minutes? Cook a pizza? Or boil six eggs one after the other? Make love nine times? Whatever it is I doubt it will be as enjoyable as spending 19 minutes watching the ridiculously over-the-top Lunch Ladies.

As the title suggests it is indeed about a couple of lunch ladies Seretta Burr and LouAnne Burr (Donna Pieroni and Mary Manofsky respectively), who work in a somewhat seedy school cafeteria dishing out unpalatable slop to the masses while dreaming about becoming the personal chefs to Johnny Depp. It’s a big dream, and one they stand virtually no chance of achieving until, thanks to Cheerleader Alexis (Daisy Kershaw) they develop a recipe which changes everything for them.

It’s a very short and moderately low-budget production which is served in such a way that it could easily fit into a series such as Tales-From-The-Crypt. It has a double serving of gore and slatherings of humour and I found to be highly entertaining. At the time of writing this review, Lunch Ladies has won 11 awards, is not difficult to see why. If you have 19 minutes to spare and you’re not hungry or horny then you could do worse than to watch lunch ladies and have a good laugh.

Oh, and I forgot the mention the special guest appearance by…
Well, you’ll just have to watch it won’t you ;)

For more on Lunch Ladies go to:
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www.lunchladiesmovie.com
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​A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS EDITED BY JA MAINS

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FILM REVIEW: MY MONSTER (DIRECTED BY IZZY LEE)

10/7/2018

BY joe x young 

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Synopsis:  Christmas is coming. If that's not stressful enough, Lily (Brea Grant) has to contend with a clueless partner (Adam Egypt Mortimer) and an unexpected, inter-dimensional holiday guest who just wants two things — blood and cuddles.

If you have seven minutes to spare then watch this short film. If you Don’t have seven minutes to spare the FIND the seven minutes, trust me, I think it’s worth it.
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Brea Grant, perhaps best known for her role as the Speedster in Heroes is going with the flow in this tale of a creature making a nuisance of itself with eerie noises and a bloodthirsty demand. Her witless boyfriend fancies himself as a boxer and dons his gloves to battle the beast but all is not as it seems.
Written, produced and directed by Izzy Lee, My Monster is a glorious seven minutes.

MY MONSTER TEASER from Izzy Lee on Vimeo.




 


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HAWKINS, JONES AND CLARK (NO IT'S NOT A REBOOT OF LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE)
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FIVE MINUTES WITH BRYCE WARREN

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FILM REVIEW: ​INKARNACIJA (INCARNATION), DIRECTOR: FILIP KOVACEVIC

3/7/2018

by joe x young 

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A Serbian Film. (No, not THAT one).
 
We head into full-on Twilight Zone territory with Inkarnicija, a film from Serbia which is absolutely worth enduring the subtitles for. Our unlucky hero wakes up on a bench in a town centre street, he doesn’t know where he is or who he is and within minutes of the film starting he is being gunned down by masked men. So, he is dead, but this is only the beginning as he wakes up on that same bench with the same scenario being played out again, sort of like Groundhog Day for assassins but with bigger changes to the routine each time it is played out and no comedy.

He splashes water up his face but cannot see his own reflection properly, so looks in a shop window; his reflection is distorted, same with every surface he looks at. Still he is chased down and shot by the masked men. He awakens again, this time in a hospital where they discover something unidentifiable in his blood. Just as some sort of sense may be made he is once again confronted by the masked men who shoot him, this time he wakes up on the bench again.

The bench is at a crossroad, with four streets leading off from it, and each time he takes a different route from the one the assassins come from, and each time they catch up with him. Eventually he decides to go down the one they come from as he’s exhausted all other options.

Now it may seem as if it’s all a little dull, with the repetition of a situation, but each time he is facing new pieces of the puzzle and is becoming more aware of things, starting to remember, albeit slowly, the things leading to his predicament. He meets up with a Doctor and gains the info that he has been given a serum which has wiped his memory. Fans of films such as Memento will find this to say the least intriguing as did I, but more than that, it’s actually gripping.

Part of what makes it so good is that the whole thing, each differing scenario, is played out in public, with our hero waking on a bench amidst shops and the regular traders and people you’d usually expect to see. It continues with various chases around the locale, going in and out of various buildings only to end up being killed by the masked assassins again. I have no idea what the laws are about filming in Serbia, but to have masked men firing guns in a town centre high-street must have took some doing as it doesn’t give the impression that any streets were closed off or that many extras were involved.
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The ending is as illogical as the preceding events, even though there is an explanation after a fashion it doesn’t really satisfy, which I think is probably for the best because there are times when tying up a plot with a pretty bow just doesn’t work. Inkarnacija (Incarnation) works perfectly and piles on the suspense throughout. If you like foreign films, you can handle subtitles and don’t mind having to engage your brain while being entertained then this is the one for you.




 


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JONATHAN BUTCHER'S 6 UTTERLY TASTELESS MOVIES

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​FILM REVIEW: IMITATION GIRL

27/6/2018

by Joe X Young 

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Black gloop from another dimension takes on the form of a porn star. Okay, not the sort of thing I would queue up to watch, but as the request has come in I can at least spare 90 minutes to take a look. Five minutes in and it’s setting a pace which continues throughout… bloody slow. Fifteen minutes into this it was already dull with an annoying soundtrack. I’d have thought that with the basic idea this would at the very least have been fun, but as a ‘Dread Central Presents’ film I was hoping for some actual dread or maybe even a scare or two, but the story just flips between the imitation girl of the title and the real version of her whilst it seemingly tries to figure out a direction to go in. What this film actually does which hardly any other attempts to is to show an alien’s perspective to what it’s like to land somewhere with no knowledge of anything, so kudos for that.

Fake version’s first day is spent experiencing eating for the first time, soon followed by vomiting, making a friend and learning how to speak Farsi, use a toilet and to prepare a meal. This is stuff which the casual replicated person doesn’t generally do so quickly if at all in movies, generally appearing to instinctively know everything from the get-go. It’s refreshing, but not really elevating this film to anything more than mildly interesting.

The acting is good, in particular the lead actress (Lauren Ashley Carter) playing two roles perfectly well and making the alien one cute in her wonderment. An hour into the film and to be honest I’m struggling with seeing the whole point of it especially as there are some things which just don’t compute. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but if I found a woman strolling around in a night-dress I’d be more likely to assist her by calling the authorities and trying to make sure she was ok, than taking her home and spending the next couple of days feeding and clothing and fucking her without knowing her name which would make it abuse at the very least. It’s obvious by her actions that she’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic even if she does learn Farsi in an afternoon, so I’m failing to see the logic of the events here as nothing is questioned.

With less than fifteen minutes left to go in this film the Imitation Girl finally sees the real version, well sort of, as she sees her on TV, so off she goes in pursuit of the girl with her face. With no explanation how she does it she manages to find her counterpart, which should give hope to millions of young men out there because if it’s THAT easy to find a specific porn star… Well…

As a best guess I’d say this film is meant to be an introspective art-house piece full of depth and hidden meanings. I can’t say that I found them so well hidden that it failed to speak to me, more the case that what it had to say is something I’ve heard so often before that it’s no longer deep. The porn star version is trying to justify caring about her life and finding her motivation, whereas the alien version is seeing everything as bright and shiny in a world bursting with things to experience. It’s all rather lightweight in handling what is a far more complex set of questions.
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This is one of those rare beasts, a film which scored 100% on Rotten Tomatoes which to me would indicate that only the people who loved it bothered to comment. I can’t say it’s bad, it’s fine in its own way, but the dread I was hoping for wasn’t there, no horror either, and the sci-fi element is downplayed as to be almost invisible. It’s one for the intellectuals, and as I am at best a ‘pseud’ I’ll bow out by saying that it’s your money, what you spend it on is your choice, my choice would be for something with more pace and something malevolent bringing the chance of a faster heartbeat.



 


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BOOK REVIEW: VISIONS FROM THE VOID EDITED BY JONATHAN BUTCHER
LEFT FILMS PRESENTS DOGGED ON DVD & DIGITAL IN THE UK, USA, CANADA AND IRELAND ON 9 JULY

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HORROR FILM REVIEW: A BRILLIANT MONSTER

21/6/2018

by Joe X Young 

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I’m sure I have come across the basic concept for this somewhere else but can’t quite pin it down. A successful writer has a monster he feeds victims to, in return for which the monster gives him writing tips. It seems like every writer I know could own up to a little of this in their lives, we all feed a monster, especially when being asked the one question a writer is routinely subjected to. “Where do you get your ideas from?” I’d say it’s a fair bet that the majority of authors, and especially those who write much more imaginative or gruesome fayre, have been asked this Ad Nauseum.

The central character here is Mitch Stockridge, creator of ‘Self-Help’ books; he’s a thoroughly detestable character from the get-go, which is a shame as it would have been far better in my opinion if Stockridge was a more sympathetic character like Seymour Krelborn in Little Shop of Horrors. It’s unfortunate that there are actually no truly likeable or fully-rounded characters in this film, but that’s the least of the problems I found with it.

The biggest problem I have with it is that it left me confused as to exactly what Stockridge was writing. He’s apparently a ‘self-help’ author, but there are constant references to his ‘stories’ and queries about his next ‘novel’, none of which compute for me. I know that sometimes that sort of book tells a tale of triumph over adversity, but it’s all sketchy here at best. His target audience? Well, according to the people who attend his book signings they cover the broadest spectrum of humanity with little girls, middle-aged men and grannies all attending the signings and saying how wonderful he is. It just doesn’t ring true, but what do I know, I’ve never attended a self-help book signing, so maybe they do have an all-encompassing audience I’d expect for something like Harry Potter. This probably wouldn’t be an important issue for many, as what is truly important here is getting the overall idea that this is a minor celebrity doing some majorly nasty things, the majority of which is supposed, not shown and here again we have a problem.

Stockridge looks after his sick dad, who is resigned to a room upstairs. No visitors allowed et cetera, so I believe the intent here is to make one think that the monster is his dad, but they kill that idea off too by constantly showing his dad looking for all intents perfectly fine. The monster is in another room, and we do get a fleeting glimpse of a bulbous thing with a large mouth full of sharp teeth. I didn’t see eyes, I didn’t see arms either, nor did I see a pen and a writing pad, which the monster must actually have and use because it gives Stockridge written lines to help him with his books. It’s all a bit silly, but it’s not a comedy either, as far as I know that is, because if it IS a comedy it’s failing on that too.
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This seems less of a review and more of an assassination, yet that’s not my intention, it’s simply that this film is bland and confusing. The acting is ok but nothing special, the dialogue is at best routine and there’s far too much of it as the film really has lengthy exposition scenes and not a lot of action.
Films are often intense things to produce, they take a lot of time to thrash out story, assemble a cast, rehearse and set everything up such as lighting, sound et cetera before the wrap and post production. It’s a lot of hard work for a lot of people, so it always saddens me when the result is something which in my opinion just isn’t worth the effort and left me with such apathy toward it that I debated whether or not to actually review it. I will end here by saying that this is one of many possible opinions, and yours may vary.
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FILM GUTTER REVIEWS: THE STYLIST (2016) DIR. JILL GEVARGIZIAN
BOOK REVIEW: ​THE THING IN THE WOODS REVIEW BY MATTHEW W. QUINN

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FILM REVIEW: ​SEQUENCE BREAK (directed by graham skipper)

18/6/2018

BY JOE X YOUNG 

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Fans of films such as Existenz and Videodrome might wish to take a butchers at Sequence Break as it belongs in the same Universe. The man behind this project is Graham Skipper, a name which may be familiar to some for his performances in Almost Human, Beyond the Gates and as Herbert West in the Re-Animator musical. Having not already done enough for the genre he now tries his hand at writing and directing his own movie, and a pretty fine job he’s made of it too.

A ‘sequence break’ for anyone unfamiliar with gaming parlance is when the player either finds or attempts to create a causality breach in the coding which would enable them to do non-linear things, such as pick up items before they should normally become available. It’s not hacking per-se, more the discovery and exploitation of coding oversights or integrated gags, such as the ‘sweet spot’ in Pac-Man where he can stay for ages without being discovered; enabling the player to rest his thumb and grab a coffee. We’re talking the early days here, with the Arcade Machines of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Arcades and the relevant machines aren’t so popular these days, with most people playing on home systems or portable devices, and Oz (Chase Williamson) is on the verge of losing his job. His employer Jerry (Co-Producer Lyle Kanouse) has finally decided to call it a day and sell the business he has which isn’t a coin-op Arcade but rather a restoration business refurbishing the machines. A nice touch is that Jerry, knowing that Oz doesn’t have a pot to piss in and has been so loyal to the business, decides to give 50% of the sale to Oz. That, however is not really what this whole thing is about, it’s actually a multi-level love story. Ewww…. YUK! Ah, but it’s not as bad as you might think, partly because the love story here is one of the love of old gaming systems which Oz has a knack with and brings them back from the dead. There’s a secondary love story involving every nerd’s wet dream, a beautiful girl who is a gaming nerd, Tess (Fabianne Therese) who just so happens to end up in a whirlwind romance with our hero Oz.

Oz finds an envelope with a circuit board in it, which he installs in a console, revealing a game he’s never seen before, which of course he decides to try. There comes a stranger, credited as ‘Man’ (Johnny Dinan), a wild hobo type who keeps turning up and giving Oz cryptic warnings about the game, which has a bizarre absorbing effect on Oz with some sexual sequences a-la David Cronenberg involving him much more with the game than with Tess. A quick note about the actual game itself, although it appears to be a shoot-em-up with vector graphics it’s really quite beautifully designed, far beyond the likes of BattleZone, Tempest and others of the era, yet still seems to fit in fantastically well with the whole scenario.

The game has a serious effect on Oz, physically and mentally altering him into something he didn’t expect, pushing him beyond his own human limitations. He has to fight to save his own humanity and Tess before it’s too late. It tips a wink to the 80s in a big way, which is no bad thing, and although others have done it better this film really is effective in building a surrealist nightmare which has far deeper psychological connotations than are perhaps intended.
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If you are indeed a fan of the David Cronenberg type back catalogue this is going to be one to watch, if you’re like me and not that big a fan it’s still a damned good film. It’s deep, whimsical and crazy and very nostalgic, I liked it a lot.

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BOOK REVIEW: PRACTITIONERS BY MATT HAYWARD AND PATRICK LACEY
DO YOU WANT TO GO ON A  BLOOD CRUISE WITH MATS STRANDBERG?
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FILM REVIEW: ​GEHENNA: WHERE DEATH LIVES (DIR HIROSHI KATAGIRI)

11/6/2018

by joe x young 

GEHENNA: WHERE DEATH LIVES.  Picture
 
Special effects expert Hiroshi Katagiri, who worked on both Jurassic Park III and Pacific Rim not only handles the flawless special effects but also chose this as his impressive directorial debut.

The basics: The setup is familiar; the chance of a property deal in a nice setting (Saipan, a U.S. Commonwealth Island in the Pacific), this time for building a hotel resort, but the land up for sale contains an ancient burial ground with a rich history of the supernatural and brutal curse. There’re mini voodoo-doll type figures with a particular significance and an assortment of brutality up for grabs here but none of it is over-the-top and it all makes a somewhat bizarre sense.

Aside from the opening scene it is all familiar, I’ve seen variations on this before a dozen times over, but with Gehenna there’s plenty to keep interest even if it’s just the totally amiable local guide Pepe (Sean Sprawling) who gets my vote for the best character in this film.

Something of note here is that Lance Henriksen is in this, but that’s probably no big shock as he appears to be the go-to man for cameo appearances in low-budget horrors. He’s not in it for long, and does make a re-appearance after the end credits, so stay tuned for that one. I assume that employing the likes of Mr Henriksen is all about adding some star quality to the film, but this is one of those rare instances in which the film is good enough to not need it.

Aside from what I’ve already stated there’s a Japanese World War 2 bunker on the land, and it contains something rather bizarre. I’ll say no more about that except that it’s all rather cleverly constructed and absorbing. All of the acting is high quality with every character having a well-rounded personality and they all fit the circumstances perfectly.

Monster-man of the moment Doug Jones is his usual unrecognisable self as the ‘old man’ and his performance is as one would expect from a master of the art. Aside from the aforementioned Henriksen, Sprawling and Jones the rest of the main cast have somewhat clichéd characters but nonetheless deliver them in a plausible way, with the particular frailties of each one displayed honestly and with depth. Simon Phillips as Alan is believably mean and impatient without slipping into being an ogre, Eva Swan as Paulina shows that women in horror movies don’t have to be airheaded eye-candy, and Matthew Edward Hegstrom as Dave gives an impressive performance in his debut film role.

Gehenna: Where Death Lives is one of those rare films which has a sustainable sense of dread without having to resort to jump-scares, choosing to go with subtle creepiness, technical excellence, credible plot and great acting all topped off with a WTF ending. It’s all clever stuff and certainly stands up to a second viewing.
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Available from 4th May in Theatres across the U.S. and VOD for everyone else.
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BOOK REVIEW: ​THE MOOR BY SAM HAYSOM

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FILM REVIEW: ​THE NURSERY

4/6/2018

by Joe X Young 

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A decent spookfest from Uncork’d Entertainment.

“From filmmakers Christopher A. Micklos and Jay Sapiro comes the story of a young woman whose run-of-the-mill Saturday night quickly turns into a confrontation with unspeakable horror!”

Yep, that’s about right.

Ranae (Maddi Conway) takes on a job babysitting in a secluded house. The baby is already asleep when Ranae gets there. Not long into babysitting she gets a picture sent by text message from her best friend Calista’s phone, it’s a rather unpleasant picture of Ranae’s dead Mom and Ranae is freaked out by it. She rants at Calista (Emmaline Friederichs) who insists that she didn’t send the picture and also insists that she heads over to see Ranae, which she does, bringing her two friends Grace (Carly Sauer) and Jeremy (Claudio Parrone Jr) with her. The film makes good use of technology as things take a turn for the creepy, the incident with the text picture being the least of it as phantom figures are seen over webcams and the goings-on over the video baby monitor are somewhat disturbing.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, do I really have to say that out loud?” Says the only guy in the room, but Jeremy isn’t the sharpest tool in the box as it soon becomes apparent that there are such things and those things are dangerous.

There is an indicator very early on things will get freaky in a traditional way as the baby’s parents are Mr and Mrs Belasco (Deanna and David Sapiro), if the name Belasco (pronounced Blasko) means nothing to you then your reading on the wrong website. The more famous Mr Blasko makes a little cameo appearance in the film they are all watching when things start to go awry, but that’s the only reference I spotted. When it becomes apparent that there’s something spooky going on Ranae consults her younger brother Ray (Marco Lama), who spends much of his free time in Paranormal based chat rooms, Ray gives Ranae a few pointers on the expectancies with ghosts, which doesn’t stop the foursome from being manipulated and dispatched by supernatural forces, mainly in the guise of ‘The Nanny’ (Monica Bahr), who is unfortunately yet another Samara clone. There’s another important character called Rose (Nadia Horner) who comes into the story much later on but is integral to proceedings, it’s a minor role with a major impact with a heavily restrained performance adding to Rose’s effectiveness.

As far as horror is concerned it’s not a gorefest, choosing instead to ramp up the creepiness to greater effect than spooky movies generally achieve. I have seen quite a lot of dross recently, so it’s nice to be able to say this is a film I’m actually able to get into, which is not to say it is by any means perfect but it has still got enough about it to hold my interest. The acting is good enough, story is fine with some routine stuff alongside other rather more novel aspects, dialogue credible and the technical aspects are okay even if there is the occasional shaky camera or a little intrusive background music here and there. Nothing that ruins the enjoyment of the film though.

There are some good twists, a lot of atmosphere and a general air of gloom in ‘The Nursery’, so all in all it’s not a bad film to spend 90 minutes in front of with a bag of popcorn and the lights off.
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The Nursery is available on VOD from June 5th and on DVD from August 7th, so be sure to put those dates in your ‘Ones to watch’ diary.
 
 
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BOOK REVIEW: THE DETAINED BY KRISTOPHER TRIANA
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FIVE MINUTES WITH AUTHOR ​TERENCE HANNUM

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FILM REVIEW: ​DARK FOREST (WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ROGER BOYER)

28/5/2018

by Nigel Parkin
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WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY ROGER BOYER Picture
Writer-director Roger Boyer’s Winnipeg woodland horror feature Dark Forest has been lurking in the shadows of the indie film circuit in Canada since 2015. He and his crew are understandably keen to get some wider exposure; it is available on a number of streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime. Is it worth a look?
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The opening sequence fully establishes the tone, ideas, cultural awareness and aesthetic sensibility of the film. The introductory image is of a girl standing on the bank of a lake in a digitally enhanced blaze of autumn colour. The deliriously deep red of the leaves bleeds its reflection into the lake, allowing for the symbolic suggestion that this girl might be about to wade into depths of blood - a neat sense of nightmare foreshadowing in the midst of the natural idyll. This is autumn, after all, and the juxtaposition of youth and beauty with death and terror makes a powerful statement. The wash of colour could very well be the effect of ‘blowing up’ the film for big screen projection – it looks like cheap, amateur stock and indeed this blurriness is maintained throughout the film. It is clear from this first sequence, however, that Boyer is using this aesthetic limitation to his advantage. It soon becomes clear that these initial images are a dream sequence; the girl suddenly finds herself on a path, confronted by her own double.

Having been established in this way, the film’s constant blurriness gives the whole thing a dreamlike feel and this is surely what Boyer intends. Perhaps I am being kind but it certainly explains the uneven pace, the frequently jarring and awkward jumps from one scene to another…and the questionable sense of logic exhibited by the characters on a number of occasions. Am I just trying to make excuses for a young film maker who might simply not be in full command of his material? Bear with me; let’s venture further into this particular forest.

The plot appears to be very straightforward. A group of twentysomethings set out on a camping trip into the woods with the usual distractions (swimming, sex, drink, campfire tales) in mind. Emily, the girl from our opening sequence, has a violently possessive boyfriend, Peter, who is enraged by the prospect of her joining this group; after unsuccessfully trying to stop her he follows them and picks them off one by one in suitably savage ways.

So, essentially a slasher then…in a familiar setting and with familiar characters. And as you will know if you are keeping up with recent articles on this very site​, there are plenty of calls for the endless recycling of the tired tropes of the slasher genre to be buried once and for all, especially when they appear to be rehashed by amateurs. But to dismiss this film with that argument would be to miss the point. There is something about it that commands our attention, something that effectively reminds us why it is that we keep coming back to the woods…

Let’s begin with the focus of Emily’s initial nightmare. The figure who confronts her and frightens her on that dream path is not her genuinely intimidating boyfriend but herself. What’s going on here? Is it that this is a girl who knows she cannot resist her own impulses, that she will continue to be led by her dark desire for her boyfriend even when she is fully aware of the danger of that desire? Her dream is arguably revealing to her what she does not have the clarity and maturity of mind to articulate fully in her waking, conscious life. And indeed as she takes her place on the camping trip she is surrounded by young people who do not have that sense of clarity, control and maturity – in other words people who are not yet fully ready to consider themselves adults. We see the clumsy ways in which they circle each other, fumbling towards a sense of intimacy and relying on drink and dumb jokes to keep up the momentum. The film’s random, stumbling awkwardness mirrors their characters and behaviour. It’s like a raw insight into a young adult’s mind, blurrily awash with hormones and woozily aware of the strange and potent mix of desire and fear at the centre of almost every thought. That’s all of us at a key time in our lives isn’t it? That is the version of us that the slasher film has arguably come to speak for. It is no accident that most slasher films feature late teenage and early adult heroes – the mix of carnal lusts and carnage is weighted with a symbolism we all understand. It is worth reflecting on why a woodland setting is so significant in these films; they take us to the forests of fairy tales, where children commonly encounter their darkest impulses and deepest fears. Boyer’s film, with its very knowing title, taps into all this very effectively by seeming to be every bit as clumsy and naïve as its characters - there is none of the wry, ironic detachment that we have come to expect from so much of this genre; there is instead a refreshing sense of honesty, a sweet reminder that this is very much a part of our cultural bloodstream.

And there are moments of definite skill and undeniable assurance in the use of iconic references. The electronic music score neatly echoes any number of 80s classics, from the savage sighs and weird whispers that we remember from the Friday the 13th movies at moments of high tension to more ambient and even emotional nods to the soundtracks of John Carpenter. And speaking of Carpenter, Boyer makes great use on a number of occasions of the killer shot in Halloween when Michael Myers gradually appears in the shadowed corner of the frame, unseen by the characters in the foreground. It is no mean feat here to give the very human character of Peter some of the menace of our favourite Boogeyman.

Indeed, Dennis Scullard’s Peter is a powerfully affecting, frightening, memorable character. Scullard is blessed with intense features, which he employs to full effect…but he doesn’t just go for full-on freak out. There is something desperate and almost sad about him. He is matched by Laurel McArthur’s Emily, who conveys a strong sense of conflicting impulses and emotions. In the closing, satisfyingly brutal and gruesome sequence, we see why Emily has cause to fear herself. McArthur delivers this final gut-punch both to the audience and to her own character very effectively – and the final focus on her haunted face is perhaps the film’s most assured, accomplished, self-aware and successful moment.

If you would like to connect with Nigel you can find him on twitter as @ShockSonnets
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film review: HELL'S KITTY

16/5/2018

by joe x young

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Just about claws through.
 
It’s a missed opportunity at the very least when what was a reasonably successful web series has the opportunity to be a fun movie but falls just short of the mark because of a single oversight. The webisodes were probably fine as they were, with a hefty supply of well-known horror alumni taking part and a silly basic premise of a demonic cat that is jealous of any woman entering her owner’s life. Where it goes seriously wrong is in the entire editing process as it comes across that aside from a few minor tweaks this is just the webisodes poorly stitched together, which makes for a bit of a mess. Apart from the untidiness of presentation this is a good intentioned film and one which will certainly have horror fans of a certain age pointing at the screen and laughing in disbelief at the antics of the likes of Doug Jones, Lee Meriwether, Courtney Gains, Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Berryman among many other cult stars, scream queens and even a celebrated porn star.  It’s an excellent cast of supporting actors, all of whom look as if they had a good time and certainly a better time than I had watching it.

Allegedly based on real life incidents, Nicholas Tana is ‘Nick’, the owner of a cat called ‘Angel’ who is anything but angelic as she really is a comic-book example of a bad kitty who kills her way through any potential love interests Nick may have, to the point where it’s decided that the cat requires an exorcism, the exorcists are Bill Oberst Jr and Doug Jones as ‘Father Blatty’ and ‘Father Damien’, see what they did there? Yep, that’s right, and if you thought that was fun there’s ‘Detective Pluto’ played by Michael Berryman and so many other chuckle-worthy names and pop-culture references that it’s hard to keep up. I can see how this worked as webisodes, as they would be isolated moments of WTF, but when clustered like this it just doesn’t work as well, which is not to say that it’s a dead loss, just that it’s a bit overpowering. Overall the film was ok, but with proper editing it could have been so much better.

Would I recommend it? Well… IF you’re into gore, sexual innuendo and nerdy ‘in-jokes’ this is going to be your sort of thing. There’s plenty to see, plenty to laugh at and it’s a generally fun ride so if you can forgive the choppy editing then have at it.

Hell’s Kitty is available now as DVD and VOD from their website and other places, oh, and the website has a drinking game if you’re that way inclined ;)
​
https://hellskitty.com/
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