Review by ​George Ilett Anderson

REVIEW BY JOE X YOUNG 

This is a mixed review; stick with it as in spite of what I start off saying, this is actually a good film. I am not sure if it is just me, but I am increasingly aware that the majority of horror films which I have seen lately are unable to deliver the full package expected. There’s quite a bit about pitchfork which doesn’t sit well, the plot is the basic bunch of young people escaping the maniac, and for the most part even that is decidedly poor. The acting is of varying quality, as is dialogue in most cases. The technical aspects of the film are spot on, with opening landscape shots being beautifully lit panoramas David Lean would have been proud of, indeed the entire production is fantastic, with a great score, perfect sound editing and much better than average special effects.

Review by Joe X. Young 

​I approached this film with curiosity, why was what appeared to be a 'made for tv biopic' making its way across the tables of GNOH when we do Horror reviews? Well, there are many types of horror, and this film deals with one of the worst aspects of man's inhumanity towards it's fellow man, or in this case women, thousands of them.
 
Fortunately we live in a more enlightened age, still not truly egalitarian, but certainly taking steps in the right direction even though taking a hell of a long time to get there. This film is set in America in the late 1800s, a dangerous time to be female as women had no rights and could be put into an asylum for no better reason than disagreeing with a man. It was such a common practice that very few people took much notice of it going on. The potential to be incarcerated for the flimsiest of reasons was the tip of the iceberg as once within the institutions women were routinely drugged, starved and forced to endure physical and mental abuse from those meant to be caring for them.

​From its earliest mid-production shots and promotional material, the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods has kindled more than a few embers of faith.
 
I keenly recall discovering the original novel for the first time, back during my earliest years of university, when I at long last had a -very little- sum of expendable cash floating about my person; enough to feed my consistent obsession for the absurd and fantastical that has consumed me for as long as I've had a mind to dream with...
 
American Gods came hot on the heels of Neverwhere for me; a very different beast not only from that most Kafka-esque of gems, but all of Gaiman's work: darker, grittier, bloodier; more grounded in traditions of horror than arguably anything else he'd ever written (barring, perhaps, a handful of short stories, one or two comics). A tale of violence and need and sacrifice; of blood and death and mourning, the tone and structure of the tale reminded more than a little of the many, many Clive Barker books that were my bibles of the era (and, in certain instances, remain so), the story nevertheless also maintained a certain abstruse whimsy; a sense of the mythological and folkloric that is very, very difficult to pin down and define, much less capture in another medium.
 
The kind of work that was almost pre-destined to snare my attention; to reach its parasitic tendrils into my mind and find itself willing anchor.
 
Like most of Gaiman's works, its specifics are hard to express without descending into what sounds like a lunatic's wall-scratched poetry: 

​Released from jail early to attend to his late wife's funeral, the unfeasibly named Shadow Moon encounters the enigmatic Mr. Wednesday (guess who?); a grifter, a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel...a man who seems to be able to make miracles and keep company with entities beyond easy imagining. Drawn into a game of predatory, parasitic metaphysics, in which old gods war with the new for the collective soul of humanity, Shadow finds himself learning far, far more about the world and his species than he ever wished, and more about himself than he can ever forget.
 
Given that the promotional and pre-release material for the TV show was so good (that most miraculous of phenomena; a screen adaptation of a beloved book in which EVERY element feels ineffably right; every set, every shot, every member of the cast...looking as though the creators bored open my skull and lowered the cameras in to film the projections on its interior) it was with more than a little trepidation that I sat down to watch the first episode.
 
Tone. Tone was always going to be the fulcrum; the deciding factor. The book is...bizarre, even by Gaiman's standards; at once so grim and grimey you can taste the blood and dust in your mouth, yet so mythic and ascended you could easily start painting or singing your own miracles from nothing at all, it's a difficult and chimerical beasty to pin down. The show could have so easily failed by favouring one element over the other, or not marrying them fluidly enough, resulting in something Frankensteinian, schizophrenic.
 
The result is a genuine labour of love; one that embraces the ostensibly incongruous elements of the book (the first episode alone features scenes of ancient Nords engaging in ritual sacrifice to summon their patron, scenes of prison-yard politics, a man in mourning for his lost wife and the life he dreamed, bar brawls, vistas of US landscape that seem more unlikely and miraculous than the magic on display, cons and tricks and traps, a bellicose leprechaun, shamanistic visions, scenes of death and resurrection, beatings, maulings; a goddess that vignally devours her devotees...) and marries them to a tone of simultaneous weight and irreverence; there is humour here, amidst the blood and the misery, the despair and breaking bones, but humour that exists as an undercurrent, of a similar kind that is found in the likes of Fight Club or Robocop; not overt, not sign-posted by idiot musical cues or characters more or less winking at the camera; this is gallows humour of the most bone-yard species, the kind of yucks that Christ might have had upon the cross, contemplating the absurdity of his situation (or the Devil might have had at his expense). 

​The filming and construction of the episode nears David Lynch levels of artistry. Every scene, every moment, is framed with a painter's eye, even the violence, gore and grotesquery (which is obscenely and delightfully plentiful) rendered with precision and deliberation, every spray and splatter intended to create particular compositions on the screen (a notable moment of carnage sees some arcs and jets of claret trespassing into the blackness bounding the screen).
 
Even so, this is brutality; the episode makes no bones about its violence, not diluting or diminishing it in the manner of a standard fantasy; here, wounds weep and leave scars, bones splinter and leave sceptic shards in the surrounding meat. The notion of blood sacrifice as the ultimate pleasure of ancient deities is consistent throughout, pain and death the sweetmeats of expression and faith on which they feed. And humanity, being dutifully lamb-like, is more than happy to butcher itself for them.
 
Notable moments include the gratuitous carnage of the aforementioned Nords, who, having found themselves stranded on some anonymous and wretched beach of the “new world” that will eventually become the USA, turn on themselves and one another in grizzly rituals of mutilation and combat in order to draw the singular eye of their patron and summon the winds that will bear them back home, an incident towards the end of the episode in which Shadow encounters one of the new “gods” fast  attaining dominance in humanity's collective imagination and is beaten almost to death by its faceless vassals (vassals which are themselves graphically torn to shreds by forces unknown) and arguably the most distressing scene in the entire show, which involves the seduction of a lonely and horny old man, the woman he regards as the very embodiment of fortune and beauty demanding to be worshiped as they couple, names and words of reverence falling from his lips that he can't possible know as she swells to consume his body, drawing him deeper and deeper into her as a snake devours its victims, her supplicant giving himself willingly, ecstatically, to this communion, though it is clearly agonising.
 
In an era of high deviance and invention when it comes to US network TV, American Gods has already distinguished itself as a beast apart; it is very, very difficult indeed to compare or contrast it to anything...it sits within no particular genre, will appeal to no particular audience, but exercises so many layers and depths and elements, suspending them with the grace of a master plate-spinner, it is certain to entrance as many as it will repel. 

​Absurd, deviant, transgressive and mesmerisingly beautiful, this is everything I ask for and demand from media: to not patronise or condescend, but to unsettle and disturb; to arouse and move and inspire.
 
My only prayer now is that the rest of the series collects on this most divine promise. 

It's that time again. The UK's longest running horror film festival returns too the Edinburgh Filmhouse as it has done every April for twenty-four years. I've gone to the last four or five and it has become my favourite festival . This year I took my partner Robert, who had no interest in horror until he met me, but I persuaded him that Dead by Dawn is known as much for the beauty of the films as for the gore. Any insights here that seem intelligent are probably his.
 
Alongside the new films there are classics, which I won’t review. They’re generally on either at the beginning of the day or after midnight. This year we had:
 
PHENOMENA
THE DEAD ZONE
SCANNERS
MADHOUSE
HOUSE
THE MONSTER SQUAD
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN
 ​

A few minutes into the opening sequence on this one and the brutality is exceptional. Les the Ghoul (Brant McCrea) is an alleged cannibalistic psychopathic serial killer who escapes being executed during a Prison transfer and goes on the run. The opening titles are interesting, with a girl singing and playing the piano on the back of a pickup truck. Unusual, which I think is setting the tone nicely for a film in which the ordinary definitely does not apply.

The Ghoul is seemingly indestructible; he’s on a mission to get his soul back. It’s a very quirky film, one which has a lot of lingering shots, surreal sequences and a bit of a ‘Sucker Punch’ vibe to it in the imaginative style but lacking the overall gloss of that particular film it descends into something more akin to Accion Mutante in that there’s little cohesion in the chaos.

I found the music during parts of the film such as the barbarian segment to be far too loud and thrashing, we’re talking headache-inducing here. I’ll forgive it that as some people like that; I’m just not one of them.

If your taste is in the more extreme horror then this could very well be worth your while, the gore is stylish and plentiful as well as imaginative. The scene with the black dildo in particular is something I hadn’t seen done before. There are so many bizarre elements to this film that it’s not exactly easy viewing and to be fair I think it’s a victim of its own style as it appears to be trying too hard to be remarkable.

Did I enjoy it? Not really no. I can see the merit of it, appreciate that it was reaching out with a different concept, and who knows, it may become a cult classic. There’s a 1984 film called ‘Ragewar’ aka ‘The Dungeonmaster’ which this reminds me of heavily. I loved Ragewar back in the day, but Chicago Rot isn’t Ragewar.

Don't Knock Twice hits the big screen today and on demand on Monday, to celebrate the launch of this British film we have two reviews for your reading pleasure.  One from regular Ginger Nuts of Horror contributor Joe X Young, and one from Daniel Marc Chant one half of the fantastic Sinister Horror Company, one of the finest publishers of horror in the UK.  You can check out Dan's books here.  

Read on to find out what they they thought of the film.  

When it comes to quality filmmaking, the SyFy channel is not normally a production  company that you associate with films containing an iota of artistic merit.  

The home of Sharknado, and countless Shark ( gene spliced with some other animal) V's an even more stupid gene-spliced animal, you know hat you are getting into when you watch this sort of film.  And while they can never be accused of being high art, hell you need a lot of balls to even describe them a low art, they at least have a sense of fun.  Not so much popcorn films, more like "Christ I'm really drunk and find the remote to change the channel film.", you at least could watch them with a sort of post-ironic glee.  

Day of Reckoning  breaks the trend of these low budget, low brow films and attempts a more serious take on their unique brand of horror film.  What a huge pity that Day of Reckoning is such a complete and utter failure.  

REVIEWED BY JOE YOUNG 

Amy Crowdis and Robin Lord Taylor star in a slow burning yet powerful tale about the escalation of grief into madness.

Melanie Crow is a teenager attempting to come to terms with the suicide of her mother, which followed on from her father’s death in an accident, so now Melanie is left alone with nothing but a large partly home-made doll for company. There is a tangible and natural sense of mental isolation working here, with Crowdis providing a character that at no time dips below believable even when she is talking to the creepy doll of the title.

This isn’t a film with jump scares, spooky soundtracks, flashy camera work or even artificially glamorous actors, but is a rather more subdued film in overall tone. It has a very thin plot, which is actually one of the better aspects of this film as it is not relying on the usual crash bang wallop we too often get subjected to. At most basic we are being shown a slice of life, the tragic one that Melanie is currently enduring will no doubt ring true with many of the viewers who have suffered similar losses. There are questions arising from her situation with no obvious answers, these are largely along the lines of “Is Melanie insane?” and “Is the Doll her dead mother controlling her?” Or is it simply that the grief is just too much?

Robin Lord Taylor in a pre-Gotham role provides the perfect degree of balance as “Dukken” an “Emo” Melanie meets in a library. They strike up an awkward friendship, with Dukken proving to be somewhat likeable and patient as he attempts to gain a greater understanding of Melanie. There is definite warmth in his portrayal which perfectly counters Melanie’s stand-offishness.

There are slight hints towards the supernatural here, yet no neon signposts for it as is the norm for other doll-related movies, and I couldn’t even say that it’s a conventional horror film even though there are very real horrors abound. What it actually is, to my way of thinking at least, is a beautifully constructed dark drama.
 
Joe Young.