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By Keri O’Shea

Whatever happened to the ‘new wave of French horror’, then? I guess the wave just broke. After dominating the horror scene just shy of a decade ago, turning everything, everywhere into a blue-filtered torture fest overlaid with religious anxiety and women in very functional underwear (okay, I’m paraphrasing, but still…) it seems that the enfants terrible of that frenetic burst of activity have lost their way, or at least a lot of their funding. Truth be told though, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury since the get-go. When the whole world seemed to be entranced by Inside (2007), I saw it as deliberate and clumsy button-mashing which took the old apparent truism that pregnant women are the pinnacle of vulnerability and then protracted that agony for ninety minutes. However, I loved Livide (2011), a fantastical, rather beautiful tale which has far more in common with Pan’s Labyrinth than Martyrs – plus a good balance between deference to films which had gone before, and its own striking novelty.

Which brings us to Among the Living (Aux Yeux Des Vivants), a film which has apparently ‘rested’ for some time since it was made, but is finally about to get a DVD release. Ours not to reason why these things take so much time on occasion, but anyway, the opening scenes certainly appear familiar. There’s Beatrice Dalle again, there’s an unhappy domestic scene again – and as the moments pass by, we understand that the heavily-pregnant maman is displeased with her lot. Her husband is a whisky-swilling layabout who seems to enjoy sitting in front of lowest-common-denominator science shows on TV, and as for her son, little Klarence, we soon glean that there’s something not quite right about him. So, before too long, maman goes apeshit (of course), decides motherhood isn’t for her, stabbing herself brutally in the abdomen (of course), which prompts father and son to retrieve the foetus (of course) and head off into the outside world to ‘make a new family’.

All of this feels rather like a showreel of the Most Shocking Moments from Inside, which neither engages nor shocks, anymore. I appreciate that films can often be under pressure to put some significant ‘hooks’ in the opening scenes, but seeing a pregnant belly being split open again – well, that whole anatomical horror has been done, and in more convincing detail. (Also, if I was going to split hairs further, I’d say that if you really want that sort of anatomical detail then you might want to remember that – as awesome as she is, and criminally underused here – Beatrice Dalle has now reached her half-century, and would be an unlikely mother-to-be.) After this sequence, though, the film changes tack quite dramatically. Skip forward to a new scene…

We have, for the moment, forgotten the dysfunctional duo from earlier: now, we’re pitched in with a group of floppy-haired teenagers, and it’s the last day of school. They’re little rebels, these lads, launching into a food fight as soon as we get a good look at them, before deciding to cut class, heading off into the idyllic, sun-drenched French countryside instead. Sure, they try to burn down a farmer’s barn for a laugh, but it’s all just hijinks. They escape, then head to a place called Blackwoods – a disused film studio, and a place which accordingly looks quite good on camera. Things take a turn for the worse when they espy what seems to be a kidnapping situation: a masked man has arrived on the set with a gagged woman in the boot of his car. The boys find their collective conscience, and decide to help. This throws them into the path of the father and son from earlier – and Stuff Happens.

Woo, boy. Okay, what can I say that’s positive about Among the Living? There are definitely good aspects – it’s just that certain other things overshadow these. As alluded to above, then, this is a typically well-shot, well-lit and well-framed movie. Bustillo and Maury clearly have a painterly eye and they show this off to great advantage throughout. The settings used, particularly in the first half of the film, are very evocative and look frankly great on camera. It’s also a very well acted film, with kudos to the trio of young actors who have been given a lot to grapple with here; in places, the script can feel like a rather clunky take on teenspeak, but who knows? Perhaps things have been very much lost in translation.

The serious sticking point with all of this, however, is that I don’t think you can merge foeticide with Boys’ Own Adventures. Tonally, Among the Living is a gamble – and it’s a gamble which just doesn’t work. Having gone through the motions of a torture porn intro, the film turns into The Goonies – and can you, hand on heart, imagine an outcome where the Goonies or The Monster Squad are pitched into a world where pursuit, torture and murder are real possibilities? If you have some love for the kind of kids’ fantasy adventure which you may have grown up on in the 80s, then this is a question you’ll need to square with yourself before seeing this oddball film. (I’d imagine that the BBFC would have a few raised eyebrows at the spectre of violence to minors as well, but maybe it’s okay as long as it’s not sexualised… what a time to be alive!)

And, speaking of sexualisation… where do Bustillo and Maury get their ideas about women, exactly? Nothing I’ve seen of them so far has convinced me that they’re anything other than giggling schoolboys who’ve found the ‘human reproduction’ section in an edition of Biology for Nine Year Olds. We have so far an unconvincing line-up of maternal monsters, hysterics, feckless (pregnant) victims, and then the babysitter here – oh, my. I’m usually the first to point out that men are and have always been absolutely capable of penning interesting, convincing female characters, but here’s the exception to that rule. Attempted shock tactics, blatant misunderstandings and ultimately very unconvincing developments.

Ultimately, this film is so frustrating simply because for every step forward it takes, it takes two back. I’m really happy to see a group of boys as the lead characters, but the fee you pay for that is that you see just how deeply conservative, not progressive, so much of French horror is – where families get picked off in order of how non-nuclear they are, for instance, or where women are knocked up, slutty or heroically maternal enough to get bloody in a white vest, despite having been given next to no characterisation along the way. Bustillo and Maury clearly have great strengths, but now that their trump cards have been presented more than once, I’d love to see them branch out in some other direction.

Among the Living is released on DVD by Metrodome on 7th March 2016.

By Ben Bussey

Taking a real-life location which – in living memory – has been the site of numerous suicides, and then using it as the setting for a horror movie, always felt like a very risky proposition. Had a Hollywood movie opted to produce a similar treatment of the English town of Brigend*, which infamously saw a slew of suicides in recent years, then I would fully expect our reactionary press to be well and truly up in arms – and it would probably mark a rare instance of me largely agreeing with them. Factor in that this is a movie which takes a Japanese setting but centres on American characters, with all locals very much pushed to the sidelines, and you’re left with a movie with a great potential to offend.

Curious, then, that The Forest winds up so utterly inoffensive on just about every level.

Actually, who am I kidding? No, it isn’t curious it all. It’s par for the course in contemporary mainstream horror: take a potentially spooky subject matter, play it out in a neat and tidy fashion with emotions largely dialed down, hope this translates to slow-burn tension, then throw in a few jump-scares complete with gratuitous CGI augmentation just to remind the audience they’re watching a horror movie. That’s how it’s been on so many bland, unmemorable genre entries to hit the multiplexes these past fifteen years or so, and that’s how it will doubtless be on many more in the years ahead. While the key players in The Forest may be coming at it with good intentions, they have not made a film that rises above the quagmire.

Like so many supernatural horror movies with aspirations toward serious drama, The Forest largely hinges on the audience accepting the existence of paranormal forces: not necessarily ghosts as such, but some kind of psychic energies influencing the minds of the characters. First off, we have to accept that old chestnut about a special link between twins. Sarah (Natalie Dormer) flies out to Japan on learning that her sister Jess (also Dormer, of course) has vanished in Aokigahara forest. Just about everyone tells her to abandon all hope; that those who go into Aokigahara generally don’t come back out, either by circumstance or intent. But Sarah won’t listen, insisting that she would know if her sister was already dead. Originally planning to head into the forest alone, she meets a fellow American – travel writer Aiden (Taylor Kinney) – who convinces her to instead go with him and his friend Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa), a forest ranger. Michi warns Sarah that, quite aside from being a dangerous place to life and limb, the forest also has a way of playing tricks on the mind, and that if she sees something bad it almost certainly isn’t real. But will they know the difference when the time comes?

Speaking of seeing something bad… well alright, to be fair The Forest is not without its strengths. Natalie Dormer makes for a compelling lead actress, the Serbian forest locations which double for Aokigahara are striking in both their beauty and fearfulness, and director Jason Zada does a good job of capturing the power of both. Beyond this, though, The Forest really struggles to maintain interest. As might have been anticipated, the film plays heavily on ambiguity; whilst Dormer encounters surreal and ghostly visions, it’s never made clear whether or not these things are just going on in her head. This same path has been trod by so many movies in recent years that it simply isn’t effective any more. The same goes for the attempts at building tension between Sarah and her new friends, who she grows to mistrust as they sink deeper into the forest.

The film stumbles into far too many mainstream pitfalls; whilst it’s ostensibly a tale of grief and the struggle to overcome past trauma, it also seems needlessly preoccupied with glamorous travelogue elements. Considering Sarah’s meant to be in her rush to get to her sister, it seems highly gratuitous that we have scenes of her checking into a luxurious Tokyo hotel room overlooking the city, a feeble attempt at comic relief when she sits down for a sushi dinner, and chilling out in the tourist-friendly bar where she meets Aiden. I can’t help but thinking the filmmakers felt obliged to add a bit of Tokyo tourist board material to make up for the fact that the movie is ultimately exploiting the very real tragic history of a Japanese location – whilst at the same time putting American characters at the centre of the tragedy, because western audiences wouldn’t give a shit otherwise, obviously.

It’s not too surprising that The Forest was the brainchild of producer David Goyer: as writer-director of 2009’s The Unborn, he’s demonstrated a knack for squandering talented people on bland material. Not to mention, considering how Odette Yustman was treated there, Natalie Dormer should count herself lucky there isn’t a camera fixed directly on her arse the whole movie; credit to Zada for not going the obvious cheesecake route. Much as it was hard to watch The Unborn without wondering what the hell Gary Oldman was doing there, it’s hard to watch The Forest without feeling bad for Natalie Dormer. She’s clearly got real leading lady potential, and she does her best with what’s given to her – but that really isn’t much at all. It’s roles like these that give the genre such a bad name among ambitious actors, filling them with anxiety about making ‘just horror’ films.

I certainly hope it will be onwards and upwards for both Dormer and Zada from here, as I’m confident both are capable of great work. But I strongly suspect this will be a film that both the actress and the director would rather forget in years to come – much as I suspect anyone who heads out to see it will struggle to remember anything about it a week later.

The Forest is in cinemas now, via Icon Film Distribution.

* A 2015 movie was made on that subject, entitled Bridgend. There have also been two other western films made about Aokigahara: 2013’s Grave Halloween, and Gus Van Sant’s as-yet unreleased Sea of Trees. (I haven’t seen any of them.)

In Keri’s earlier review of writer-director Jason Lei Howden’s headbanging horror comedy (consider hers an insider account of sorts, given Keri’s a lifelong metalhead and I’m not), Keri contemplates the ‘special relationship’ between heavy metal music and black magic. It’s fair to say there are similar links between heavy metal and horror cinema. Again, my metal knowledge is very limited, but as I understand it Black Sabbath (is there any debate they’re the band that started it all?) settled on their signature sound by taking influence from the horror movies they loved, including but by no means limited to taking their name from a Mario Bava movie. And in the years ahead, moral panics around both metal and horror would deepen that bond further, both genres deemed public enemy number one by polite society – and, as such, made all the more attractive to anyone with a rebellious bone in their body.

It’s by no means the case that every confirmed horror film addict is also a metaller, or for that matter a goth or a punk (again, I wouldn’t class myself as any of those, though I guess I’m closest to the latter), but at the same time it’s no great mystery as to why these worlds so often collide. There’s a lovely moment in Deathgasm when Milo Cawthorne’s Brody tries to convey the appeal of metal to Kimberley Crossman’s Medina, explaining how the rage in the music can be uplifting, reassuring the listener that they’re not alone in their anger and frustration; very similar to the cathartic release that can be taken from horror movies. Jason Lei Howden has said that providing such an outlet was very much his intention with Deathgasm, stating, “Metal and horror helped me through some dark times in my life, and I wanted to give back to people who might be going through similar dark times.” 

This, as Keri rightly asserts in her review, means neither mocking metal nor horror, but embracing both genres in all their absurdity and having fun with them, as opposed to making fun of them. Something those on the outside of both horror and metal routinely fail to understand (again, as a non-metaller I will admit to having been guilty of this myself at times) is that by and large fans are fully aware of just how ridiculous the genres are, and while they may take them seriously, they do not by any means take them literally. Yes, the movies and the music may deal with anxieties and issues which are very real, but from a fantastical viewpoint; a dark daydream reality, in which our fears take tangible form as monsters, and – sometimes – we might just prove strong enough to destroy them. Preferably in a very bloody fashion indeed, armed with chainsaws, axes, power drills and – erm – maybe even vibrators.

Long story short – no, I’m not a metalhead, but Deathgasm makes me think it might be fun to be one. And above and beyond all else, Deathgasm is a hell of a lot of fun, an energetic horror comedy with an entertaining central conceit, great special effects and gore, and endearing, relatable characters. Yes, it’s a bit puerile and it frequently lurches off a bit far into adolescent male wish fulfilment territory – but again, this is pretty much de rigueur for both horror and metal.

Central metalhead Brody is your classic everynerd; alienated at school, lacking parental guidance, disapproved of by his guardian aunt and uncle, and ruthlessly bullied by his alpha prick cousin. No one could blame him for wanting a way out – so when, under suitably absurd circumstances, a piece of literal Devil’s music comes into his possession with a promise of limitless power, we can’t look too harshly on Brody for jumping at the chance, even if he does inadvertently set off an epidemic of demonic possessions which threatens to end the world. Again, metal frequently gives voice to the disaffected, and Deathgasm explores this in a deceptively intelligent way, firstly via the ostensibly well-meaning Brody, and secondly via his new BFF – ahem, sorry, I mean brother of steel – James Blake’s Zakk.

Sure, there’s a very familiar best buds butting heads vibe about Brody and Zakk – not unlike that of Shaun and Ed (yes, a Shaun of the Dead comparison had to be made at some point), or any number of Kevin Smith movie double acts – but our protagonists here aren’t just lacking in motivation, they’re genuinely pissed off with their lot in life. However, where Brody (the name alone a possible nod to Smith’s Mallrats?) merely enjoys the fantasy of a fuck-the-world philosophy, Zakk literally gives no fucks, frequently demonstrating a pathological need to do the wrong thing at all times, even – or perhaps especially – when it will hurt those close to him. Having each come from broken homes, Brody and Zakk both have their reasons for being the way they are, but in its own way Deathgasm explores how one can rise above such matters and emerge a strong, decent person. Well, perhaps ‘decent’ isn’t the word considering how much obvious glee both boys take in brutally murdering the demonically possessed, but still.

Where Deathgasm may slip just a little – though it’s hardly unique in this – is in the female lead. It’s the usual problem: whilst there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Kimberley Crossman’s performance, there’s also no getting around the fact that, once again, this is a male wish fulfilment story, and the character of Medina ultimately has little to do beyond fulfilling part of that fantasy. While it’s made evident that, beneath her mainstream popular girl exterior, she’s a metalhead at heart, she remains a little underdeveloped – and, in yet another parallel with Shaun of the Dead, the whole boy-girl romance angle does seem a little unnecessary when the movie’s real focal point is clearly the bromance. Still, Medina proves every bit as adept at demon-slaying as the guys, Crossman’s experience on Power Rangers Samurai no doubt coming into play as she busts some serious moves on the possessed. And whilst she may be a dreamgirl, there’s thankfully very little of that ‘manic pixie’ bullshit about her.

Also on the subject of wish fulfilment: I may be nitpicking now, but a high school garage band who get together on a whim – yet instantly play well and in time with one another? And, more to the point, know how to read sheet music? Come off it! Where are the endless hours of buggering up the intro to Nothing Else Matters whilst out of tune? (There’s your indication of just how metal my teenage years got.)

There are more nits which could be picked about plot logic and slightly too convenient turns of events, but when all’s said and done these are very, very easy to brush to one side when a film is this much fun. Deathgasm is bursting at the seams with cheap dick jokes, ridiculous (and largely practical) gore, awesome demons, the occasional gratuitous tit shot – and even a bit of willy to sort-of redress the balance. If that doesn’t sound like an entertaining hour and a half, I don’t know what does. I’m really sorry to have missed this at the 2015 festivals, as I can imagine it plays a storm with an audience, but in this instance it wouldn’t seem to lose much at all on the small screen. It isn’t too often that I think this of new releases, but there’s very little question in my mind that Deathgasm is one for the ages, a cult classic in waiting that fans will come back to again and again. Death to false metal, indeed. (Pity the Blu-ray’s completely devoid of extras, though.)

Deathgasm is out on UK DVD – and, exclusive to Zavvi, on Blu-ray – on 29th February from Studiocanal.

By Dustin Hall

Going into The Corpse of Anna Fritz, I had my loins securely girded. The film is distributed by Invincible Pictures, who recently released the uncut Serbian Film to the public, and its plot is centered around necrophilia. I expected, from that selling point, and from the trailer, to find a supremely depraved film that may or may not have involved the undead. My loins were overly prepared, as it turned out, for the film I received, as The Corpse of Anna Fritz delights not in the grotesque depths of Serbian Film, but in classic tension, suspense, and chase sequences of slasher flicks of old.

The Corpse of Anna Fritz opens with the titular character, played by Alba Ribas, already laid out on a slab. Her body is pushed into a hospital morgue, accompanied by radio reports giving the audience a brief history of her rise to international super-stardom, and her sudden death at a party earlier in the evening. She’s deposited in cold storage by Pau (Albert Carbo), who’s unfortunate fashion choice of red crocs immediately make him an unlikable character, but this is only the first of his failings. Pau sends a picture of Anna’s body to his coke snorting bros Ivan (Christian Valencia) and Javi (Bernat Saumell), who immediately decide to come down and take a peek for themselves. Despite Javi’s nervous protests, Ivan and Pau decide to take advantage of what will probably be the only opportunity they’ll have to sex-up a celebrity, and have a go at the deceased. The boys are shocked when, while Pau is giving his Tuesday best to corpse, Anna wakes up. With the fear of rape charges hanging over them, the trio of deviants debate what to do next, as Anna tries to escape before their thoughts turn to murder.

From here the story charges through a series of misfortunes, moving briskly through its 75 minute run time. There’s no fat to be trimmed or wasted moments, which is a strength of the film, as it keeps the tensions high. Interestingly, the question of how Anna ‘died’ and came back is never addressed. Story be damned! There are betrayals and chases to be had, and many moments where the characters continue to question, push, and often abandon their own morality. The quick pace helps the film stay enjoyable, and it comes to a close before the premise is exhausted. I found myself rooting for Anna, and curious to see how and when this cadre of young perverts was going to snap in the face of having to, essentially, commit and immediately erase all evidence of a murder.

Tonally, The Corpse of Anna Fritz shares a lot with other recent rape-centric plots such as The Woman or particularly Dead Girl. As with those films, it explores the objectification of women and the animalistic nature of sexual exploration in young men, who cast aside decency in exchange for thrills. Unlike those films, though, this film isn’t nearly as grotesque or torturous. The opening moments will push some buttons for those particularly unsettled by necrophilia, but once it has been established that Anna is alive, the brutality of the boys subsides, and is replaced by fear. In this way the film contrasts with The Woman, which was an exploration of abuses of power with a lack of oversight, and instead focuses on the breakdown of a person’s morality when they find their back pressed against the wall. There’s not a lot of clever turns in the film, and the setting isn’t particularly utilized, but as a character study, it serves.

While The Corpse of Anna Fritz was overall a well put together piece of minimalist movie-making, my one gripe with the film would be the fizzle of its climax. I can overlook things like continuity errors (of which there is one major one), but I couldn’t shake that the ending left something to be desired. The final moments, where the final shocks should be delivered, the great gut-punch moments of visceral intensity or a really wonderful ‘a-ha’ moment, instead everything is decided by a rather lazy mistake made by one of the characters, which results in a rushed ending, followed immediately by the credits. It was a painfully abrupt halt.

Still, despite the lackluster destination, The Corpse of Anna Fritz was a decent ride.

The Corpse of Anna Fritz will be on FlixFling from March 8th.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

It’s hard to believe that the end of The X-Files is here, so soon, again. Even if this episode’s ‘the truth is out there’ is replaced with a sombre ‘this is the end’, it’s hard to believe that that’s truly the case. Continuing where the first episode of this series left over, the major conspiracy of men to bring about the end of days using alien technology finally makes itself globally, and fatally apparent. Seeing characters return from past series and this one brings together a whole lot of loose ends and makes one really big new one, ending with a cliffhanger of such magnitude that Scully’s season 7 ‘I’m pregnant’ revelation seems like no big deal.

So much is crammed into this episode that things do get overwhelming quite quickly. Yet again, the constraints of this series hampers the potential of the story-telling, and what on some level feels like a classic X-Files mythology episode also feels like it needed to be a three-parter to fully realise the scope of the story being told. That being said, the frenetic pace of the crumbling of civilisation as we know it being portrayed meant I was pretty much on the edge of my seat for the whole episode. I was especially enamoured with the fact that this episode had Mulder bugger off on his own, leaving Scully to actually take care of business, again, and that we stayed with Scully, as she’s both hampered and eventually helped by newbie Agent Einstein. Indeed, for a big chunk of the episode it seems to be absolutely women running the show – we witness the return of Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) in a strand of the plot which I definitely would have liked to have seen more of.

Meanwhile Mulder is off on one of his traditional not-answering-the-phone jaunts, right into the clutches of good ol’ Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), a man with more lives than a cat. The grotesqueries of CSM’s injuries following the explosion that was presumed to have killed him 14 years ago are very entertaining, and really do render him an abject villain indeed. Despite being the master villain he’s always been, it’s hard not to see some sense in his rationale for the manufacture of mankind’s downfall, though it’s never so tempting a rationale as to want to side with him.

The overall backdrop of Mulder and Scully’s quest in this episode, being the total infection and downfall of most of humanity, is rather wonderfully depicted, helped along by internet conspiracy nut Tad O’Malley’s video updates. It does feel a little bit like watching an adaptation of a game of Plague Inc., but there’s enough effective pseudo-science that it all feels really rather frighteningly plausible – the scale of infection at least, if not the alien DNA stuff. It was interesting to notice that the episode credits two doctors as co-writers, along with Chris Carter, which is something I’d like to know much more about!

It’s hard to discuss the most notable part of the episode – the ending – without going full spoiler, but to see Scully enter full saviour mode, while Mulder is rendered, frankly, a bit useless, is mildly frustrating but also, as someone who’s always been more invested in Scully, really exciting. I already mentioned that the episode ends on a cliffhanger, and I can’t help but feel it’s going to severely frustrate a lot of people, especially people who aren’t buying into the new mythology so much. Personally, I don’t see what’s been done in this mini-series as new mythology so much as a sensible development of what’s always been there. If anything, it’s made it a more believable mythology too.

To reflect on the series as a whole, I must say I’m satisfied. Sure, there have been flaws, but for me all the new episodes have been solid X-Files. Some episodes have been truly excellent – including this finale – and for that I’m so grateful that the series has been revived, even if it’s briefly. That brevity though has certainly meant that even at its best, the series feels like it’s not quite reached it’s full potential. If it comes back again, I really hope it’s given a bit more space to develop its grand narrative, something it was always able to do over the early seasons. So please, Fox, don’t let this be the end – there is still scope for so much more.

By Karolina Gruschka

As the title of the publication implies, The Monsters’ Almanac is a calendar that contains important dates and facts about monsters. The ‘monsters’ authors Nige Burton and Jamie Jones refer to are the fictional villains and notorious abjects within the horror universe. The guide is part of a larger printed and electronic resource, which centres around classic monsters; the brand was launched mid-2014 by monster obsessed Burton for fellow classic horror fans.

How do we actually define a monster as being ‘classic’? Burton tackles the question in the book’s foreword (“Goreword”), and it appears to be a far more complex debate than it presents itself at first. The two vital elements that usually establish a work of artistry as ‘classic’, are value and time. However, both concepts only open up further inquiries such as ‘of how much value to whom,’ and ‘how much time needs to pass?’ Burton seems to have chosen to focus on the idea of nostalgia – a somewhat more sentimental and individual intersection between the passing of time and the value of a creation – since it is more in line with the conceptions of fandom. Thus, younger generations might be enthralled with the soulful Angel the same way others are with Lugosi’s Dracula. Though an inclusive approach might appear controversial and worrying to the followers of the older classics, Burton states that those treasures of the past, nonetheless, will always remain at the heart of Classic Monsters.

Further interesting articles that can be found in The Monsters’ Almanac include ‘The Stalwarts of Horror,’ a celebration of the dedicated and charismatic support actors in monster movies; ‘The Masters Of The Macabre,’ a reminiscence on a time when horror stars were closely associated with their monster role; and ‘Afterlifeword,’ in which Burton shares how he developed his cherished love for horror.

Nevertheless, the main focus of this publication is the horror trivia surrounding every day of the year (including leap-day 29th February). I must admit it provides great pleasure and many “aha!” moments to look at what happened in horror history on today’s date, or my birthday, or your birthday, or Halloween. One can find information on births and deaths of cast and crew, book publications as well as film/TV release/airing dates. The latter go by original studio schedules and country of origin, since various sources provide conflicting dates. The almanac is, however, so much more than just fun facts. It assisted me in remembering long forgotten gems and suggested movies I have yet got to see (how awesome does 1944 horror-comedy musical Ghost Catchers sound?!) On top of that, there are some fantastic quality images – with descriptions – of movie posters, film scenes and shots from the set that beautifully enhance every single page of The Monsters’ Almanac.

Published in 2015, The Monsters’ Almanac consists of 36 colour pages in A4 high quality paperback and is available for £7.99 from the Classic Monsters online shop. It is a very good price for a guide that can become a lasting part of a fan’s horror collection. Please also check out the Classic Monsters website for a vast (and growing) informational index of a variety of monsters, horror films and horror cast/crew as well as further fascinating publications.

The Monsters’ Almanac is on sale now at Classic Monsters.

By Karolina Gruschka

“I really shouldn’t be telling you this…”

Set in the late 1960s, an introverted young girl (Lauren Ashley Carter) takes up service as a house-sitter in the oldest mansion of the city. Before departing, the lady of the house (Sean Young) discloses the building’s bad reputation and admits that not many people would choose to stay there alone. Though the property is surrounded in ghost stories and the mystery of the previous caretaker’s suicide, Madame adds that the girl “needn’t worry” and that “the house will take care” of her…

“This […] city is always on the defensive”

The city is an assemblage of nameless strangers and separate places which we mostly may not have access to; anonymity renders freedom, yet, on the flip side, the interaction with strangers could be potentially dangerous. Down here, countless faces pass by who will not play a role in each other’s lives and from up there, everything seems so distant, small and meaningless.

Director Mickey Keating’s choice to keep the polyphonic sounds of the city to an absolute minimum (or even non-existent from inside the house) only enhances the sense of isolation and emptiness. In contrast, the atmosphere within the old building feels very heavy and dense. Within this environment the nameless protagonist starts to develop symptoms of psychosis and, as the narrative progresses, slowly but surely gives in to the dark abyss of her mind…

“Deep calls to deep”

Though Mickey Keating makes films that predominantly fall into the horror genre, one can detect that he is an aficionado of a variety of movie genres. Darling has an air of 1960s European art-house cinema, reminiscent of the French Nouvelle Vague or auteur films such as Polanski’s Repulsion and Bergman’s Persona. The film explores the relationship between naturalism and formalism by employing stylization to express the character’s uniquely conceived reality. While there are mundane actions occurring almost in real time (her pacing up and down a corridor, her exploring the rooms in the house, her cleaning the bathroom) and the camera often takes an observational viewpoint, Darling is composed of a montage of sound (clock ticking, phone ringing) and striking imagery (phone, door, lipstick). Furthermore, the use of angles which give the house at times an Alice in Wonderland appearance (disproportionately small or tall door frames) as well as the manipulation of light (descending dark, very subtle shadows, strobe effects) allow the viewer to be absorbed into her very intense perception of the world.

What I love about Darling is its subtlety and bravery in taking the time it requires. Despite the film’s concept of ‘girl alone in a (supposedly) haunted mansion’, the potential signs of an external supernatural force are very subtle, yet just enough to keep the possibility of a lurking evil alive. Since the image is in black and white and the mise-en-scene is kept clean and uncluttered, it is also the little things that one starts noticing, such as the shadow on an object slightly darkening. Additionally, I would like to give credit to ‘darling’ Lauren Ashley Carter who gives a fantastic performance in the movie. Despite a very small cast and hardly any dialogue, Carter succeeds at conveying the protagonist’s condition, as well as performing with an intense presence; even when she switches from hysteria to deadpan face, one can feel that there is still something going on.

All in all, Darling is an exploration of reality, an interplay between the hidden and the revealed and an interlink between the past and a foreboding of the future. If you finally want to see a serious and intense horror film again (no comic relief whatsoever – which is quite refreshing!) go and catch Darling when it comes to a theatre near you.

Darling is released to US cinemas on April 1st, from Screen Media Films.

Just so there’s no misunderstanding as to which side of the fence I stand, I’m one of those who has never understood why Eli Roth is held up as a modern master of horror. Okay, so he’s a good looking and charismatic man, who comes off as genuinely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the genre; I’ve been pleasantly surprised how much I’ve enjoyed some of his interviews on several recent Arrow Video releases, for instance. So as an ambassador of sorts, I can see his value. But if we sweep all that to one side and put the focus where it should be – on his work as a filmmaker – then I really struggle to see what the fuss is about. Cabin Fever was at best a passing amusement, Hostel was mean-spirited and tedious, and both films suffered from significant problems of tone, pace and structure (I never bothered seeing Hostel Part 2). Certainly it’s fair to call him a pioneer of the ordeal movie wave which took over the genre from the mid-2000s, but to my mind that’s nothing to be too proud about.

You can understand, then, that I didn’t have any particularly strong interest or expectations about The Green Inferno, his first directorial effort in over five years. The fact that I’ve never cared for the jungle cannibal genre either probably didn’t help. All this being the case, you might question whether I’m the right person to review this movie now – but this is just how it is. If you’re after an assessment from a professed admirer of both Roth and cannibal movies, may I refer you to Karolina’s review from FrightFest 2014. Otherwise, read on.

Boiled down, The Green Inferno sees Roth essentially retell the same story he’s already told in his earlier films: bunch of affluent, smug, largely unlikeable young metropolitan Americans venture into unfamiliar territory, and meet horrible deaths. Accusations of racism have been made against the director for this reason, but it strikes me that Roth is less interested in demonising foreigners than he is in punishing Americans. Whereas the protagonists in Cabin Fever and Hostel were ostensibly punished for the traditional horror movie reasons – being young, horny and drunk – The Green Inferno attempts to give things a more political spin by offering up a group of environmental activists. There are the beginnings of something potentially interesting here, as our clearly signposted final girl Justine (Lorenza Izzo, who I’ve learned since viewing is now Roth’s wife) is lured into a socially conscious college group partially out of genuine desire to help, but also due to her attraction to uber-confident group leader Alejandro (Ariel Levy). Having successfully campaigned for college cleaners to get health insurance, these kids think they can change the world, so they embark on what immediately sounds like a bonkers mission to head out to the peripheries of the Amazon rainforest and block a construction crew from tearing into the lands of hitherto unseen indigenous tribes. However, it’s clear from the get-go that the bulk of these kids have no idea what they’re doing, and that the real motives behind their mission might not be all the seem.

Plot wise, then, things are intriguing enough for the first act, even if it suffers from Roth’s usual deluge of largely unlikeable characters spouting dialogue that never rings true. But then almost all of that goes out the window as soon as they get captured by the jungle tribe, who waste little time revealing their appetite for red meat. However, what that essentially leaves us with for the bulk of the movie is an open air variation on the standard torture porn set-up: bunch of people held against their will facing horrible deaths, trying to keep it together enough to figure out a way to escape. We’ve seen much the same in any number of Saw movies, the only difference being these guys are in a bamboo cage instead of a dingy cellar. Like so many films before to follow this format, The Green Inferno struggles to remain interesting once it reaches this point – and in trying to keep our attention, Roth stumbles right back into those same tone issues which soured his earlier films with some very badly misjudged sidesteps into scatalogical humour, and one frankly ludicrous plot device which seems to have been lifted directly from the CG animated movie Monster House; subdue the big bad by medicinal means. Had the film not been played so straight beforehand, some of this might have worked. As it stands, these scenes just come off as stupid.

Things look up ever so slightly once the inevitable jailbreak occurs and we briefly venture into jungle adventure territory, but this too turns out to be merely a temporary sidestep, and the little we get isn’t exactly on a par with Apocalypto. I’ll say this much, though; after the clusterfucks that were the final acts of Cabin Fever and Hostel (again, can’t pass comment on Hostel 2 as I haven’t seen it), Roth does seem to be getting a better idea of how to bring his stories to a satisfactory end – although the climactic attempt to set up a sequel seems pretty misguided (and given the legal issues that kept the film from being released for so long, I suspect a Green Inferno franchise isn’t too likely).

It might have been intended to take the modern horror audience to hitherto unexplored territory, but The Green Inferno is ultimately the same old shit dressed up a bit differently. It fails to develop characters worth giving a damn about, doesn’t adequately explore either its critique of contemporary activism or its jungle tribe, and it doesn’t even get too gross with the cannibalism. I went in unconvinced of Roth’s widely accepted horror master status, and came out feeling no different. That said, I can’t deny I’m curious to see how the director fares on his next movie Meg, a giant shark movie based on the Steve Alten novel. As a bigger budget studio production (and, happily, not something he’s written himself), this will surely force Roth to flex some different creative muscles – and who knows, maybe we’ll find that’s a level he’s better suited to. He’s done the comparatively small scale horror movie thing enough times now, and it doesn’t seem to me that he’s making much progress within it.

The Green Inferno is out now in select UK cinemas and on VOD, and will come to DVD and Blu-ray on 22nd February, from Entertainment One.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Chris Carter was recently posited as the George Lucas of television. It’s hard to argue with that assessment when an episode like Babylon comes along, an ultimately enjoyable but extremely flawed tale of terrorism, politics, and existential angst. In this episode a terrorist attack on an art gallery draws the attention of open-minded FBI Agent Miller (Robbie Amell) and his sceptical partner Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose), who visit Mulder and Scully for some advice. The two pairs of agents approach the task at hand in different ways: how can they communicate with a comatose bomber in order to determine where will be targeted next?

My biggest issue with this episode is that the way Chris Carter depicts his story is sometimes at odds with what he seems to be trying to say. There’s no doubt that Carter condemns many people in this episode – be it presumptuous passers-by, the racist nurse, the government, or extremist Islamists. What’s muddied by Carter’s clumsy story-telling is his ultimate sympathy for the young man who committed the bombing. He certainly doesn’t condone his actions, but Carter doesn’t want us to hate the young man in the hospital bed. The fact that the episode centres on the attempts of four intelligent people to communicate with him is in some way testament to that – gathering intelligence is really secondary to the manner in which each person approaches the task. When tackling such a hot-button topic as religious extremism, though, I can’t help but wish Carter had made it a bit clearer that he was condemning the really heinous views and stand-points held by some of the characters in the episode. The casual dismissal of these views by characters doesn’t quite seem like enough – if he allows the space for hate speech – which, as far as I’m concerned, is not a bad thing when he’s not condoning it – I wish he’d allowed a bit more space for its condemnation.

The depiction of Islamist terrorism isn’t the only way in which the episode is unsubtle (see also: Carter’s continuing obsession with the power of motherhood, and the on-the-nose discussions of love and hate), but the saving grace then is the comedic doppelganger-ing of Mulder and Scully with Miller and Einstein. Many aspects of the episode hark back to previous episodes – Fight Club, Field Trip, The Sixth Extinction – and the manner in which these are done are very welcome. Mulder gets to experience a very entertaining hallucinogenic trip, which not only features some classic Mulder embarrassing himself moments, but also sees the all-too-brief return of some familiar faces.

The best, most successfully satirical moment of the episode once again comes from Scully, with a line of dialogue that’s all too easy to miss in amongst the rest of the opining that’s going on. It feels to me that there was a reticence to go full-comedy with this episode, due to its subject matter, and that’s a loss, I think – I daresay it would have been more successful in making its point had it injected a bit more humour and removed the heavy-handed speech-making. Even so, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy what I watched, but there was definitely room for something a bit more.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Despite being a big fan of films like Last House on the Left, Ms. 45, and, I Spit on Your Grave, I don’t actually actively seek out rape-revenge films. However, I do gravitate towards genre films with female protagonists, and lord knows they often enough end up being revenge narratives of some description anyway. So when a low-budget film with a title like Revenge Is Her Middle Name shows up, I figured I would surely enjoy some aspect of it, even if it did turn out to be the complete dross it sounded like. How wrong I was.

Kat is a down and out, drug-addicted prostitute and also a terrible person. She convinces her terrible boyfriend to steal money from her terrible pimp in order to have the funds to carry and raise her terrible baby. She kills her boyfriend, makes off with the money, and sort of tries to start a new life. Then her past catches up with her and she’s gang-raped. Then she does some things which seem to be included to pad out the running time, then, finally, she takes her bloody revenge. Then the film mercifully ends.

In order to try and be at least somewhat balanced, let me say there are occasionally some nicely composed shots in the film, usually making use of some nice lighting design. Aside from these few scenes, though, the film is consistently incompetent and a tedious viewing experience. The camera-work is all over the place, the editing not much better, and the sound recording so poor that, when combined with the shockingly bad performances, key scenes are often unintelligible. Not that it matters much – the narrative is so badly paced by the time anything important happens you’ll hopefully have stopped caring, if you cared at all. There is not one single character to root for in this film, which makes it very difficult to find any of the shouting and slapping and murdering going on remotely compelling. The film takes a slow 30 minutes to set up what could so easily have been done in 15, and considering it makes heavy use of tropes and stereotypes, it’s a wonder anyone would even bother taking that much time. Throughout the film, intertitles kindly inform us whenever some time has passed – be it 8 months or a few years – which is at least something of an on-screen acknowledgement that neither the story-telling nor the editing is going to be strong enough to convey that simple information to the audience.

It becomes quite quickly apparent that this is one of those films that’s going to drop naughty swear words and gross sex stuff into the proceedings at every given opportunity, presumably in an attempt to be shocking. Nothing is particularly shocking, though, given as it’s all so half-arsedly done that it feels like a teenage boy in the late 90s has stayed up late to look for porn but wasn’t brave enough to go further up the channel list than an erotic thriller on Channel 5. This is perhaps under-scored best by a brief interlude where some vintage porn is intercut into the film (and even at video quality that looks better than the rest of it), as well as through the credits. Why? Because boobs, I guess?

There’s probably more I could say about how the film makes some vague attempts are depicting trauma, very badly, and how it attempts to play with genre conventions, but ultimately it’s just so tedious it’s barely worth the effort. I had assumed I’d seen the worst rape-revenge film out there in the form of Savage Vengeance, the unofficial sequel to I Spit on Your Grave. Wrong again. At least that film had the decency to be only 65 minutes long, and has a really great bit with a chainsaw. Revenge Is Her Middle Name is just a monumental waste of time.

Revenge is Her Middle Name is available now on Region 1 DVD from Unearthed Films.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

The special mini-series of The X-Files continues to be something of a heavy-handed affair, which, for a slightly unconditional fan like myself, doesn’t pose too many problems. However, I suspect for anyone not as deeply invested in the characters the forceful way in which certain plot threads are being developed or revisited might come across as unsubtle and unsophisticated.

When a city official is found dead and mutilated the morning after he oversees the evacuation of rough sleepers from a street under his jurisdiction, Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate when it becomes evident that no human could have committed the crime. Soon enough, more bodies start to show up, but Scully’s involvement in the case is interrupted by personal tragedy, which sees her question and reflect on her own life choices.

Home Again is sadly not a sequel to the season 4 shocker ‘Home’, although it shares a few tenuous thematic links. The monster of the week is here more in-line with that of episodes like Kaddish or Arcadia – when a monster is created by the power and will of human thought, a story is ripe to tell us something about the monstrosity of humans. The episode is impressively gory for The X-Files, which isn’t a stranger to blood and guts every now and again, but this must rank amongst the goriest. The opening scene manages to be eerie, gory and then downright weird in all of three minutes. The monster is very closely tied to a street artist known as the Trashman, and there’s something very interesting about what the episode has to say about art imitating life and life imitating life… however, the episode doesn’t quite seem to say enough about it, because half the episode is dedicated to Dana Scully’s personal tragedy.

Scully’s bad news results in her agonising once again over her decision to put William (her and Mulder’s son) up for adoption 14 years ago. While further addressing the William issue might mean the monster of the week is slightly underdeveloped (though by no means un-entertaining), it does allow for a growth in our characters and an absolute showcase for Gillian Anderson’s immense acting talent. She’s absolutely phenomenal in this episode, and I hope she receives the appropriate praise for it. I hope that the William storyline is ultimately resolved, somehow, in this miniseries, considering the amount of time, so far, devoted to addressing it. Again, this episode doesn’t quite offer subtlety in the way in which the case reflects the personal, but that’s never entirely been a strong point of the series.

Again, this episode brings its politics and its ideologies up to date, and in a more nuanced and even-handed way than the first two episodes. It also has some truly iconic Mulder-and-Scully moments. That this series has made two people wielding torches such an iconic image is testament to its power and, now, its enduring legacy. The episode makes nice use of self-reference in the episode’s format (the use of music in particular recalls several previous episodes, including Home), and while direct flashbacks are more and more heavy-handed as the episode progresses, they do a give a sense of time gone by too. Then of course, having Mulder tell Scully that “back in the day is now,” is probably the finest instance of fan service and self-awareness in the series so far.

It’s nice to see that the series is aiming for a relative balance between humour and seriousness in the series – after last week’s rip-roaring episode, Home Again serves as a nice reminder of the really emotional and serious core that’s also an important part of the programme’s success. Looks like it’s a return to humour next week though, which I certainly can’t say I mind…