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By Ben Bussey

Boy, Ozploitation’s really gone to the dogs, hasn’t it? Heheh… you see, that’s a pun, because this is a film about killer dogs. And. Erm. Yeah. That’s about it. Please excuse my painfully lazy and feeble attempts at humour – but in my defence, this movie left me in so near-catatonic a state of boredom that anything of even the vaguest comedic value was to be welcomed with open arms. Now, to be fair, it’s not that The Pack is a truly bad film as such: it’s well shot, well edited and well performed. It’s all just so damn nondescript. With its farmland setting and nuclear family protagonists coming under attack from furry little bastards with a taste for flesh and blood, it could almost be a retread of Critters – only played straight, with no alien bounty hunters. Or you could think of it as Dog Soldiers, without all the Geordie soldiers telling jokes. Which, as you can see straight away, sounds a lot less fun.

So this is about the long and short of it: at a remote farm in rural Australia, Carla and Adam Wilson (Anna Lise Phillips and Jack Campbell) are up shit creek financially as a large percentage of their livestock keeps turning up torn to bits. A snooty guy from the bank comes by offering to buy them out, but because Adam’s all proud and manly the way movie dads in financial trouble always are, he won’t hear of it, regardless of how hopeless things look and the fact that his 18 year old daughter Sophie (Katie Moore) hates him for making her live out in the sticks where – wouldn’t you know it – they don’t even have cellphone reception. Still, their youngest Henry (Hamish Phillips) loves it there, because he’s all wide-eyed and imaginative and loves playing with the dogs. However, that love is set to be tested, as those same wild dogs that have been chowing down on the sheep have now decided they’d like to add people to their menu.

So… yeah, that really is about the full extent of it. We have about thirty five minutes of quiet, understated character development and equally quiet, understated aerial shots of picturesque rural Australia (they like that in Ozploitation movies, don’t they? And fair enough, it is all very pretty, but it only stays interesting for so long), then it turns into a farmhouse siege. I suppose in a way it’s a refreshing change that Evan Randell Green’s script doesn’t bog things down in the usual gratuitous subplots, but there’s simply nothing to fill the gap. Given that the antagonists are dogs, it’s little surprise that the film runs into problems with showing them doing their thing; happily there’s little to no obvious CGI, but instead director Nick Robertson aims to convey more by suggestion. But in keeping the action centred entirely on four main protagonists for the duration, none of whom are developed much if at all in the interim, there’s very, very to hold your interest.

If you’re in the mood for something utterly undemanding, The Pack may be passable enough. Otherwise, steer clear. And just to end on another utterly pathetic dog pun, this ain’t no best in show – it’s the runt of the litter.

The Pack opens today in Los Angeles and New York cinemas, and on VOD/digital platforms including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, XBox and Playstation, via IFC Midnight.

By Tristan Bishop

To quote British rapper Akira The Don – ‘Don’t come talking to me about no post-apocalypse. Look up apocalypse in the dictionary. It’s like a Sunday. There ain’t no post.’ He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t stop the post-apocalypse from being perennially popular in horror and sci-fi, and right now, thanks to the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Walking Dead, the subgenre is at its most popular since its early eighties heyday, but it’s still a rarity when the basic set-up varies from the Mad Max 2 or Dawn Of The Dead templates. Having said this, along comes a little film from Northern Ireland with a tiny budget, tiny cast and a refreshing take on the basic premise, and for a small film it has been making a big impression on the festival circuit so far.

After a subtly unnerving credits sequence, featuring the most disturbing animated graph ever seen on film (trust me on this one), first time director Stephen Fingleton draws us into the daily routine of the unnamed Survivalist (played by Martin McCann) as we observe how he grows plants, collects water and heats his shack – all the while brandishing a shotgun and looking over his shoulder. When an older woman called Kathryn (Olwen Fouere) and her teenage daughter Mija (Mia Goth, previously seen in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac) arrive at his ‘farm’ and beg for food, the Survivalist treats them with extreme suspicion, training his gun on them and checking every corner for hidden associates. When the initial negotiations are met with hostility, Kathryn offers up Mija to the Survivalist for the night. He accepts, and the women end up staying. But, of course, the farm was only built for one, maybe two people, and there are some very dangerous people prowling the wilds.

The first thing to mention about The Survivalist is that it doesn’t look like any other post-apocalyptic film that I can bring to mind – The usual scorched earth vistas are here replaced by wild forests, babbling brooks and long grass. We’re never given the exact nature of the catastrophe that has befallen mankind (past the initial graph), but rather than the main threats being radioactive fallout or atomic mutants, here mankind is struggling against itself for simple resources, and has been for several years at least, judging by the few clues we are given. For this is not a film which signposts and narrates; instead we are left to draw our own conclusions at several points – and it is all the more effective for it, allowing the three leads the space to tell their story physically – surely a gift for any decent actor – and all three are astonishingly good. McCann’s haunted, suspicious nature draws you in and heightens the tension throughout, Fouere totally convinces as a woman willing to do anything to keep her and her daughter safe, and Goth (rather disturbingly looking a lot younger than her 23 years) is fragile yet decisive.

The brutal honesty in the performances is even reflected in on-screen nudity – all three characters have explicit nude scenes. It’s still uncommon to see full-frontal male nudity treated in such a straightforward manner, and as for an older woman, well, that’s almost unknown, and, I have to say, very refreshing to see. McCann even gets to masturbate in close-up onto some seed pots at one point – presumably to give them some minerals (unless he just really likes soil). There are other unflinching scenes here too (although none that I can mention without spoilers) – one in particular bringing sharp intakes of breath from everyone in the screening I attended, and the whole thing is given an extra layer of realism by the way sound is treated in the film – there is no music (except when a character blows a few notes on a harmonica), and the sparse dialogue is augmented by natural sounds of the countryside.

There is analogy and metaphor in the film if you want to look for it, on the dangers of capitalism and isolationism, but at heart The Survivalist is a film about human behaviours at their most animalistic and unfettered – It’s tense, shocking, thought-provoking, and above all honest, and it deserves to be seen.

The Survivalist is out in UK cinemas and on VOD on 12th February, from Bulldog Film Distribution.

By Ben Bussey

I owe Clinger a minor apology. I’d assumed, based on the synopsis and first trailer, that this was a zom-rom-com, when in truth it’s more of a ghost story. Even so, the ghosts involved here are able to take physical form, make physical contact, and even get physically intimate… indeed, a lot of what goes on falls pretty far outside the usual jurisdiction of haunting spirits. But hey, ghosts, zombies – they’re all made up anyway, right? Rather than get hung up on futile subgenre distinctions, we should enjoy Clinger for what it is: a high school romantic comedy with a horror twist, and a perfectly enjoyable one at that. No, it doesn’t necessarily break a lot of new ground, but that’s hardly a prerequisite for an entertaining 80-minute movie; this is a simple, low budget affair without huge aspirations, and I’m happy to report that by and large it delivers just what it sets out to accomplish. (And I’m very relieved, as this is the first new horror DVD release I’ve been able to say that about so far in 2016.)

Still, while it isn’t technically a zom-rom-com, there’s no denying that Clinger is a gender-reversed play on the same essential set-up as Joe Dante’s fun but flawed Burying the Ex. Fern Petersen (Jennifer Laporte) is an ambitious high school senior with eyes on a track scholarship to MIT, when she starts dating guitar-strumming loner Robert Klingher (Vincent Martella – the voice of Phineas on the awesome Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb, the knowledge of which made me imagine such dialogue as “Ferb, I know what we’re gonna do today! Get decapitated!”) It’s the first romance either of them has been involved in, and everything seems great at first, but as the weeks pass – remember, this is high school, any relationship that endures beyond a day or two feels like an eon – Robert’s constant gifts, songs and grandiose displays of affection start to send Fern around the bend.

However, just as she decides to bite the bullet and dump him, Robert’s latest somewhat ill-conceived romantic gesture goes horribly wrong, resulting in him literally losing his head (don’t ask), and leaving Fern understandably traumatised. However, it isn’t long before he shows up again in ghostly form, naturally putting Fern through an emotional wringer: while on the one hand she’s happy for the chance to put things right between them, she also has her own life to get on with, which Robert isn’t so keen on letting her do. And when she tries to turn her back on him, the hauntings start to get a lot less friendly.

I suppose it’s timely that Clinger is getting its home entertainment release now at the start of February, which, as most readers will doubtless be aware, has been marked as Women in Horror Month for the past seven years now (as long as BAH has been online, coincidentally). While it’s directed by a dude (Michael Steves) and two of the writers are also dudes (Steves and Bubba Fish collaborating with Gabi Chennisi), this is very much a movie told from a female perspective, with the female characters at front and centre. As well as Laporte’s Fern – a likeable, but clearly flawed protagonist, often as much to blame for the mishaps that ensue as her phantom boyfriend – we have Julia Aks as Fern’s elder sister Kelsey, a slacker with delusions of entrepreneurship; Shonna Major as Moe, Fern’s dim but well-meaning Christian best friend with an unconscious tendency to speak in graphic sexual innuendos; and Alicia Monet Caldwell as Coach Kingsley, Fern’s overbearing track coach (though she’d easily pass for another of the high school girls) who conveniently also happens to be a semi-retired professional ghost hunter. Yes, that’s a bit of a lame plot device, and indeed there’s a lot about the plot that doesn’t bear close scrutiny. It’s also a shame that, whilst Clinger makes a point of building up interesting and layered female characters, the male characters really fall by the wayside – notably Fern’s himbo-ish would-be replacement boyfriend Harlan (the perhaps unfortunately named Taylor Clift). It seems feasible that they made this character a two-dimensional fantasy figure as a pointed reflection of how women are typically presented in horror movies – it’s also notable that the film’s only gratuitous nudity comes from him. If so, point taken; I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether flipping objectification on its head makes it okay.

So yes, Clinger is without doubt a very female-oriented film – but its status as a horror movie is a bit more open to debate. For the most part this is essentially a high school comedy in the Heathers/Mean Girls mode (we have a whole ensemble of braindead popular girls in the background), and for the most part the horror elements are quite low in the mix. Beyond Robert’s bloody but very cartoonish death scene early on, there doesn’t initially seem to be much going on to put the film above a PG-13 – but then around the midway mark, when things go sour and Robert starts whipping up some supernatural vengeance, the gore quota and the F-bombs go way up. Even so, Clinger remains a very light-hearted affair, the final showdown relying less on blood and guts than Ghostbusters-esque laser beam FX; with pretty reasonable CGI, considering how clearly low-budget a film this is. All things considered, then, this should be a perfectly okay film to show to younger teens, so long as you don’t mind them hearing a bit of swearing and sex talk (come on, it’s not as if the little fuckers haven’t heard it all on the playground).

But lest we dismiss Clinger’s horror credentials offhand, it should also be noted that Fern and Kelsey’s mother is none other than Debbie Rochon, whilst Robert’s mom is Lisa Wilcox. How’s that for horror cred?

Clinger may not be a comedy horror classic in waiting – many of the jokes fall flat, the plot’s patchy, and as mentioned some of the characters are a bit 2D – but all things considered it’s an enjoyable popcorn movie with an old fashioned spirit, and it’s not hard to see it being a great gateway movie for a new generation of fledgling horror fans.

Clinger is available now in the UK on DVD and digital download from Solo Media and Matchbox Films.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

If you missed Nia’s review of the first two episodes of the new X-Files, click here.

If there’s one thing that always made The X-Files stand out, it was its sense of humour. Not just the vein of dry and sardonic humour that ran throughout the series, which worked thanks to both Duchovny and Anderson boasting excellent comedic acting chops, but also the out-right comic episodes. Some of the best of these were written by Darin Morgan, who here returns to the series, and doesn’t disappoint. While Morgan’s brother, Glen (of Final Destination fame, amongst a lot more besides), is known for some of the series’ best frights and tension-builders, Darin Morgan is the man behind the astutely funny and Emmy Award-winning Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, and here returns in full force, twenty years after his final episode, the classic Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.

Back at the FBI after a long period away, Mulder is suffering something of a mid-life crisis. Times have changed, and much of what he once believed has been explained away. When Scully brings in a new case, he’s reticent to approach it with his usual enthusiasm for the unexplained. Soon enough, though, he finds himself face to face with monsters, and one in particular that might give him a re-invigorated sense of wonder for his work.
This episode contains a wealth of satisfying throw-backs to the original series, not only in its tone and structure, but through familiar characters, references to past events and an exceptionally sweet tribute to series stalwart Kim Manners, who passed away in 2009. It also brings Mulder and Scully bang up-to-date, while maintaining all the reasons we love them in the first place. Their dynamic is the same, even if the world they inhabit has vastly changed.

What’s always been best about Morgan’s writing is his ability to be satirical and funny while always being very sympathetic (aptly demonstrated by his acting appearances in the series too, particularly as Eddie Van Blundht). In this episode Morgan’s very sympathetic eye is turned primarily on Mulder, and his double in the episode, Guy Mann, played by Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby. Just like previous Morgan episodes, Guy Mann is a comedic character who ultimately allows for a satirical depiction of human nature, at once critical of what we do and sympathetic towards us. Notably, Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster is a much lighter episode than either Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose or Jose Chung’s From Outer Space, but there is a certain hopelessness to Guy Mann’s human experience that keeps the episode from being total fluff.

In addition to the tone of the episode, there’s a reassuringly lo-fi nature to the special effects here – the Were-Monster’s transformation relying on good old-fashioned make-up and editing trickery. Mulder’s inability to handle a camera phone makes for great comic effect, and Scully’s patient, exasperated, but-secretly-enjoying-herself-routine is still a wonder to behold. While Mulder contemplates the meaning of life, Scully’s taking care of business and wrapping up the case, just as things should be.

All in all, Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster is grade-A X-Files, and even if nothing else of note was to come from this mini-series, that it’s provided us with another Darin Morgan episode means it’s an absolutely worthwhile endeavour.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Arrow Video treat us so well. Hot the heels of many other Bava releases, they now bring us their latest release: Five Dolls for an August Moon. This is giallo in Agatha Christie mode, less black-gloves and forgotten details, more rich people sitting around and getting murdered. Does the title have anything to do with the plot? Beats me. Does the plot make any sense? Not really. Does it matter? Not at all.

A group of wealthy friends and associates gather on an island for a spot of fun and relaxation. There’s something of an ulterior motive: George Stark (Teodoro Corrà), wealthy industrialist and owner of the island, has invited this group in the hopes of investing together in a newly developed industrial resin. Soon enough the business negotiations and wild partying turn sour as, one by one, the islanders are murdered, and suspicions and tensions rise amongst those who remain.

I have a confession to make: though I claim to be a fan of gialli and Italian genre cinema and all that, I’ve never actually seen an Edwige Fenech film. Her role here is a relatively minor one, though, playing the sexpot wife of one of the men waving money around at the potential business deal at the centre of the plot. Two of the other women are secretly having an affair, and another is a teenage girl who just happens to be hanging around the island as well. The men don’t fare much better in terms of nuanced characterisation, but I tend not to judge a giallo on such traditional notions of quality.

While the plot and characters of Five Dolls for an August Moon are a bit, well, forgettable, the film is hugely rewarding for Bava’s direction and Piero Umiliani’s score. And ultimately that’s what makes an enjoyable giallo for me: style and sound – if those two things are the icing on great characters and a tense plot, then all the better, but my primary interest in the genre is a glimpse at a stylish past, and seeing a master aesthetician at work. The architecture and interiors of the large island home which houses the holidaymakers is a sight to behold. From a Danger: Diabolik-esque rotating bed to garish soft furnishings, the world the film inhabits is a sensory overload.

Unusually, there isn’t much violence in the film, though there is a little bit of blood – rather than elaborate murder scenes, corpses are normally discovered after the fact. The really macabre humour that develops as the film goes on comes from the need to move the corpses into the large meat freezer, wrapped unceremoniously in plastic and hung next to the meat. This becomes increasingly entertaining, and it’s a feature of the film I enjoyed immensely, especially accompanied by Umiliani’s broken-piano leitmotif. Death becomes inevitable, and the shock diminishes as the film goes on – Bava’s pacing of the film reflects this in a wonderful way. There’s something quite satisfying watching these rich, bored people wind up in a meat locker, in all honesty, as much as the peek into their opulent world is where a lot of the enjoyment of the film comes from.

As the film’s revelations emerge, certain characters come into their own in a very entertaining way. Indeed, the film’s very ending is curiously funny, and almost makes up for the relatively workaday narrative up to that point. Ultimately, though, Five Dolls for an August Moon is a satisfying treat for the eyes and ears, and being a snappy 87 minutes long, never out-stays its welcome.

Five Dolls For An August Moon is available now in dual format DVD and Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

By Ben Bussey

I’ve been mad at this film ever since I first saw the trailer for it last month. Initially, this was because every time I read the title I got that damn Michael Jackson song stuck in my head. But now that I’ve seen it, I’m mad because it’s yet another example of an independent horror movie that could have been so much more, yet despite flashes of brilliance ultimately fails to deliver its full potential. Director Derek Mungor is to be admired for attempting a new approach to the slasher movie format by shooting You Are Not Alone in a first person perspective – not, we should emphasise, a found footage style – and to a point the film does succeed in bringing a fresh and unusual aesthetic to the table. If only we could say the same of its storytelling, we might have been onto a real winner here.

Plot-wise, it’s all very simple. We see the events that pass over 4th of July weekend through the eyes of Natalie (the permanently unseen Krista Dzialoszynski), a Minneapolis college girl who returns, we suspect somewhat unwillingly, to her sleepy home town for the summer. It’s all pretty humdrum at first – reunions with her brother, their grandma, her friends – but beyond all this there’s something of a shadow hanging over the town, as a serial killer is known to be on the loose nearby, and the local sheriff, also the father of Natalie’s best friend Katie (Nikki Pierce), has ordered an 11pm curfew. Still, the young folk in town aren’t about to let this stop them, and after the fireworks comes a heavily alcohol-fueled house party. But after staggering home in the early hours, Natalie comes to the alarming realisation that a strange man is lurking outside, with the intent of getting in.

The 2012 Maniac remake proved there’s a lot to be said for taking a first person perspective for the duration of a horror movie; and by showing the action exclusively from the killer’s point of view, making the viewer that bit more complicit in the horrific acts that ensue, Franck Khalfoun’s movie made for a genuinely unnerving experience. It’s entirely logical that another horror movie might take a similar approach, but showing us instead the world through the eyes of the would-be victim; the real point of viewer identification, as anyone who’s read Carol Clover can tell you. Indeed, this has arguably been the key aim of the found footage genre (beyond allowing filmmakers to get away with making movies for peanuts, that is): to put us directly into the shoes of the protagonists, and make their fear and anguish our own.

Calling You Are Not Alone a first person POV movie rather than a found footage movie might at first seem little more than a matter of semantics, but it really isn’t. First off, we can do away with the always difficult question of why someone facing certain death wouldn’t just drop the fucking camera and leg it; secondly, we can also stop using it as an excuse for a lousy-looking film. This is the key thing to be said in favour of You Are Not Alone: it really does look great. IMDb lists the film’s budget as an estimated $20,000, just over $8,000 of which came from Kickstarter, and if that’s accurate that is truly impressive, as there are plenty of modern movies in that budget range that look worse than a 1992 wedding video. Director Mungor and cinematographer Ryan Glover have produced something that looks truly filmic, with a warm, clean, organic feel, and the first person approach works beautifully; small, subtle shifts in focus help convey Natalie’s state of mind, and while inevitably the camera is constantly on the move it never lapses into incoherent shakey-cam.

As a technical exercise, then, You Are Not Alone is quite a triumph. It’s also very well acted. Unfortunately, Mungor and co-writer Chris O’Brien’s storytelling leaves quite a lot to be desired. The first red flag came up for me in the opening minutes when, whilst recounting a story of a camping mishap, Natalie’s brother Garrett (David O’Brien) looks directly at his sister – i.e., straight into the camera – and says “and I’m thinking, ‘this is how horror movies start.'” I guess they were aiming for a nice knowing wink to the audience, but it just rings hollow, and not only because such self-aware dialogue has long since been a tired cliche (Scream was twenty years ago people, TWENTY YEARS – and it was tired by the time of Scream 2). No, the real problem is that, beyond that point, very, very little of You Are Not Alone is indicative of how horror movies start. The first 45 minutes of the film simply follow Natalie around, with a number of strangely overlong and unnecessary sequences (a visit to a drug dealer friend’s house, for one) which ultimately have little to no bearing on the ultimate outcome of the film. Yes, we’re told occasionally there’s a killer on the loose and a curfew in place, but never do we get the sense that Natalie is being followed or that she and her friends are under threat. Worst of all, once the maniac does indeed come after her, all those friends – the people we’ve spent so much time getting to know – are nowhere to be seen. All that build-up and character work was seemingly for nothing, and the entire first half of the film winds up feeling like an irrelevant waste.

But does the first person perspective make up for that? Does it make for the uniquely realistic and terrifying experience that the review quotes in the publicity suggest? I wish I could say otherwise, but I really can’t say I found You Are Not Alone especially scary, and certainly not any more realistic than your standard slasher. Too many times our final girl does all those dumb things you know they shouldn’t do; doesn’t call the cops, doesn’t scream for help at the top of her lungs the second she gets outside, doesn’t seize the many opportunities to kill the killer herself, and perhaps most egregiously does little or nothing to protect the others she crosses paths with who wind up in the killer’s sights. The final stalk sequence just drags on until you’re past the point of caring, leading to a finale in which our protagonist winds up having almost no effect on the outcome, leaving you questioning what the point was.

It really does make me sad to have to describe You Are Not Alone in this way, as it’s clearly the work of skilled and creative people who have it in them to do great work. Again, it’s a very refreshing change to see something made on such a low budget that looks as good as any big-budget horror movie – but looks aren’t everything, and they really needed to make sure this movie had a lot more going on under the surface.

You Are Not Alone is out on DVD in the UK on 22nd February, from Sharp Teeth Films.

By Karolina Gruschka

The Orange Man is a wacky, trashy slasher comedy written, directed and produced by independent filmmaker Stephen Folker. Far from what the film title and Blu-ray cover might suggest, the orange man is not a murderous Jack’o Lantern or Killer Tomato kind of creature; what we are dealing with instead is a human character named Peter Walkins (Ben Rollins). Peter does not have really bad cellulite nor a fake tan gone terribly wrong. Although the latter can be absolutely terrifying, our serial killer in question uses oranges as his preferred weapon of choice.

A fruit? That’s just ridiculous! – you might say, however, I warn you not to underestimate the dangerous nature of fruit. I speak from my own traumatic childhood experience; the terrors of when I was attacked by knife wielding and apple throwing teenage delinquents. The impact of fruit on neck and knee caves turned out to be seriously painful and debilitating. Consequently, I genuinely feel for the victims of the orange man.

Peter Walkins’ orange selling business suffers a massive decline in the late 1980s as former clients change suppliers, and efforts to widen the customer base fail miserably. Humiliated by his local community, Peter runs amock butchering ex-clientele with a hook (which he has instead of a hand, standard). Authorities never manage to catch him, and the case becomes a “great unsolved mystery”.

Fast forward 27 years; a local development company is looking to strike a deal on the Walkins family’s 40 acres of land, that would lead to the demolition of 400 orange trees. Project manager Gerald (Dave Juehring), freshly dumped by wife Deborah (Trena Penson) for virile IT ace Roger (Robert Kemp), decides to take the Walkins negotiations in his own hands, as it is an opportunity for a get away. With his loyal college friends Jimmy (Jim Plovanich), Wilbur (Thomas Ely Sage) and Reggie (Glenn Harston) in tow, Gerald combines the business trip with a lads fishing weekend in a lonely cabin in the woods. “What started as a bad week, has the beginnings of a great weekend!” Yet unknown to Gerald, it also has the endings of an orange nightmare, when what appears to be an urban legend turns brutal reality…

The feature is a perfect example of how democratized movie production has become in the digital age, as the project was funded by the online platform Kickstarter. Stephen Folker managed to raise $21,711 by 133 backers in July 2014 after pitching The Orange Man on the website, surpassing his bid for $20k. Fairly new to the filmmaking business (he started making movies in December 2010), Folker admitted to drawing from a book on script writing that addresses how to improve a story and its layout, when working on the idea for The Orange Man. This resulted in a well-structured story with embedded little twists. For one, it is a slasher which, unlike in its classic form, does not kill off a bunch of replaceable young, beautiful and arrogant adolescents, but a group of likeable middle-aged losers with beer bellies and an unfortunate sense of fashion (i.e. sock-sandal combo, shirts that look like out-dated curtains).

Though Jimmy, Reggie, Wilbour and Gerald might be comedic caricature versions of themselves, the viewer does learn a lot about their individual backgrounds and quirks before the murders eventually begin. What is more, contrasting to the anonymous dehumanized killer of the slasher, Peter Walkins has a face. This makes him appear less threatening, and so the orange man almost drifts to the background to make way for a wacky war of roses between team Gerald and team Roger/Deborah. This could again be seen as an act of subversion on the slasher genre that tends to draw the focus on the spectacle of the killings as opposed to the narrative.

Be prepared for life altering truths such as “I’m a Roger, Rogers don’t back down!” and plenty of pissing based jokes, which include one of the best shots in the movie – the penis cam. Some might find it silly, yet I thought it endearing and could relate to the urination bits as I got a pretty weak bladder myself. Nonetheless, it is the fact that Stephen Folker sticks so closely to ‘correct filmmaking procedures’ – even in the execution of genre subversion – that makes The Orange Man feel rather like a project or assignment than a fresh new approach to horror. There is no pushing the boundaries of a creative comfort zone nor an attempt to think outside the box, which results in a movie that is … okay.

Good on him though for following his dreams and being an inspiration to other ‘late’ starters. Like with most things in life, it is a matter of working through established systems first, before one is ready to develop her or his own ‘usp’. If you want to support a fellow filmmaker, go catch The Orange Man when it commences its circulation of film festivals this Spring, and/or on DVD and Blu-ray.

The Orange Man is now available from Legless Corpse Films in a limited edition BluRay (numbered to 100) and standard edition DVD.

By Quin

I first saw Septic Man sometime last year. It was available for a short time on one of the many movie streaming platforms, I don’t remember which one, but I got to watch it just for fun. I remember enjoying it, but I didn’t think much about it afterward. Then when it came up for review, I said to myself, “Hey, I saw that!” Now having watched it a second time, this time more critically, I can say while it’s certainly not forgettable, it does many of the same things that other films have already done better, while gaining a huge cult following in the process. Septic Man, however, will most likely not see much long term success or notoriety, and will probably not be the focus of any cults.

Jack is a septic man working in the town of Collingwood. He has a wife at home who is about to have a baby, so he works hard doing a job no one else wants to do. One day, while up to his knees in dirty poop water, a villainous looking man played by the recognizable Julian Richings approaches him with a proposition to fix the town’s severe water problems. While the entire town is evacuated, Jack will stay behind and go through the sewers to figure out what’s wrong. For his efforts, he’ll make $20,000.00 and when he’s finished, he’ll get an easy desk job and the admiration of the town’s citizens. His wife doesn’t like this plan, but he agrees anyway and she evacuates with everyone else, while Jack descends into the sewer.

The rest of the film is more or less the same plot as The Descent. It’s dark. Jack hears weird noises. He falls into a spot where he gets trapped. He suffers hallucinations and he quickly discovers he is not alone under ground. It also doesn’t take him long to figure out the source of the problem is due to a corpse plugging up one of the major pipelines. Now Jack has to find a way out before he turns into a toxic-waste monster or ends up another corpse.

Septic Man is kind of fun in increments. Unfortunately it has some long scenes of Jack just walking through the sewers, getting dirty; it would have been much more successful as a short film, and should have been edited way down to make it less repetitive. The film does make good use of lighting though; the sewer is dimly lit with greens and yellows to suggest radioactivity, also giving it that EC Comics feel.

Speaking of EC Comics, Septic Man is definitely made possible partly by Swamp Thing. The Eco-message in Septic Man is much less in your face than in Swamp Thing and the overall tone of the film is closer to The Toxic Avenger. But, having said that, Septic Man is technically better, and the acting is for the most part really good. The great Canadian actor Stephen McHattie has a small role as the mayor of Collingwood and it goes without saying that he is always a pleasure to watch.

So, I guess I could just as easily recommend this as I could pan it. You could certainly do worse and there are less enjoyable ways to spend your time. Hey, I did watch this movie twice. So, if Troma’s Toxie leading the group of ladies spelunking in The Descent sounds like something you might have enjoyed, then Septic Man might be the movie for you. If not, then move along. There’s really nothing to see here.

Septic Man is available now on UK DVD from Sharp Teeth Films.

By Ben Bussey

Oh dear, 2016 really isn’t off to the best start for me. Here we are almost one whole month into the year, I’m only my second new release review, and it’s another tedious, uninventive, unendearing, badly executed, been-there done-that, no-budget, would-be neo-retro slasher snoozefest. Well, okay, credit where it’s due, by comparison with the subject of my first 2016 review (Serial Kaller) it’s Citizen bleeding Kane, but that’s faint praise if ever I gave it. Presented as a lost horror movie of the 1980s, Lost After Dark aims to capture the vibe of a bottom shelf video store favourite, and in some respects doesn’t shoot too far of the mark; but then, let’s not forget, the slasher era spawned literally countless movies with a bunch of kids in a single location getting picked off one by one, and while we remember the best of them with joy, a great many more of them have long since been wiped clean from the popular consciousness because – well – they were crap. So even if we were to play along with Lost After Dark’s forgotten-80s-slashers conceit, it would clearly belong on the list of slashers that were forgotten for good reason.

It’s your standard set-up: small bunch of teens in 1984 skip out on the high school dance, hot-wire a school bus, and head out to some remote location to party. Why they would go to such risks and travel such distance when there’s literally only 8 of them, a few of whom don’t even seem to like each other; well, that’s one of those ageless questions slasher movies always put before us, which never seem to be answered. Anyway, they’re in trouble sooner than they realise, as hard-assed Vietnam vet vice principal Robert Patrick (tick box marked ‘celebrity who production can afford for 2/3 days of filming, then plaster his name all over the marketing’) is hot on their tail, with the central good girl’s father in tow. Back on the bus, after about half an hour of incessant and painfully uninteresting conversation, they – gasp! – run out of gas. They’re still miles from their designated party venue, but wouldn’t you know it, there’s a creepy old abandoned-looking farmhouse just within view. They decide to check it out – at which point, we cue the bloodshed. Or a bit of it, anyway. With still way, way too much painfully uninteresting conversation bridging the gaps between the badly-needed kills. And a bit of those pointless Grindhouse affectations of image grain, discolouration and one of those ‘reel missing’ bits thrown in (which, of course, makes no sense in a VHS context) in the hopes of keeping things interesting.

There are those, no doubt, who would do a spectacular spit-take at the mere suggestion of the Friday the 13th movies being prime examples of their craft. But damn it all, I wonder sometimes if the people making psuedo-80s slashers today ever really paid attention. Consider this: the teen ensembles, in almost every instance, were camp counselors there to work at Crystal Lake for the summer; there, a simple and logical reason for bringing together a bunch of mismatched youngsters who might not generally socialise with one another. Other key lesson to be learned: the young actors might not have been that good, the scripts rarely gave them decent dialogue or interesting character arcs, but they always ensured that they got up to things that were NOT BORING. Maybe there’ll be five minutes at a time of dull conversation: then there’s either a kill, or a skinny dip/sex scene. You know – the things the viewer paid to see. Is that really so hard to get right? Throw in as much tedious plot and character stuff as you like, as long as something exciting happens at least once every ten minutes.

Lost After Dark, alas, fails miserably at this. We’re pretty much halfway through before the killing starts, and when it does all the teens are aware of it at the same time, immediately leaping into that panic mode that should really only set in around the last twenty minutes or so. Again, to give some credit where it’s due, the order in which the ensemble meet their demise is unexpected, and this leads to character developments we didn’t necessarily see coming: but this again punctures that ‘lost 80s movie’ vibe, as the film winds up feeling more like it belongs to that post-Scream wave of painfully self-aware slasher movies (most of which are even more forgettable than the 80s ones). The kills themselves aren’t bad exactly, but they’re pretty forgettable; the only one that really lingers in my memory is a pointed homage to Zombie Flesh Eaters, sullied by weak CGI. Equally forgettable is the killer himself, yet another hulking bearded yokel sputtering across the screen haphazardly like a Rob Zombie brainfart. And as regards sex and nudity – forget about it. I don’t know why it is that modern low-budget slashers insist on being so damned chaste, but a few brief glimpses of underwear is all we get here. Are today’s young directors too shy and polite, or are today’s young actors too modest? Are all and sundry too anxious about political correctness? Come on, indie horror filmmakers, don’t delude yourselves: if you make a slasher, you have to understand that people watch these movies to be titillated. Say what you want about the actors in 80s slashers, but they at least understood that showing some skin was part and parcel.

I’m beginning to understand why 2015’s The Final Girls – a film I wasn’t that impressed with, but many other horror fans seemed to love – attracted so much adulation: it may have misguidedly watered things down for a PG-13, but it was at least largely true to the spirit of the first wave slasher era, and brought to life considerably better than most such films we see today. Lost After Dark may be made with the best intentions, but ultimately it just doesn’t achieve what it sets out to. Miss it, and you will not miss out.

Lost After Dark is released to UK DVD on 29th February, from Metrodome.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

The X-Files has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Everyone has that handful of films or TV shows that just mean something above others, and The X-Files is one of mine. I’ve already had two ‘waves’ of my Philedom, but it’s not something that’s every really gone away. Even when not actively obsessing about the show, ask me my favourite TV show, and it’s The X-Files. I doubt that will ever change. Were the last two seasons sub-par? Sure they were. Was 2008’s second big screen outing a bit of a mess? Yeah, maybe, but actually I really liked it. I took that film as a love-letter, and as a farewell.

So, when news came that The X-Files was being revived, it was part-elation and part-trepidation for me. Was this being done just to cash in on, well, just about everything being revived or remade at the moment? It certainly hasn’t been rushed – 2008 was, would you believe it, quite a while ago now, and indeed 2002, when the TV series ended, even longer ago. I was still at school then! I purposely steered clear of keeping too up-to-date with this mini-series’ development – I didn’t need any publicity machine to hype me up, and I definitely didn’t want to get too invested in what, really, could be terrible.

That being said, you bet I’ve been excited about this. You bet I’ve been counting down the days. And you know what? I’m not at all disappointed.

The opening episode, ‘My Struggle’, seems to have received quite a mixed critical response, but for me, it was quintessentially X-Files, and as an opener it was perfect. Yes, it was a lot of exposition, but this is an episode designed to ease us in, to reintroduce us to characters we love, who we’ve not seen for a while. It jumps right back into the conspiracy that’s been around since the start, and while some of the efforts to bring things up-to-date might be heavy-handed, it otherwise, and most importantly, shows us a present-day Mulder and Scully. Personally, I’ve always been more invested in them both as characters than necessarily in the plot – but luckily the plot’s always been pretty damn good too.

Mulder and Scully have separate lives now. Scully is a surgeon’s assistant and Mulder is…well, doing his Mulder thing of chasing things in the sky. They’re contacted by Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale), who brings them back into the deep end of conspiracies, aliens, men in black, abductions and exasperation. Mulder and Scully are both very tired, but it’s wonderfully evident that they both, for quite different reasons, feel duty-bound to be involved in all that’s going on.

The pissing contest between Mulder and O’Malley early in the episode is very amusing, and it fast reminds us why we love Mulder – O’Malley’s what he could have been, a smug, right-wing raving capitalist. It also establishes Scully as the level-headed one, though not without her own flaws. Scully has been a heroine of mine for a very long time. She’s back with some verve here, despite her world-weariness. Her quiet stoicism is still a sight to behold, even if her view-point can frustrate us. There’s a wonderful anger bubbling under the surface with Scully, and my favourite scene in the whole episode is when a would-be mind-reader, Sveta, tells her she doesn’t know what it’s like to be abducted by aliens. It echoes a wonderful scene in I Want to Believe, where a woman tells Scully she doesn’t know what it’s like to be a mother – a comment that leaves her rightly crest-fallen, due to having given up her son for adoption. Here, though, she locks a withering stare onto the other woman, and leans her face just ever so slightly closer. ‘Well…maybe you do,’ is all the response Sveta can muster. That’s my Scully.

If there’s something that doesn’t work for me in the episode it’s some of the interaction between Scully and O’Malley, but I’m rather hoping that’s due to some lazy snipping out of other scenes for time. Another joy of the episode is seeing a couple of other recurring characters, and the close of the episode was so very, very right – a great scene which sees the transformation of abduction imagery into that of assassination, and a very final sequence which made me scream out loud. Everything about the episode was right, even down to its flaws, and I felt right at home with it. No new ground was broken, but for me, that’s exactly how the series needed to start.

‘Founder’s Mutation’, the second episode, takes an entirely different approach, but is no less X-Filesian. Taking the format of the show’s regular Monster-of-the-Week episodes, we’re introduced, via a classic pre-title sequence, to a scientist, the company he works for, and his bizarre death. Mulder and Scully are soon on the case, investigating potential genetic experimentation on children born with defects.

I say it starts with a classic pre-title sequence, but actually it starts with a horrible catch-up voice-over from Mulder, to helpfully fill in the plot details of anyone unfamiliar with the series, or who didn’t bother watching seasons 8 or 9. The first episode had a much more successful version of this, but I suppose when we can’t expect people to pay full attention or know how to read between the lines it was a necessary evil. The main purpose of said voice-over is to remind us that Mulder and Scully had a son together, William, who was given up for adoption in what might be one of the most misguided and hard to forgive things that ever happened in The X-Files. William is given up for adoption, in strictest secrecy, for his own good, because he might be, y’know, part-alien or something like that.

The parallels between the narrative of this episode and Mulder and Scully’s personal history is rather heavy-handed and on the nose here, but, it’s nice to see it being addressed head-on. It was largely ignored in I Want to Believe, and so I can’t help but feel that maybe now they’re apart, but back in the business of things, Mulder and Scully are seeking to finally address the elephant in the room. I hope the issue resurfaces, however, as some resolution to the William narrative is desperately needed. I do hope that any resolution is slightly less ham-fisted, though. That being said, as someone deeply invested in Mulder and Scully as characters, the dream-like sequences which show both Scully and Mulder imagine a life with William, a life where their worst fears about him are realised, are painful to watch. These imagined scenes are much stronger than some of the dialogue between them, although there are some nice moments there too.

As for the actual case being investigated, while it starts off interesting, and has some really great body-horror moments, it’s got an incredibly weak ending, which is a little bit disappointing. This episode felt like part one of a two-parter, so I’m genuinely curious to see if this MOTW episode is really as stand-alone as it appears to be. Despite some disappointment, there’s enough classic X-Files here to keep me happy – Scully’s sarcasm! Skinner enabling the pair’s rule-breaking! The office! Scully not having a desk! Ah, yes. Yes, more please!

It’s curious to read the critical responses to these episodes, which generally seem to prefer the second episode over the first, while I feel quite the opposite. However, I’m very satisfied with this start to the series. Given the critical acclaim episode three is already receiving, I’m awaiting next week with some anticipation. Yes, next week. It’s been quite some time since I’ve watched a TV series like this, and that doesn’t half contribute to the nostalgia factor here. It’s a joy and a pleasure to see Mulder and Scully back where they belong – together, waving flashlights around, speech-making and eye-rolling.

By Tristan Bishop

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s retitle time again! This one originally went by the name Another – in fact it played at Frightfest 2014 until that very title – but now it has resurfaced under the far more exploitable title of Mark Of The Witch (not to be confused with the 1970 witchcraft cheapie of the same name). Frankly it’s pretty good timing too, with Robert Eggers’ impressive The Witch due for release this year. But, under any title, is Mark Of The Witch about to put you under its spell? (Sorry.)

In an effectively eerie opening, we see a group of group of black-robed Satanists performing some kind of ritual with a baby in a cave. Flash forward 18 years and we’re introduced to Jordyn (Paulie Rojas), who is celebrating her 18th birthday with a few friends and her rather intense Aunt Ruth. Rather than the traditional cake and Twister (or whatever it is that young people get up to these days), Ruth decides to tell Jordyn she’s the spitting image of her dead mother at her age, which is the age that she died. Ruth tops this off by attempting to disembowel herself at the dinner table. Happy birthday! Of course, this isn’t the end of things, and soon Jordyn begins to be plagued by horrifying visions and mysterious occurrences. Could her mother have been a witch? And is Jordyn herself cursed to follow in her mother’s footsteps?

If that synopsis seems a little vague, there’s a good reason for this – chiefly that Mark Of The Witch is a very difficult film to follow. Not because it has a labyrinthine plot, or contains complex and challenging ideas, it’s just that the way it has been filmed is just so damned… distracting. Every shot is filtered to within an inch of its life to achieve a ‘retro’ effect (which ends up looking less retro and more a cheap modern film which has been filtered to within an inch of its life to achieve… well, you get the idea). Slow motion is splurged all over the shop for no discernible reason other than to stretch a slim plot out to 80 minutes, and the whole thing comes off more as demonstration of the director’s technical tricks than as an actual film worth viewing.

Advance publicity and the very small number of online reviews all seem to refer to this film as a ‘neo-giallo’ and as ‘Argento-influenced’ but I think that’s pretty wide of the mark, unless they’re referring to late-period Dario’s lack of skill with scripts and actors. Actually, that’s somewhat unfair of me – Mother Of Tears, Argento’s own 2007 witch story, is way more entertaining than this mess, by dint of including a huge dollop of gore amongst the silliness. We could have done with a bit more of that here – there IS some blood, but amongst the filters and hyperactive editing (and, oh, did I mention the cringe-inducing CGI?), it’s nearly impossible to work out where it came from. There’s a pretty disturbing scene early on where Jordyn wakes up having slept with a filthy old janitor at her work (but having no memory of the act), but in the context of the rest of the film it just comes off as a bit distasteful – although that’s not usually something that puts us horror fans off, to be fair.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for a little style-over-substance, but, without wanting to get all Marshall-McLuhan-media-theorist about it, the style needs to say something; witness the films of Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani (Amer & Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears), which take the visual tropes of the giallo and stretch them into near abstract forms as an exploration of sex, death and consciousness. Mark Of The Witch, however, just ends up coming across as artless, boring and a complete waste of time.

Mark of the Witch is out on UK DVD on 15th February, from Metrodome.