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Review by Ben Bussey

When we think of the Hammer Horror brand in the early 1970s, typically we think of sleaze. The once-mighty British institution was falling on hard times, struggling to keep up with a rapidly evolving industry – to say nothing of an evolving horror genre – and so they sought to retain audience interest by upping the sex appeal quota, hence the likes of the Karnstein trilogy, Countess Dracula, and Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde are primarily remembered for their emphasis on T&A. What is sometimes overlooked, however, was that in these uncertain times Hammer did take some genuine risks in terms of tone and content, trying their hand at some edgier material which broke away somewhat from the old formula they’d largely stuck with since the late 50s. This is certainly the case in Hands of the Ripper, one of the darkest, most unconventional films made by Hammer in their twilight years – and arguably the one of the few which really pointed ahead to the new areas horror cinema would explore in the decade to come.

While Hands of the Ripper was at one time released across the US as a double bill with Twins of Evil, in many respects it’s a more suitable bedfellow to Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, given both films take place in late 1890s/early 1900s London in the fog – and, of course, both films touch on Jack the Ripper, this one in particular. The action centres around Anna (Angharad Rees), a troubled orphan girl who – though the rest of the cast don’t know it until late in the day – is the daughter of the Ripper himself. Taken in by a bogus spiritualist who employs her to provide fake spirit voices during séances, things take a dramatic turn following an evening’s sitting attended by Dr John Pritchard (Eric Porter) and a member of parliament named Dysart (Derek Godfrey). Once the other guests have left, Dysart remains behind to hire young Anna’s services from the lady of the house for more old-fashioned purposes – a duty which it is suggested Anna may have been forced to perform more than once – yet when the light of a jewel reflects across her eyes, something rather dramatic occurs, and moments later Dysart attempts to flees the scene, but is caught in the act by Pritchard. Re-entering the house, Pritchard finds Anna cowering in a corner and her mistress impaled on a poker – but surely a mere slip of a girl couldn’t be responsible for such a manly act of violence…? Proclaiming to be a fan of this new-fangled psychoanalysis lark, Pritchard takes Anna into his own home in the hopes of studying her and finding out just what drove her to kill; but in the meantime, no one in the vicinity with a shiny object on their person is safe from harm…

As may be evident from this synopsis alone, it’s not hard to see why Hands of the Ripper is sometimes thought of as a prototype slasher movie. While any sense of mystery surrounding the killer’s identity goes out the window very quickly, the overall rhythm of proceedings – a gruesome kill coming at regular intervals, built up in what becomes a fairly predictable fashion – would certainly seem to predict the formula which would be followed by a shedload of stab-happy movies by the end of the decade. Indeed, given Hands of the Ripper came after Powell’s notorious Peeping Tom, and a year before The Fiend AKA Beware My Brethren (a largely overlooked British horror that’s well worth seeking out – see my review), there are ample grounds on which to argue that the slasher genre really began in Britain. Yes, Hollywood gave us Psycho, but let’s not forget the nationality of the chap who directed it; and yes, Italy’s Mario Bava gave us A Bay of Blood/Bloodbath/Twitch of the Death Nerve/insert other alternate title here, but we might note that too arrived in 1971, so we can hardly accuse Hammer of jumping on the bandwagon here.

Another factor which makes Hands of the Ripper stand apart from early 70s Hammer is its sheer grimness. The overtones of camp which tend to make the company’s output such a pleasure is all but gone here; while the well-dressed, well-furnished public face of respectable London is present and correct, we dig a bit deeper into the seedy underbelly. Happily, none of this is handled as salaciously as it might have been. While it’s clearly implied that Pritchard’s interest in Anna might not be purely professional, Angharad Rees is not treated as mere eye candy like so many Hammer actresses before and after; both Rees and Eric Porter give far more grounded, serious performances than we might anticipate. Indeed, the overall take on the material is far more grounded than might be expected; while some suggest Anna is possessed where Pritchard insists she is traumatised, the film largely eschews a supernatural explanation, seeming for the most part to side with the psychoanalytical argument. The murder scenes themselves, meanwhile, are fairly typical of Hammer for the level of gore; nothing particularly accurate to the MO of Jack the Ripper so far as I can tell, but I rather doubt anyone was anticipating that.

Coming to this film after Taste the Blood of Dracula and Countess Dracula, this would be director Peter Sasdy’s last work with Hammer, leaving him with a fairly respectable track record. Hands of the Ripper is probably his least well-remembered Hammer film, but it’s certainly his most unique, and while it might not quite warrant lost classic status, it’s well worth seeing.

Hands of the Ripper is available now on Blu-Ray from Network.

Review by Ben Bussey

I get the sneaky suspicion I may have just seen my favourite film of the year. So many of the things I have long mourned the lack of in contemporary horror are present and correct in The Demon’s Rook: awesome practical monster make-up and gore FX, eerie artificial lighting, billowing dry ice. Vintage supernatural horror seems to have been somewhat neglected in recent years, and I for one have long been hankering for something new which evokes the spirit of Universal, Hammer et al. This is absolutely the case in this mightily impressive debut from director James Sizemore (also lead actor, writer, producer, musician, sound designer and FX director – impressed yet?)

Of course, there have been no shortage of movies of late which aspired to produce something in a similar vein to the genre cinema of decades gone by, wearing their influences on their sleeves – the vast majority of which singularly failed to become more than the sum of their parts. Happily, this isn’t how The Demon’s Rook turned out at all; whilst there can be little doubt that Sizemore and company are enamoured with the horror movies of yesteryear, the film they have created is by no means a pale retread of countless predecessors. The team at Black Rider Productions have created a rich, fascinating mythology which feels fresh and unique to this movie – and in so doing they’ve given birth to a delightfully strange new world which I have no doubt horror fans everywhere will be eager to visit.

Our story begins with a cute kid named Roscoe. Aside from having a badass name and a significantly cooler hairdo than I had at his age, this little country boy has a most unusual friend; a horned, white-skinned demon named Dimwos (John Chatham, in a remarkable make-up job that’s somewhere between Tim Curry’s Darkness and Frank Langella’s Skeletor), who visits him in his bedroom at night. Naturally, the boy’s parents take this curious creature to be nothing more than the product of a healthy young imagination – but they couldn’t be more wrong, as perhaps they come to realise on the night they get sizzled to ashes in their own bed, and Dimwos lures their child away to the underworld. Many years later, Roscoe re-emerges as a thin, long-haired, mighty-bearded adult (Sizemore), and heads out to find the only family he has left – his childhood pal Eva (portrayed, touchingly, by the director’s real-life wife Ashleigh Jo Sizemore). But where in the hell has Roscoe been all this time – and what might have come out after him…?

If you’ve seen the stills, posters and/or trailer for The Demon’s Rook, you’ll know the film has one very notable weapon in its arsenal: the creature make-up. If ever there was a dying art in film these days, it has to be good old-fashioned practical monster effects, and while there can be no doubt that high-end contemporary CGI and performance capture can produce jaw-dropping results (look no further than the recent Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), surely fans can be forgiven for craving the more tactile feel of practical creations – on top which, CGI/performance capture may well be out of reach to lower-budget filmmakers. Now, The Demon’s Rook IMDb page lists its budget as an estimated $75,000 – and if so, god knows the money went to the right place. The hordes of howling hellspawn that rampage across the screen range from the impressive to the downright spectacular, and for the most part this is also true of the gore. Pickier viewers may bemoan the comparatively cheap look of the digital photography – I can’t deny I would have loved to have seen this shot on film – but, particularly given how commonplace it is for low-budget horror to be shot this way nowadays, that’s just something we’ll have to live with.

Indeed, once we get past the DV cinematography, there is a remarkable aesthetic to The Demon’s Rook which really lifts it above so much modern low-budget horror. Refreshingly, Sizemore and co-writer Akom Tidwell don’t bog proceedings down with too much dialogue or exposition, preferring to let the story unfold primarily via the visuals. Equally essential to this is the terrific soundtrack, which proves a perfect fit to the overall mood of the film: doomy without being downbeat, heightened without veering into camp. All this combined with the great sound design and the aforementioned judicious application of dry ice and brightly coloured lights means The Demon’s Rook ends up quite the sensory smorgasbord for the discerning horror aficionado.

Naturally, there may well be some minor complaints to be made, although I for one would say they’re very minor indeed. At upwards of 100 minutes, The Demon’s Rook may be just a smidgen overlong for a low-budget creature feature, and it may get slightly repetitive with its abundance of secondary characters who are introduced intermittently only to be slaughtered moments later. The film’s brief venture into sexploitation territory may also have been a little misjudged; sure, gratuitous female nudity is hardly unexpected in a film of this nature, but the circumstances under which it occurs here may prove a turn-off to more politically sensitive viewers. That said, were anyone to deem it ‘offensive,’ I’d have to ponder what they were doing watching a movie in which fiends from hell roam the land slashing throats, tearing off faces and ripping out intestines left right and centre.

If I have any other quibbles it would be the slightly underwhelming conclusion, and that (unless I missed something) the meaning of the title is never made particularly clear; seems to suggest a piece of relative value in some kind of diabolical chess game…? But, once again, these are minor quibbles indeed. Overall, The Demon’s Rook is an inspiration, demonstrating the kind of heights that first-time indie filmmakers can hit, singling out James Sizemore as a director to watch in the future, and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s life yet in traditional spook-a-blast horror movies.

Tribeca Films release The Demon’s Rook to VOD and iTunes on September 30th.

Review by Karolina Gruschka

Edgar Allan Poe – a “brilliant and disturbed man” (R. Corman)

The first time Roger Corman read E.A. Poe was aged thirteen for a school assignment. He was so fascinated by The Fall of the House of Usher that, the following Christmas, he wished for the complete works of Poe. About twenty years later and several B-movies down the line, Corman adapted this story for the movie production House of Usher (1960). After his “passion project” proved to be a great success, it made sense to follow it up with another Poe adaptation (and later a few more to make it a whole cycle). At first, Corman was considering Masque of the Red Death, but Ingmar Bergman had just released The Seventh Seal (1957), which had a similar subject matter. In the end, he decided on a short story set around the Spanish Inquisition – The Pit and the Pendulum.

In the original tale the protagonist gives an account of his inner terror whilst tied down to a board underneath the pendulum, an instrument of torture. This device consists of a massive metal pendulum with a sharp scythe-like blade affixed to its end. As it swings above the victim’s abdominal area, the pendulum is gradually lowered. It is claimed to have been used as an implement to extract confession by means of psychological torture; the intense combination of anticipation and fear would lead the prisoner into madness.

What a Twist!

It might have been interesting to work with this scene by means of cinematic exploration, but Corman would not be Corman if he did not marry an alternative and experimental element with commerce. A whole narrative was constructed around this short story, leading up to the climax in the torture chamber. While Poe’s story is set during the Spanish Inquisition, Richard Matheson’s script seems to take place slightly after. The location is a castle where an infamous inquisitor, Sebastian Medina, used to practice his cruel deeds. It is now inhabited by his sensitive son Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price),who only recently lost his beautiful wife Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) due to mysterious circumstances. With his sister Catherine (Luana Anders) there to support him in his times of grief and the help of the family doctor Charles Leon (Antony Carbone), Nicholas tries to take each day in his stride.

The Pit and the Pendulum starts with the arrival of Elizabeth’s brother Francis Barnard (John Kerr). He has journeyed all the way from England to receive a concrete explanation for his sister’s untimely death. Yet the castle is shrouded in an enigmatic atmosphere; therefore, instead of finding answers, he encounters lies, secrets and more mysteries. First, Nicholas tells him that Elizabeth died of an illness (“something in her blood”); next Dr Leon explains that she suffered from heart failure after having been frightened to death (the castle’s “odious atmosphere”); then the suspicion is being circulated that she might have been buried prematurely. To add more puzzlement to the charade, Elizabeth seems to have risen from the dead to haunt her loved ones. It starts with harmless spirit activities, such as the playing of Elizabeth’s harpsichord at night, culminating in poltergeist tendencies, like the vandalisation of her locked bed-chamber. However, Francis’ discovery of a secret passageway between Elizabeth’s and her husband’s room reins in otherworldly explanations and incriminates Nicholas Medina. On top of that, Nicholas comes up with the unbelievable explanation that he might have been pretending to be his late wife, without being conscious of it, in order to punish himself (?!).

Now, hold your horses! What about charming Dr. Leon? It turns out that Elizabeth was indeed buried alive. I am aware that back in the days doctors did not have all the apparatus and medical knowledge to their availability that we have now, but Dr. Leon did approve the burial of somebody he pronounced “quite dead”. It surprised me that nobody displays anger or suspicion towards the fairly calm and remorse-free doctor; instead, Dr Leon comforts a guilt ridden Nicholas.

Each discovery in the plot, proves to be yet another lie; Matheson’s script is so full of twists that I feel like the whole storyline almost loses its plausibility. In a way, this is pretty clever: I started mirroring Francis’ emotions of suspicion and dissatisfaction, not knowing who and what to believe anymore. The final revelation (only exposed to Nicholas and the viewer) is pretty shocking, but suddenly the whole travesty finally makes sense. The tragic ending is absolutely brilliant and a memorable image.

Not so safe and sound

The Pit and the Pendulum was entirely filmed on a sound stage. Despite made to look like a huge castle (big set, wide angles), the ‘stone walls’ and the artificial light give the movie a suffocating and claustrophobic feel. It seems like there is no world beyond the castle and the characters are trapped in this dark alternate dimension (i.e. the night before Nicholas plans to escape with Elizabeth, she dies). The dream sequences, too, add a further uncanny element to the overall heavy atmosphere.

Nia E.-B. mentions in her review of The Masque of Red Death (another of the Corman-does-Poe cycle) that Corman and Price collaborations are sensuous films. The Pit and the Pendulum, too, is wrapped in opulent colours and there is a lot of play with sound. Offscreen sounds and noises (whispers, music) are employed to either indicate a presence of something yet unseen or to create foreboding for future occurrences. The pendulum, for instance, not visible until the end, is already introduced in the beginning of the film, in the shape of a strange noise.

Although some might have criticised Vincent Price’s performance in The Pit and the Pendulum as over the top, I think it is a brilliant effort to depict pure madness. It works perfectly with the eccentric tone of the film.

The Pit and Pendulum was released in the UK by Arrow Films on Blu-ray 19th May 2014. The special features include a commentary with Roger Corman, a commentary with film critic Tim Lucas, ‘The Story behind the Swinging Blade’ (making of), an added Television sequence from 1968 (to fit the longer TV slot) and the original theatrical trailer. The disc also features ‘An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe’ (1970) which is Vincent Price reciting four E.A. Poe stories (The Tell-Tale Heart, The Sphinx, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Pit and the Pendulum) – this is already worth the purchase.

The Pit and the Pendulum is available now on Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.

Review by Karolina Grushcka

Technically not a horror film, The Rover is definitely a movie for alternative audiences. I base this on the director’s experimental approach, the bleak tone of the film and the depictions of graphic violence.

The Rover is an Aussie production, written and directed by David Michod. The story is set in the Australian outback ten years after a massive economic collapse. Eric, a hardened but seemingly depressed guy (Guy Pearce) has his car stolen by three men who are on the run. With nothing left to lose he is determined to get it back. On his mission, Eric cold-bloodedly kills whoever hinders his manhunt. Along the way, he picks up a wounded Rey (Robert Pattinson) who turns out to be the brother of Henry (Scoot McNairy), one of the thieves along with two other men (Tawanda Manyimo, David Field), who must have abandoned Rey during a robbery of some sort. At first, Eric uses Rey as means to get his car back, but gradually they develop a form of companionship.

The Rover is a very slow paced film with a tense atmosphere, despite, or maybe because of the lack of action. There is a certain beauty about this emptiness; also in regards to the dusty wasteland. I loved the bleakness in the movie; nobody seems to care whether they live or die. People simply exist or vegetate, they do not live. Even the law enforcers (the military) are indifferent; they just do what they do, only so that they have something to do.

The movie was quite a difficult viewing; it felt like I was waiting for Godot. I must admit that in an attempt to sweeten this experience, my friends and I started counting ‘Edward-faces’. I am sorry but I do not enjoy Robert Pattinson’s acting style; at the start of the film he seems to display a new repertoire of facial expressions, but very soon retreats to Twilight mannerisms (what I call the ‘constipated look’). Furthermore, his Australian accent is not the best of efforts. The character he plays is a lovely boy with special needs; you know he has a big disadvantage in this dog eat dog world. Pattinson at least succeeded to some extent at conveying Rey’s vulnerability – I did feel for him.

Guy Pearce portrays Eric as this intense character, but there was something missing from his performance; it is Guy Pearce – come on! I was expecting more from him. I think that is how I felt about the whole film: it had some potential but was not quite there, especially as the script was not well constructed. Lots of things did not make sense, such as why Eric would not take the guns of people he just shot. It almost felt like The Rover was not scripted at all but badly improvised; possibly trying too hard to create something different and arty? There were also quite a few moments that made me laugh (dialogue which I do not think it was meant to be funny) and bits that came across as ridiculous (a randomly placed pop song that Rey sings along to). Go and see for yourself (or not), but I highly doubt The Rover will become a cult classic.

You might still be able to catch it in selected cinemas; alternatively, the release date for the DVD will be possibly towards the end of the year (not confirmed yet).

Review by Quin

The amount of creative inspiration that can be drawn from urban legend seems never-ending. So many of our favorite horror films have a clear basis in urban legend, but when they are bad they really fall flat. The most obvious of the bad stuff is the straight-forward no-creativity-necessary entitled the Urban Legend franchise. But seriously, when you call your movie exactly what it is, red flags should go up all over the place for horror fans. If so much of our favorite (and not so favorite) fiction comes from urban legend, where do the legends themselves come from? After all, they are just legends, aren’t they? The new documentary from Joshua Zeman attempts to get to the bottom of this – presenting us with four well-known urban legends, aiming to figure out where these legends began and just how true they are.

Joshua Zeman previously made the excellent documentary Cropsey, which was about the Staten Island boogeyman legend of the 1970’s and 80’s which may have actually been a convicted kidnapper named Andre Rand; if it wasn’t, he did go to prison for it. Zeman’s latest, Killer Legends, is really an extension of Cropsey. The two films, while not connected per se, should definitely be viewed together. There is a difference in format and approach, but the subject matter in each of them is perfectly aligned. Both films start with an urban legend and connect it to bad things happening to real people. As a result, we have more of those cautionary tales heard from parents around the world – the ones that always go something like this… “You better not [insert bad deed here] or else [insert evil monster here] will get you!”

I think almost every town around the world has some urban legend in its history. I think we’ve all met people who have chimed into a conversation about such topics with, “Oh, that happened to someone a friend of mine knew.” It’s never, ever a first hand witness. We meet so many of these people in Killer Legends, and miraculously, they all want to be interviewed. Joshua Zeman travels to four different towns in America, looking for these people and he finds them. He brings with him a researcher named Rachel Mills, whose IMDb credits include production in reality television. Unlike the Cropsey documentary, Zeman puts himself and Mills right in the middle of Killer Legends. We don’t just hear voice-overs, we see them knocking on doors with looks on their faces that seem to convey the feeling that they are making this up as they go along. This is actually pretty interesting; so many documentaries have an agenda, but if it’s authentic, it will find its thesis somewhere along the way and hopefully it will jump out and surprise the filmmaker as well as the viewer. With this approach, you run the risk of things going horribly wrong. They’re just traipsing through neighborhoods, and occasionally telling people for the first time, “Hey did you know this really horrible and tragic thing happened in your house?” Yikes! This takes a tremendous amount of guts, but Texas, Missouri and Illinois seem surprisingly friendly to these two and their camera crew.

I realize it’s taken me a while to get to the actual urban legends discussed in the film, and I don’t really want to say too much about them, but they are all big ones that you’ve heard of – the man with the hook, poisoned halloween candy, the babysitter, and killer clowns. Two were turned into movies. The hook man first became the 1976 film The Town that Dreaded Sundown. It’s a pretty intense film about a killer on the loose in a small town. It actually pre-dates Halloween by two years and the killer sports a similar look to Jason Voorhees in the original Friday the 13th, before he picked up the hockey mask. So, as you can see, the tentacles of this legend have reached far into the slasher film genre. A remake of The Town that Dreaded Sundown is actually scheduled for release this year. The babysitter legend was turned into a short film called The Sitter by director Fred Walton. In 1979, he expanded it into the feature film When a Stranger Calls. That film eventually spawned a made-for-cable sequel in the early 90’s called When A Stranger Calls Back as well as a remake in 2006. There would be no Scream 1 through 4 without this legend.

The killer clown segment is the weakest and least interesting of the bunch. Zemen tries to connect it to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, but all they really have in common are Chicago and clown makeup. It’s probably a coincidence. But this brings home the point that urban legends are just warnings that are based in reality and the truth is so terrifying that we need to invent legends. The legend of the poisoned Halloween candy is the most chilling. I think it’s the one that almost everyone relates to on a personal level. I remember having my candy checked for pin holes and signs of tampering. My neighborhood was mostly people that my family knew, but there was still a slight bit of paranoia brought on by the media at the time. But what Zeman and Mills uncover in Pasadena, Texas is astonishing. It’s amazing that they haven’t cancelled Halloween forever there.

Overall what we have here is a very thoughtful and interesting documentary. It will entertain you, creep you out and you will probably learn some history along the way. But the most fascinating thing of all to me, is how all of these legends spread without the use of the internet. In the past, something tragic would happen and through word of mouth and through the media, these stories would grow. I almost think that with the internet and the current state of our collective short attention spans, there is less chance of our society being able to create new cautionary tales for our children. Maybe because the tragedy is no longer experienced by a friend of a friend of a friend. We all see it first hand on the news every single day. The truth is more terrifying than legends.

Killer Legends was originally shown on The Chiller Network. It’s now available for download through iTunes from Gulp Pictures and Storyville Entertainment in association with Gigantic Pictures. It’s also available on Region 1 DVD through Breaking Glass Pictures.

Review by Ben Bussey

If Shion Sono remade a Michael Mann movie, I would expect the result to be pretty close to Killers. Writer-director duo Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel (AKA the Mo Brothers) have crafted a tale of an unlikely brotherhood between two drastically different individuals who somehow find themselves arch rivals as they bond online over a common interest – murder. The result is an intriguing, stylish, well-performed, technically impressive film that seems sure to attract a wide audience – yet somehow it left me a little cold and underwhelmed once the dust had settled.

Nomura (Kazuki Kitamura) is pretty much Tokyo’s equivalent of Patrick Bateman: a handsome, wealthy, immaculately groomed bachelor, whose flawless visage masks a homicidal maniac of gargantuan proportions. At a glance, he would appear to have nothing in common with Bayu (Oka Antara), an unkempt, divorced, struggling journalist scraping by in Jakarta. Yet despite being perfect strangers to one another, seperated by thousands of miles (not to mention class), their bloodlust brings them together. For some time, Nomura has been video-recording his murders and releasing them online; after seeing these, and chatting online with the unknown killer, Bayu is inspired to follow suit. However, whilst Nomura is meticulous, calculating, and not too choosy about his victims, Bayu is emotional, impulsive, and determined to kill only those who deserve it – his ultimate target being the corrupt politician who destroyed his career, Dharma (Ray Sahetapy). It’s pretty clear straight away that it isn’t going to end well for anyone.

With the casting of The Raid’s Ray Sahetapy and The Raid 2’s Oka Antara and Kazuki Kitamura, not to mention the presence of Gareth Evans as executive producer (one among a great many producers here), it’s little surprise that Killers is being sold heavily on its connection to The Raid movies. However, the Mo Brothers have quite the legacy of their own to live up to following from their earlier collaboration Macabre, plus Timo Tjahjanto’s admirable work on one of the most impressively nasty episodes in The ABCs of Death (L is for Libido), and what was widely regarded the best chapter in V/H/S 2 (Safe Haven, which also starred Oka Antara). All this being the case, it’s easy to see Killers attracting widespread interest in the west, not only from horror fans and Asian extreme afficionados, but a more mainstream audience as well – though the latter group may hold out for a US remake, which I fully expect to materialise at some point in the not-too far future. And why not? Any western star would surely jump at the chance to tackle this kind of material, given it balances good old fashioned shock horror and action with character-based drama. While there is no shortage of gruesome murder and punch-ups, Killers goes to lengths to place equal emphasis on the emotional and psychological state of our two leads, following them through their everyday lives – Bayu’s strained relationships with his ex-wife and daughter, Nomura’s blossoming friendship with a florist and her autistic kid brother.

Why, then, did Killers not quite work for me? I’m struggling to put my finger on it, I must admit. In many respects there’s nothing to complain about: it looks great, it’s well-acted, and there are a number of impressive set pieces. There’s also a nice undercurrent of dark humour running through it, particularly in Bayu’s frequent blunders in his attempts to become a great killer. Overall, though, something about Killers rings hollow. In its ambitious attempt to tell two parallel stories which ultimately converge, it feels a little long-winded and overblown for my liking, hinging on some plot contrivances and lapses into arch melodrama which I feel somewhat undermine earlier efforts to craft a sophisticated narrative.

Still, I rather suspect I’m going to be in the minority on this one. Killers has much to recommend it, and the Mo Brothers are without doubt filmmakers of note who deserve the attention they’re getting; on this evidence, they’re just not quite this writer’s cup of tea, or this particular film isn’t at least.

Killers is available on UK DVD and Blu-ray on 1st September, from Lionsgate.

By Svetlana Fedetov

Ever since Valiant got back into the comic game mid-2012, they have been burning up the superhero game with old favorites and new creations. While never at the Marvel or DC level, many fans have fondly returned to the 90’s megastar and for great reasons. Solid writing, kick-ass art, and an ever-expanding universe has created a fathomless well of ideas to draw from. Unfortunately, with so many superheroes and super-villains running around the place, Valiant wasn’t offering much in the way of the bizarre, you know, the kind we at Brutal as Hell enjoy so much (except Shadowman, great comic!) Enter The Delinquents, the comic that sold me on two words: Hobo King. A great goof of a story that borders the line between superhero saga and cross-country adventure of the strangest of proportions, this work drops the reader straight into an American urban legend and doesn’t let up.

So, before I delve too deep into the story, the comic is not an original story but actually a team-up between two separate teams. Though I didn’t know this going in, it actually didn’t affect my enjoyment of the comic, which is saying something. Essentially, the two teams are Archer and Armstrong, a teen assassin and a homeless immortal, and Quantum and Woody, adopted brothers who are billed as the world’s worst superheroes (obviously they haven’t heard of Florida Man.)

The tale opens up with Armstrong back in the early half of the 20th century as he hops trains and travels the country with nothing but a bindle on a stick and straw in his mouth. After traveling with the King Hobo himself, he is given a pair of pants (or trousers if you will) that has a map of the ultimate Hobo treasure on the ass. Of course, in standard Armstrong fashion, he immediately loses it and the fabric spends the next several decades floating around U.S. of A. until it falls into the collection of a multi-millionaire bio-food engineer. The engineer quickly hires Quantum and Woody to find the treasure for him while word soon travels among the hobos to Armstrong that the treasure map had been found. With his super serious partner in tow, Archer and Armstrong hit the road themselves.

While the story doesn’t sound very bizarre – in fact, it sounds like a prime-time sitcom – it’s the way the plot is handled that really sets The Delinquents apart. The writers James Asmus and Fred van Lente really up the homey aspects of Americana, such as princess parties and Norman Rockwell-esque hobos, and put it through the grinder, coming out with something that’s pretty similar to Goon humor. The Hobos are drunk and nuts, the princesses are spoiled brats, and Godly spiritualism can be bought at a dime a dozen. It’s a solid statement on American culture, on the disposability of the human experience, while placing in some serious laughs and super powers. If you’re a fan of the DC/Vertigo Fables off-shoot, Jack of Fables, or even the absurdity of Deadpool, you’ll definitely dig this. Oh, and yes, there are some pretty good shoot-em-up scenes.

Another appeal is the beautiful page and panel layouts by artist Kano. He has several pages where he completely strays from the idea of individual panels and instead, creates a large scene in which the characters move around in. It gives the comic a great pop art feel as he unabashedly mixes elements of graphic design and traditional comic work. The coloring also creates a light atmosphere that tends to change with the mood, creating a welcoming throw-back to popular animation.

The Delinquents hit shelves Aug. 25.

Review by Quin

If you have read at least a handful of my reviews, you may have noticed that I review quite a bit of documentaries. Just like my bio says – I love documentaries. In fact, along with this film right here, my next review is going to be a documentary as well. While I have enjoyed documentaries on an extremely wide array of topics, It wasn’t until quite recently that I discovered just how many of these films somehow fit into or at least relate to the horror genre. There have been so many documentaries that cover the history of the horror film, that you can pretty much pick one and you’ll still get the same information that you’d find in any of the others. It really gets to the point where they start to become obsolete. Luckily, documentary filmmakers are digging deeper now and picking narrower topics to cover. Ideally, I would love to see an individual bio on each of the people in the horror film industry whom I respect and admire, but that would probably start to get tiresome as well. Here we have a documentary that is part biography and part history lesson on two ladies you may not have heard of (at least by name), but I’m almost positive you are familiar with their work if not their influence that is still felt today.

Bound By Flesh is a brand new documentary about the Hilton Sisters; no, not Paris and Nikki. These are the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, most widely known for their role in the 1932 Tod Browning classic Freaks. Now before I go any further, if you are hoping to learn a lot about Freaks and the making of that film, you will not find it here. The filmmaker, very wisely, spends less that a minute on that film. It is seriously hardly even mentioned. That wonderful movie deserves its own documentary as well as profiles of some of the amazing actors who are featured, but this is strictly on the life of the Hilton Sisters as well as a very informative look at the history of carnival sideshows, complete with interviews of people who were there, one of the most interesting being a former carny named Ward Hall (who some of you may recognize from an episode of the History Channel’s American Pickers filmed in a retirement community of circus performers in Florida – which, incidentally, is near the murder place of Lobster Boy. Google that if you haven’t heard the story.)

Even though there is not much of a connection to horror films in this documentary, I suspect that most of you will still be interested. The drama and details of Violet and Daisy’s life together is a pretty dark and twisted tale, as well as being sad and infuriating, while remaining fascinating. One senses that the viewer gets the same sort of morbid thrill as a carnival patron gets when the curtain is pulled back on some of these curiosities. From their birth in England to their mother actually selling them to be displayed for profit, Bound By Flesh is only beginning to take us down a road where we learn of things so shocking, much of it rivals today’s tabloid fodder. The woman who purchased them was Mary Hilton who was described as “A poorly educated but savvy woman who was determined to make money off them.” As The Hilton Sisters get older, some of the trouble they get into is comparable to if Kim and Khloe Kardashian had been conjoined. But the film does its job and never lets us forget that these women where born into a bad situation where they were constantly taken advantage of by everybody. And when they were finally able to find some autonomy in the world, they lacked the skills to navigate their life and what started with tragedy ends in tragedy.

Bound By Flesh was directed by Leslie Zemeckis, who just so happens to be the wife of director Robert Zemeckis (famous for Back to the Future, as well as a small list of producing credits on some just-okay and some really-not-okay-at-all horror movies). Robert is actually one of the producers on this too. But the Zemeckis’s struck gold with this one. Leslie is more than a competent director. What she does here is very much in the style of a Ken Burns documentary where the camera lingers on photographs and video footage while we have Lea Thompson, Nancy Allen, Timothy Stack and Blake Boyd as the voices of some of the prominent people – Thompson and Allen providing the voices of Daisy and Violet. The pace of the film is very fast which is jarring at first, but when your brain catches up, you’ll be grateful that they were able to fit so much information into 90 minutes. As mentioned, the subject matter is mostly a bit of a downer, but there is inspiration in the Hilton Sisters’ story as well. This is a must see for anyone interested in the lives of carnival performers. It may even be just enough to tide some of you over until October when American Horror Story: Freakshow starts.

Bound By Flesh is in select US theaters now. It’s also available on VOD and can be digitally downloaded from iTunes. The DVD will be out in October. Go to http://www.boundbyflesh.com for more info.