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FrightFest 2011 Review: Chillerama

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Chillerama (2011)
Directed by: Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green, Joe Lynch
Starring: Joel David Moore, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Richard Riehle
Review by: Ben Bussey

The drive-in is about to close down. The locals pile in by the car load, and owner Cecil Kaufman (Riehle) plans to give them a final night to remember, with a quadruple bill of the most obscure and outlandish movies he has in his possession. However, little does he or the patrons know that something very peculiar and dangerous has found its way into the concessions stand, and before the final reel of the final movie things may get even weirder offscreen than on.

It was no accident that this collaborative anthology movie made its British premiere at FrightFest in the midnight slot on Saturday night. That attending directors Green and Lynch expressed a hope that the audience had already been drinking and suggested that more drinking be done should underline further the kind of movie this is. Clearly, Chillerama is not a film intended to be discussed at length over coffee, with much pontification on themes and stroking of beards involved. Rather, this is movie which invites the audience to pour as much beer as possible down its throat, then some more over its head, and urges all and sundry to scream “YEAH!” and laugh like rabid hyenas. It’s an entirely self-conscious exercise in low brow and bad taste, and at the same time a love letter to several relatively neglected cult subgenres, and as Lynch in particular has repeatedly emphasised it’s a eulogy of sorts to what he calls the “dying art form” that is drive-in culture.

This at least is the intent, and I don’t doubt that all four writer-directors are sincere in this. As to whether or not Chillerama delivers; whether it is the hilarious, irreverent, wip-smart lampoon/homage it wants to be… well, there’s a bit of a question mark hanging over that one. For a movie that aims for fast and funny, it’s pretty long and slow with some really quite dull stretches, and a lot of gags which just fall flat. And I say that as someone who did indeed consume a bit of alcohol at showtime.

Each movie-within-the-movie has an amusing premise, and boasts their share of belly laugh moments (mostly of the gross-out variety), but without exception they all outstay their welcome and rather hammer the joke into the ground by the end. Adam Rifkin’s Wadzilla is probably the lightest offender in this regard; starting out as a relatively down to earth evocation of 50s New York (think Mad Men on a microbudget), it escalates into a monster movie as an atomically enlarged sperm goes on the rampage. It boasts a few fan-pleasing cameos, plenty of innuendo-strewn dialogue and a most memorable use of the Statue of Liberty, building toward a somewhat messy climax if you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do. All good fun, and probably the highlight of the film.

Tim Sullivan’s I Was a Teenage Werebear comes next, and is probably the hardest sell so far as many horror fans are concerned given that is an explicitly homoerotic take on 60s beach party films, centring on a star high school athlete who finds himself strangely drawn to the new leather-clad bad boys in town. Oh, and it’s a musical to boot. Loaded with absurd performances, chintzy tunes and terrible singing (all self-consciously so of course), it starts out amusing but ultimately outstays its welcome somewhat, carrying on regardless once it’s pretty much said and done all it has to say and do.

 Adam Green’s The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is much the same. An Ed Wood-ish black and white Nazi melodrama/Univeral horror homage, it centres on Hitler building a Jewish Frankenstein monster. It goes without saying that this is a provactive premise, but it’s again so knowingly and deliberately silly that it’s hard to imagine it offending anyone but the most obsessive stickler for political correctness. Unfortunately, it just isn’t that damn funny either. This segment was previewed in its entirety at FrightFest 2010 when Green and Lynch first publicly announced that Chillerama was in production, and while it has been trimmed and fine-tuned a little (Hitler’s big musical number has been relocated to the end credits, presumably under the reasonable assumption that the audience would be suffering from showtune exhaustion after Sullivan’s entry), it still runs out of steam long before the end.

 Joe Lynch is left with perhaps the biggest responsibility; not only does he provide the final, though significantly shorter drive-in movie (which I won’t go into detail on, in the hope of preserving some element of surprise), but he also provides the bridging scenes between the shorts. Unfortunately, these are perhaps the most ill-concieved moments of all. It goes without saying that an anthology movie already has a lot going on, but not content with this Lynch gives us lengthy dialogue scenes between numerous characters, building toward a finale that sees the drive-in go pretty much straight to hell in a handbasket; that his segment is dubbed Zom-B-Movie should tell you all you need to know. The biggest problem is that these segments by and large eschew the lampoonish tone of the shorts in favour of a fairly straight contemporary horror comedy aesthetic, with dialogue that’s bursting at the seams with film geek quotes. Yes, Chillerama is aiming for deliberate excess, but sometimes too much really is too much. Matters are not helped by a distinctly smug and self-congratulatory final scene which leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

It’s fitfully amusing, and perhaps having a bit of the running time shaved off would boost its charm, but ultimately Chillerama falls short of its goals. While it may have been concieved as a cast-iron crowd-pleaser, when all is said and done it’s overlong, isn’t funny enough, and smacks of having too high an opinion of itself. A shame. 

 

FrightFest 2011 Review: The Glass Man

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The Glass Man (2011)
Directed by: Christian Solimeno
Starring: Andy Nyman, James Cosmo, Neve Campbell, Christian Solimeno
Review by: Ben Bussey

At a glance, Martin (Nyman) would appear to be the man who has everything. He wears fine bespoke suits and an expensive watch, drives a top-of-the-range car, and lives in a well-furnished town house with his beautiful wife (Campbell). But all of it is a thin veneer, only a nudge away from shattering. Though he may go about his routine as normal, dressing for the office and driving away first thing in the morning, and indulging in the usual luxuries, the truth is that Martin has long since been fired, and his finances are dangerously in the red. Thus far his wife has been none the wiser, until an uncomfortable encounter with his former co-workers results in a message on the answering machine which leads her to suspect the worst. But late that night, once his wife is in a pharmaceutically induced slumber, Martin recieves an unexpected visitor in the form of a debt collector (Cosmo). Big, strong, and very intimidating indeed, he’s the last person you want showing up on your doorstep in the middle of the night. However, he offers Martin the faintest glimmer of hope with a proposition; if Martin assists him in an unspecified task that very night, the debt will be cancelled. Terrified, but knowing he has no choice, Martin agrees; and the night ahead will be revealing indeed.

I feel quite privileged to have seen this potentially career-defining turn from Andy Nyman in its world premiere at FrightFest. As a festival regular and host of Sunday’s Quiz From Hell, Nyman might well be called one of FrightFest’s favourite sons; to audiences at large he is probably most recognised for his turn as the arsehole TV producer in Dead Set, plus his West End stage show Ghost Stories. While he is certainly associated with horror, he has to date been a primarily comedic figure. The Glass Man may well change all that. While there is a great deal of humour in the film and in his performance, the emphasis is far more on the tragic. As both Nyman and director/co-writer/co-star Christian Solimeno remarked in the post-screening Q&A, the title symbolises much about this man: he is transparent, thus easily ignored; he is fragile, thus easily broken; but once broken, he can be very dangerous.

Set over the course of a single day with the bulk of the action occuring after nightfall when the debt collector comes calling, this is very much one of those ‘dark night of the soul’ stories; a tale in which fears are confronted, and self-discoveries made. As these revelations have a very significant impact on proceedings, it’s tricky to discuss the narrative at length without getting into spoilers, so let’s instead focus on the nuts and bolts of the film itself. First and foremost, this is a great character piece, done proud by an excellent cast. Nyman’s performance is utterly compelling and convincing, a beautiful evocation of the weakness inherent in a great many modern men which really rings true. As the mirror opposite of this, James Cosmo is similarly awe-inspiring; strong where Martin is weak, imposing where Martin is ineffectual. Burly psychos may well be ten-a-penny in horror movies (God knows we saw enough of them on this Friday at FrightFest), but this is one with some real depth and variety, for which Cosmo deserves tremendous credit. Not to mention Christian Solimeno, who not only serves his leading men well with subtle direction and a strong script, but also does sterling work in his brief but pivotal cameo role.

 That said, there are some weak links in this chain. (I was going to try some kind of glass-related metaphor there, but I just couldn’t come up with anything; what can I say, I’m on a tight deadline.) The casting of so recognisable a star as Neve Campbell may well raise a few eyebrows, particularly given that a) the role is relatively small and b) she’s playing English. Oh, how those Hollywood actresses love to do plummy English accents, and oh, how we Brits love to bitch about it. Consequently, though there is nothing especially wrong with her performance, her presence in the film can’t help being a bit distracting. Then there’s the matter of those core revelations that I just can’t go into… they’re the kind of twists that turn things so much on their head that some may be put off, for once they have occured we are left in little doubt as to how things will turn out. The net result is an ending that somewhat lacks the desired punch, particularly as the film feels a tad bit overlong.

Even so, The Glass Man is a most impressive, powerful piece of work, sure to be remembered as one of the highlights of FrightFest 2011, and almost certain to receive widespread recognition in the near future. An atmospheric slow-burn chiller, it should really put Andy Nyman on the map as an actor of considerable range and ability, and definitely marks out Christian Solimeno as a writer/director to keep an eye on.

 

DVD Review: Black Heaven

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Black Heaven (2010)
Distributor: Arrow Films
DVD Release Date: 5th September 2011
Directed by: Gilles Marchand
Starring: Louise Bourgoin, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Pauline Etienne
Review by: Keri O’Shea

A young couple, Gaspard (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Marion (Pauline Etienne) are enjoying summer in the idyllic South of France when, by chance, they find a mobile phone. Their curiosity is piqued by the mysterious tone of the messages on the phone – as well as by photographs of a beautiful woman stored on it – so they decide to go along to the meeting-place of a church suggested by ‘Dragon’ (Swann Arlaud) to ‘Sam’ (Louise Bourgoin). Having got a glimpse of the couple, they decide that following them further would be an interesting afternoon’s diversion.

This doesn’t prove as easy or as enjoyable as they anticipate: things turn sinister as, when they catch up with the couple, they find them attempting to commit suicide in their car. They manage to get into the vehicle to save the girl but it’s too late for her partner and, disturbingly, Marion swears that she saw someone watching this scene unfold from the nearby woods. As shaken as they both are by these events, Gaspard’s curiosity hasn’t been abated; he cannot resist stealing a camera evidently rigged up to film the suicide attempt, and watches it when he finds himself alone – though he doesn’t get the references to the ‘Black Beach’ mentioned by the couple, nor does he know why Dragon and Sam would (with such sentimental aplomb) record their deaths.

Life for Marion and Gaspard proceeds as normal. However, when by chance Gaspard again encounters Sam – real name Audrey – whilst out scoring weed with his friends, he cannot resist telling her how he recognises her. They talk briefly, but in that time Gaspard is able to make sense of some of the information he saw in the texts. Some of the places described are to be found in an online game called Black Hole. His interest in the enigmatic Audrey leads him to enter to game to look for her alter-ego: however, in Black Hole the distance between self and avatar is complicated, and for a newbie like Gaspard this almost instantly poses problems…

The press release accompanying Black Heaven describes the film as ‘Tron meets Blue Velvet’: well, thankfully there’s very little of Tron here, but you can certainly pick up some Lynchian elements in the film’s mysterious femme fatale, its incidental music and most of all the feeling that we, like at least one of the protagonists, don’t have a grasp on what is going on, that there is a mystery to be solved. Internal states take precedence over action for much of the film and not simply because parts of the plot occur in a virtual environment; the focus is very much on what motivates our characters, particularly Gaspard, whose naïvety leads him badly astray. Nothing is immutable though, and the audience isn’t allowed to settle into any one mode of understanding. Gaspard starts out being called a ‘kid’ by others, yet the plot bestows him with a steep learning curve only to spit him back out as a ‘kid’ again. Audrey/Sam is also affected by this, apparently moving from victim to vamp and back (whilst giving the film’s best performance, whether on screen or not, virtual or not.)

As for Black Hole itself, the world of the game looks impressive: whilst the South of France is warm, sunny and populated by the beautiful people, Black Hole is its opposite, always swathed in darkness and populated mainly by a fascinating array of grotesques. There’s always a danger, though, that what looks cutting-edge now will look ridiculously outdated within a relatively short amount of time, and if the technology carries the plot rather than the other way around this effect nearly always feels worse. Black Heaven may be spared that fate: the idea of MMORPGs is of course a modern phenomenon, but after all the game is still just an arena to explore more timeless ideas such as selfhood, identity and obsession. I’d actually have liked more of the film to take place in this virtual world, as I thought the interplay between avatar and self raised lots of intriguing points, but as it stands I hope Black Heaven will not lose its impact by virtue of its computer graphics. There’s a lot more going on here, to the point that some more explication would not have gone amiss – just a little, because I appreciate that one of the strong points here is the gently-unsettling atmosphere. Another criticism would be that Leprince-Ringuet doesn’t always communicate all the brooding emotions we know must be present in that head of his, and sometimes seems dwarfed by the strongly-delineated roles being played out around him.

For all that, I really liked Black Heaven; it’s an innovative, stylish and languid film whilst its successful elements far outweigh the less-successful. Oh, and as a David Lynch fan I can’t help but wonder if director/writer Gilles Marchand is too, not just because of the overall tone but for one scene in particular which reminded me very strongly of Mulholland Drive…

DVD Review: Umbrage: The First Vampire

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Umbrage: The First Vampire (2009)
Distributor: Left Films
DVD Release Date: 17th October 2011
Director: Drew Cullingham
Starring: Doug Bradley, Rita Ramani, Jonnie Hurn, Natalia Celino
Review by: Aaron Williams

 We open on a sweeping shot of a forest, a Jeep steadily working its way along rocky roads. Cut to inside the moving car and we focus on a young woman with dark flowing hair which covers an expression that says ‘God, life’s hard’ as a gentle bluegrass song whines over the soundtrack. This is Rachael and she’s about to be relocated to a new home with her step parents in the mountains..

As hard as this reviewer tries to steer clear of mentioning a certain tween pop phenomenon film franchise or hit HBO series whenever another vampire flick surfaces, the similarities here in the first twenty minutes are near impossible to ignore. Even the now infamous font used on all the posters with R-Patz’ gormless mug brooding out at us has been mimicked in the opening credits. So, do we have another shameless direct to DVD cash in on our hands here?

We’ve heard this premise in horror over a trillion times now – the dysfunctional family moves out to a dream home, probably running from their problems and hoping to hide from them in this new isolated dream home. Jacob (Bradley) is an antiques dealer who seems to have an unsettling relationship with his step daughter Rachael (Ramani) and it seems that things wont get any better as  they begin to bicker almost immediately after they arrive. Meanwhile, a couple of friends are out on a camping trip and run into a mysterious woman (Celino) who claims to be an ornithologist camping nearby. As things heat up back at the family cabin, a cowboy (Hurn) seems to have materialised in their barn, perhaps something to do with a ominous black mirror that Jacob has brought with him.

Once I set my eyes on the trailer and cover art for Umbrage, I couldn’t have been any more surprised how they differ from the film itself. They promise rootin’ tootin’ blood, guts, tits and ass with a side order of undead demon fun. Instead, we get a Gothic family drama and slow burn vampire yarn hybrid. If that sounds a little vague, I apologise but its pretty hard to nail what this films is trying to achieve. The oddly muddled tone will leave even the most forgiving of vampire fanatics in an unforgiving mood. As for thrill seekers, seek elsewhere as every single bit of violence occurs off-screen, probably a symptom of the film’s micro-budget roots. There’s also a misplaced sense of romanticism that for seems to stop the film dead.  It seems to have been edited by either a first time editor or someone suffering from severe narcolepsy as shots last way too long – no, not like a Gus Van Sant film- and we fade out at seemingly random moments.

 I have to constantly remind myself to remove my Hellraiser fan-boy tinted specs when watching Bradley when I see him in other films. Like Robert Englund and the rest of his ilk, they pretty much always seem to flounder like a fish out of water when appearing before the camera without their familiar costume and make up. But overall the performances are not embarrassing by any means unlike other bargain basement direct to DVD disasters.

 Despite its all too obvious flaws (and making pretty much no sense whatsoever) there is an inexplicable charm to be found in Umbrage if you have the patience. This was indeed a curious oddity amidst more blatant and shameless straight to DVD cash-ins on the vampire obsessed market that exists today.

 Any decent film script starts with a simple idea but if the execution is not there then that idea will probably get lost and the result will be muddled at best and Umbrage may have fallen to such folly. I’m sure there’s a killer blend of the old west and horrific vampire fun to be found out there somewhere but Umbrage isn’t it. Love it or hate it you’ll be pretty safe in assuming this cultural thirst for vampiric romanticism will now be recorded as one of the significant movements in horror just like the post modern slasher, the unrelenting remake frenzy or the growing ‘found footage’ trend. I’m not suggesting we all swallow this pill – though some of you may happily do so – but we can look forward to the next attempt to put the bite back.

You can catch it on DVD on the 17th of October and Lionsgate will be releasing it in the US in early 2012.

DVD Review: Curio

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Curio (2010)
Distributor: ISIS Ltd
DVD Release Date (UK): 12th September 2011
Directed by: Steven Nesbit
Starring: Wayne Russell, Jennifer Bryer, Sydney Wade, Richard Wood
Review by: Ben Bussey

All-American lady Lauren (Jennifer Bryer) and her half-English little girl Emily (Sydney Wade) travel to the Yorkshire moors to visit the quaint little cottage that was left to them by a recently deceased relative. No sooner do they get there before a neighbour pops by to say hello; a kindly old dear who dabbles in bakery and, er, fortune telling. However, her efforts at reading Lauren’s future yield somewhat unexpected results, inasmuch as she speaks in a demonic voice for a moment then drops dead. Soon enough a bumbling local policeman shows up and decides to take Lauren in for questioning, which she is none to happy about. Rather than co-operate, Lauren opts to headbutt the PC and run off with Emily onto the moors. Next thing she knows she’s tied up on a bed in an unfamiliar room, with a gunshot wound in her shoulder and a creepy farmer named Len (Wayne Russell) playing nursemaid, who won’t tell her where her daughter is. Yes, things are going from bad to worse.

And when I say things go from bad to worse, I don’t just mean for the protagonists. I mean for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves watching this utterly, utterly abysmal film.

Overhearing the DVD, my wife enquired as to whether I was watching The League of Gentlemen. It’s fair to say the world Steven Nesbit presents in Curio is not too far removed from that of the League’s fictional Yorkshire town of Royston Vasey, with its broad caricatures and even broader accents, and a tone so bizarre the viewer is left uncertain as to whether they should laugh or not. The key difference is that, so far as I can tell, Curio is played straight. We are meant to take what we see entirely seriously. Which, believe me, is nigh-on impossible. From start to finish, Curio aims high and fails miserably on almost every level.

Okay, so I said almost every level; seems only fair I should acknowledge that which works. Wayne Russell, whose performance here earned him the Best Actor award at the 2010 Los Angeles Movie Awards (nope, I’ve never heard of them either), does in all fairness do a pretty good job with what he’s given. A very English variation on the Norman Bates archetype, Len is a man haunted by a strict religious upbringing, on the cusp of madness thanks to years of isolation, as repulsed by ‘sinful’ behaviour as he is tempted by it. For him to suddenly have a beautiful woman captive in his own home is pretty much a dream come true, but – much like our old friend Norman – the only woman in his life is his mother. It’s not the most unique character ever created, and Nesbit’s script does him no favours, but Russell does make for a convincing backwoods psycho, even managing to make him fairly sympathetic. In other circumstances, that would be enough to keep the film from being an outright failure. Not so here, I’m afraid. 

So how, you ask, does Curio fail? Let me count the ways. Aesthetically, it’s as flat as a pancake, with utterly bland and unimaginative camerawork. The story is an absolute mess, littered with contrived plot devices, laboured dialogue and thoroughly implausible actions. The worst offender here, on the part of both writer/director Nesbit and actress Jennifer Bryer, is the character of Lauren. Firstly, there’s absolutely no reason for her to be an American, other than the obvious hope that it will help sell the film internationally. Secondly, the character is not remotely endearing or convincing at any point; don’t tell me a mother who finds herself alone in a stranger’s house would not immediately demand to see her child, or that she wouldn’t act the second she saw the opportunity to escape, which certainly occurs more than once. Thirdly – and most significantly – Jennifer Bryer, on this evidence, cannot act to save her life. I don’t want to be mean, but I have to call it like I see it. She is awful, plain and simple. I see from IMDB this is her only screen credit to date, and I truly, truly hope it stays that way.

The only other thing to note about Curio is my absolute bewilderment as to how and why Graham Coxon, formerly guitarist of Blur, came to do the musical score. He’s a fantastic musician and composer, one who I could easily see having an illustrious career in film music, so quite why he would give his services to so inauspicious a film as this I cannot fathom. It’s certainly an interesting and unusual score, with an eclectic mix of sounds and styles, and I suppose the best we can say is that it emphasises the overall weirdness of proceedings. But, as I should think I’ve made clear by now, it isn’t enough to save the film.

Please believe me when I say I wish I could tell you Curio is great. As someone born and raised in Yorkshire, it’s wonderful to see local filmmakers like Nesbitt making films here, and I really wish I could be celebratory. But if Yorkshire is to become a home for independent filmmaking it’s going to need a hell of a lot more than Curio brings to the table. It is, plainly and simply, a disaster.

UK DVD Review: Wreckage

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Wreckage (2010)
Distributor: Chelsea Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 22 August 2011
Directed by: John Mallory Asher
Starring: Mike Erwin, Aaron Paul, Scoot McNairy, Cameron Richardson, Kelly Kruger
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

Directed by John Mallory Asher, Wreckage brings the indistinguishable-victims-get-stalked-and-killed genre to a scrap yard; as the tagline so helpfully warns us, “The spare parts may be your own”. Unfortunately, Wreckage really isn’t a very good movie at all. It’s unbelievably clichéd and pans out like a paint-by-numbers slasher movie. There is nothing original at all plot wise, to the point where I wasn’t sure if the reveal of the killer at the end was actually supposed to be a twist or not, being that it had been so glaringly obvious throughout the duration of the film.

Jared (Mike Erwin) is a decent guy, an army vet with an honourable discharge after being wounded in Afghanistan, who is madly and happily in love with his fiancée Kate (Cameron Richardson). Inexplicably they are friends with Rick (Aaron Paul), a highly strung loser and his girlfriend Jessica (Kelly Kruger). I say inexplicably because I can see no reason whatsoever why these two couples would be friends with each other, as they don’t even seem to like each other very much. Having said that the actions of the characters often change mysteriously; one minute Rick is berating Jessica and insinuating that he is only with her because she got pregnant, the next they are laughing and hugging like a happy couple. So clearly character motivation is the least of our concerns.

Our bickering foursome set off to do some drag racing, but unfortunately for them Jared’s car breaks down leaving them stranded in a local scrap yard where things start to get weird after Rick accidentally shoots Kate. The local sheriff turns up with a paramedic and the least likely doctor I’ve seen since Tara Reid was cast as a genius anthropologist in Alone in the Dark, along with Frank (Scoot McNairy) the hick nephew of the scrap yard owner, and one by one they are offed by a masked killer assumed to be a madman recently escaped from the local mental hospital.

It’s actually impressive that the filmmakers made a seemingly simple plot quite so convoluted, but that they did and it makes for somewhat confusing watching. Added to this you care nothing about the characters and know even less about them or their motivations. Wrecked appears to have been made by people and for people who have never seen a horror movie in their entire lives. It’s no surprise then that it’s been sitting on a shelf somewhere for over a year before now being released straight to DVD. Also, somewhat bizarrely the picture on the cover of the DVD doesn’t appear to bear any reflection on anything that actually occurs during the movie and the characters are described in the blurb on the back of the DVD as a group of teenagers, even though they are all clearly over 30.

The only saving grace is the acting, which for a crappy low budget slasher film, is actually pretty decent. Scoot McNairy in particular gives an entirely watchable and amusing performance as Frank, the hapless redneck junkyard attendant and Aaron Paul (best known as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad) as the unstable Rick. Unfortunately, a few okay performances don’t necessarily warrant a recommendation and I’d strongly avoid watching this if at all possible.

The DVD, mercifully, comes with no special features other than a trailer and it is available August 22nd on Region 2 DVD, should you choose not to heed my advice.

DVD Review: Cowboys & Zombies

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Cowboys & Zombies (AKA The Dead and the Damned) (2010)
Distributor: Left Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 8th August 2011
Directed by: Rene Perez
Starring: David A. Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora
Review by: Ben Bussey

The old west. It’s the rootinist, tootinist place. You got lone gunslingers having daring shoot-outs with bad guys in the streets, collecting the bounties on their heads, then heading off in search of the next outlaw with his face on a wanted poster. One such lone gunslinger is Mortimer (Lockhart), and his intended next big payday is an injun – hey, it was the 1800’s, Native American was not yet the preferred term – who is wanted alive for rape and murder. Taking along the first pretty young whore he can find (Montgomery) as rapist bait, Mortimer heads into the hills to trap his prey. However, just as they leave town, a couple of lame-brained prospectors head into town with a strange glowing rock they just dug up, which promptly zombifies everyone nearby. Up in the hills, Mortimer comes face to face with his would-be prey (Mora), but he doesn’t seem to be quite such a cold-blooded savage as expected. Helpful really, as those two men and one woman soon have to fight side by side to quell the tide of flesh-eating fiends from hell.

Yes, this film was originally released in the US last year as The Dead and the Damned; I feel compelled to emphasise this, lest anyone take it as an Asylum-esque cash in on this summer’s Cowboys & Aliens. This, of course, doesn’t make its retitling any less of an unabashedly exploitative move. But frankly, Cowboys & Zombies is the better title. It’s direct and to the point. It lets you know exactly what to expect. And sitting down to watch it with that mindframe, I must admit that, to my great surprise, Cowboys & Zombies is actually a pretty watchable movie. It wears its low-budget, direct-to-DVD origins on its sleeve, with all the hallmarks we expect: below-bar DV photography, weak costumes and make-up FX, and a few instances of utterly gratuitous nudity. But along the way there are some pleasant surprises that help lift the movie above the standard.

It’s shot efficiently and energetically, with the opening shoot-out scene setting things off at a high pace. Sure, it’s inescapably amateurish; it looks like (and most likely was) a few friends messing around in a wild west theme park off season, and David A Lockhart hasn’t quite mastered that problem of blinking when shots are fired, plus I swear I saw sneaker footprints in the sand at one point. Even so, the camerawork and editing are relatively slick, resulting in a number of effiective action sequences. These scenes are also complemented well by the guitar-based score. I was initially wary to see the old west played out against contemporary rock music, but given that the film is a crossover of genres we don’t often see combined, it seems oddly fitting that the music be a bit out of place, if that makes any sense.

So that’s the plus side; now for the rest. Despite that blinking-while-shooting problem and a voice that is somewhat less than gravelly, David Lockhart makes for a reasonable cowboy, with a look that’s somewhere between early 80s Dennis Quaid and early 70s Graham Nash. However, both he and writer/director Rene Perez should have learned a few lessons from a few classic westerns and had him do one simple thing: shut the fuck up. I’m no western afficionado by any means, but I think I can safely say that the great screen cowboys were notably taciturn, men of action rather than words; hell, at his best Eastwood did as little as he had to of either. Lockhart just keeps talking, talking, talking, constantly giving explanations when one was neither requested nor needed. Rick Mora doesn’t fare much better; every time he opens his mouth, both the words and the delivery reek of Native American cliche, to the extent that we wouldn’t be too taken aback if he were to declare something “heap big” then dance around a campfire whooping. At least Camille Montgomery manages to come out of proceedings with a little more dignity, successfully conveying both vulnerability and inner strength in the face of the zombie horde.

Cowboys & Zombies has another fairly significant problem in that it doesn’t have an ending. Nope. None at all. There are a couple of nice, unexpected twists and turns (by which I do not mean anything remotely Shyamalanesque), then just as it looks like there’s another cool action sequence coming up it just stops. Pah. I struggle to see how anyone involved thought that would be a satisfactory way to finish things off, unless there was some vague hope of leaving things open for a sequel. But what the hell, in spite of this Cowboys & Zombies remains a reasonable bit of fun so long as your expectations aren’t too high. It’s not going to rock anyone’s socks off, but it delivers most of what you’d hope for from a microbudget bottom shelf B-movie. And from what I hear Cowboys & Aliens itself isn’t even all that good anyway, so hey, one DVD’s cheaper than a couple of cinema tickets…

DVD Review: Softcore Sci-Fi Silliness in ‘Erotibot’

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Erotibot (2011)
Distributor: Bounty Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 26th September 2011
Directed by: Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Starring: Yuuya Tokumoto, Mahiro Aine, Maria Ozawa, Asami
Review by: Ben Bussey

Sukekiyo (Yuuya Tokumoto) is not the greatest android in the world. The third robotic manservant of his household, he is neither as charming as Number 1, nor as physically powerful as Number 2, but he has one quality they lack: feelings. Specifically, he has feelings toward their mistress, the fabulously wealthy young heiress Tamayo (Mahiro Aine). To say Tamayo lives a sheltered life would be a severe understatement; she has never been beyond the confines of her mansion home, and lives alone with only these droids who have been programmed to serve her every need. Given that she is ‘of age’, these needs grow more varied as time goes on. But whilst a romance of sorts blossoms between nubile rich girl and bumbling robo-butler, unbeknownst to them they are under surveillance by a long-lost relative of Tamayo, a samurai sword-weilding badass bitch named Tsukiyo (Maria Ozawa). Wanting all the family fortune for herself, she and her minion Azami (played by – er – Asami) hatch the requisite nefarious plot. But have they reckoned without the strength of the love a third-rate malfunctioning robot has for his human charge?

Phew. I can’t quite believe I just spent around 200 words on a respectful synopsis of what is, obviously, an extremely silly and inconsequential film. But what can I say; whether it is in spite of its knowing stupidity or because of it, Erotibot rubbed me up the right way. And you can take that statement any way you like.

I’ve had a definite change of heart on the subject of the low-budget sci-fi/splatter/sexploitation films coming out of Japan recently. Reviewing RoboGeisha, I declared “all that shit has gotten old extremely quickly (…) that which is intended to appear wild and anarchic just feels stale, predictable and wince-inducing.” Just over a year later, not only do I feel most grammatically uncomfortable with the phrase “extremely quickly,” but also the exhaustion I expressed has all but reversed itself. Yes, these films are very silly indeed, but that is part of their charm, part of what makes them so very entertaining. Most significantly, this wave of Japanese cyber-splatter is something truly distinct and unique; these films comprise a body of work as individual as, say, Hammer Horror, the Italian zombie cycle, or the first wave of slashers. That combination of DV cinematography, excessive body horror and larger than life characterisations make films of this ilk unmistakable products of Japan in the early 21st century, and there is not a doubt in my mind that (assuming 2012 doesn’t result in the end of days) history will recognise these films as such.

That said, Erotibot might not necessarily be counted in quite the same class as its splatter-heavy predecessors (including some of writer/director Tomomatsu’s other work, like Vampire Girl Versus Frankenstein Girl). While the gore is suitably excessive when it arrives, it is limited to the final scenes, and as such Erotibot is unlikely to quench the bloodlust of diehard gorehounds. However, that’s clearly not the kind of lust this film is most interested in satiating.

Yes, the emphasis here is clearly more on flesh than blood. It’s apparent from the get-go that the leading ladies did not land the job on the strength of their acting ability; like Big Tits Zombie, the cast consists largely of AV stars, but whilst that film was far from the skinfest that the title suggested, Erotibot is pretty much soft porn. Still, in-keeping with the overall goofball tone the sex scenes are largely played for laughs, a particularly amusing sequence featuring an android in ‘deflowering mode.’ However, be prepared for that distinctly Japanese approach to sex scenes; i.e. the ladies squeaking in a childlike fashion, with somewhat creepy overtones of paedophilia and rape fantasy.

If you’re not yet converted to the cause of modern J-sploitation (as I understand the kids are now calling it), I rather doubt that Erotibot will be the one to win you over. But if you have a taste for oriental trash, you’re sure to lap this up. Disengage good taste mode and enjoy.

Be warned that the trailer below features mild spoilers, and boobs.

UK DVD Review: Low Rent Creature Feature ‘The Rig’

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The Rig (2010)
Distributor: Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date (UK): 8th August 2011
Directed by: Peter Atencio
Starring: Serah D’Laine, William Forsythe
Review by: Aaron Williams

Be honest with yourself for a second. If you’ve seen the poster to The Rig (below) then you should have some sort of idea of what to expect by now and if you don’t, then shame! Shame on you! If you do, then do you really need to read a review for said flick? Perhaps you’re thinking the same thing I was when I whacked this into my player – is this any fun?

The Rig is pretty damn simple to explain. We open on a ‘drill cam’ owned by Weyland Drilling (their logo appears on a wall later on and it’s exactly like the company of the same name in Alien) as they dig in the sea bed. We know this because there’s a walkie talkie voice over between an American and an American doing a seriously fucking piss poor job of sounding Scottish. Other than that this is just a shot of somebody filming a pipe under water. They seem to disturb a fish like beast that resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon; fins, gills the whole works. The monster makes its way to the surface and boards an oil rig in the midst of a storm and proceeds to kill the roughnecks.

Now this easily could have been a fun 90 minutes of silly bargain bin horror. It wasn’t. There’s no build up, no apparent attempt to establish a sense of dread. For the better part of twenty minutes the film takes you through a long and ill conceived attempt at making the audience relate to the roughnecks. William Forsythe (lending what star power he has to proceedings) is the roughneck boss and over protective father to Serah Delaine’s Carey, who has a romantic relationship with one of his crew. So far so dull. Come to think of it this takes up a large chunk of the running time, almost turning this into a soap opera on an oil rig with the occasional monster glimpse popping up.

The monster is another matter. Wisely the film makers have chosen to keep their creature off screen for the most part. The said beastie really is just a man in a rubber fish man outfit, the film sped up a few frames to add ferocity to his sporadic attacks. I’m not joking, this monster is that bad, looking like it escaped from the fifties. Now you’re probably asking if there are at least any cool splatter scenes, some gore that would make this at least worth a rent? You’d think so wouldn’t you? Where there are some brutal kills (that would have benefited from darker lighting to hide the clearly fake blood colour) they are too few and over far too quick. I can only assume that the producers behind this are simply out to turn a quick buck and wanted to keep the rating as low as possible to get more asses on seats (or rather more DVD sales).

I think the biggest problem with this is it tries way to hard to be something other than a creature feature. We spend way too much time with, lets face it, uninteresting characters that have been poorly written with nothing to do but wander carelessly around an oil rig looking for a fish monster. The result is a film that doesn’t know where to go next, with a hugely unsatisfying pay off. In certain subgenres I think it pays to stay close to formula whilst adding your own twist to things. This is one of those films where you have to wonder if the director has even seen a horror film and if he has, how long ago was that?

UK DVD Review: Evil Rising (AKA Sauna)

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Evil Rising AKA Sauna (2008)
Distributor: Matchbox Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 25th July 2011
Directed by: Antti-Jussi Annila
Starring: Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen
Review by: Keri O’Shea

 It’s a rare treat to come across a film like Evil Rising (more on that damn title change anon): a project with unusual vision and high production values such as this comes around but seldom. This is definitely not your typical horror movie fare: Evil Rising has many elements in common with art house as well as horror. An ambitious, allegorical story with a thoughtfully-realised historical setting, it’s fair to say this Finnish film has moments of brilliance. It does, however, also have its moments of weakness.

 The year is 1595 and a lengthy conflict between Russia and Sweden has finally come to an end: two Swedish soldiers and brothers, Erik (Ville Virtanen) and Knut (Tommi Eronen) have been charged with travelling North alongside a group of Russians to assist with marking out new territorial borders between Finland and Russia. Erik, however, is finding it difficult to renounce the savagery of war – the only life he has ever known. The two men had been seeking shelter with a farmer and his young daughter and, before Erik and Knut set off on their mission, Erik butchers the man, claiming that he is a Russian conspirator. Knut, deeply affected both by his brother’s paranoid cruelty and by feelings of his own, locks the girl in a cellar ostensibly to ‘protect’ her. He makes his brother promise to free her before joining him…

 Strangely, of all the terrible things both men have seen and done throughout the preceding years, it is the incident at the farm which seems to have had the greatest impact – certainly on Knut, who begins to see the terrifying vision of the girl and hears her voice begging him to return.

 They press on towards their destination of Päiväkivi, making their way around a large area of supposedly-barren swampland, when they find an uncharted village. This place has no church, the villagers have no idea of what nationality they hold, and when they decide to stay there for a while this surreal place begins to take a toll on the men. As for the peculiar sauna building which lies just outside the village, old records state that this place was there even before the settlement: folk belief says it is a special place of ablution, something which promises important consequences for its visitors.

 It may have a post-war setting, but this is truly a psychological drama with enough deft, supernatural touches to render an already-arduous tale more disturbing. I said that I felt this was an allegorical film; well, conscience is the overarching theme here, with concealment, locking away (literally and figuratively) and the consequences of committing reprehensible deeds symbolised and dramatised in intriguing ways. Powerful characterisation holds this together: both lead actors are very good but Erik (Virtanen) comes across as authentically unhinged, the man with the myopic stare, seething with rage and instability. His only point of real humanity is his relationship with his younger brother. Knut, on the other hand, is humane, reasonable, not a true soldier but a scholar – he suffers internally for his brother’s behaviour, and also feels the effects of his own.

 The cinematography here is of a very high quality. Throughout, the stark setting is imbued with a sense of chill – cold, clear sunlight, obscuring fogs and freezing skies – and black darkness, used sparingly throughout, is very effective when it does appear. Aesthetically a striking piece of work, it’s a pleasure to see a historical setting done so well and so ambitiously.

 So far, so good: there is a great deal to cherish in Evil Rising and it deserves kudos for that. My issue with the film is that, after such an immense, sophisticated build-up – great character development, creeping revelations about the village and the sauna, well-placed clues to follow in the script – it didn’t quite get there, moving instead into partial glimpses of what eventually happened, with little explication. Even allowing for the fact that Evil Rising contains supernatural and art house elements, for around the first hour of the film the plot is reasonably linear and steadily builds in recognisable ways. It felt throughout as though it was driving at something substantial. Instead, that tension began to unravel towards the close, and I didn’t feel that the film’s conclusion completed the story satisfactorily or matched the tone or pace of the film which had come before. Some more grounded details, particularly building on the relationship between Erik and Knut (a sense of which disintegrates later on) would have made the whole film feel more balanced, providing a fuller sense of pay-off for all the high quality elements preceding a rather scanty ending.

 That said, fans of grandiose, artistic cinema should give this a go: it’s a beautiful, high quality film with much to recommend it. So, I have to wonder at the decision to change the title from Sauna to Evil Rising for the UK market, because this silly title does nothing to recommend it at all! Moving from a minimalist title (one which reflects the subtlety of the film and would also potentially throw it into the path of interested art house fans) to a brain-dead standard horror title (someone, somewhere believes that horror won’t sell to us British horror fans unless it has ‘zombie’, ‘dead’ or ‘evil’ in the title) potentially makes for people who might really like this putting it back, and people attracted to the daft title, therefore expecting any sort of generic ‘evil rising’, being very disappointed. A supreme misfire, and another misfire which reflects badly on whoever-it-is who takes it upon themselves to dumb down film titles for an audience they forever underestimate.

 Editor’s note: for another take on this film, read Marc’s review from the US release (where the title remains Sauna).

Blu-Ray Review: Scream of the Banshee

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Scream of the Banshee (2011)
Distributor: G2 Pictures/After Dark Originals
Blu-Ray/DVD Release Date (UK): 25th July 2011
DVD Release Date (US): July 26, 2011
Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Starring: Lauren Holly, Lance Henriksen, Todd Haberkorn
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

The words “SyFy original movie” may fill you with dread, and quite rightly so in the majority of cases, but here we have Scream of the Banshee, a collaboration between SyFy and After Dark Originals and surprisingly it wasn’t entirely the suckfest that I was anticipating. Although SyFy doesn’t exactly have a stellar track records when it comes to its original made-for-television movies, After Dark has occasionally come out with something of interest (I particularly liked Seconds Apart and Dread), so perhaps this partnership has forced SyFy to up its game, if only ever so slightly.

So, Scream of the Banshee starts off in ancient Ireland where we see our banshee being killed and decapitated. Fast forward to the present day and archaeology professor Isla Whelan (Lauren Holly) receives a mysterious box that contains an ancient gauntlet and a map, conveniently the map leads to a secret room within the university where she works and inside the room is an ancient box that rumbles and wheezes as if alive. Again, rather conveniently the aforementioned gauntlet is the key to opening the box and even though there is clearly something weird going on Isla and two of her students decide to open it straight away without any further investigation. What they discover is the decapitated head of the banshee, which quickly awakens and emits a deafening scream before exploding.

In a rather odd decision by the writers; once potential victims hear the scream of the banshee they become cursed and suffer hallucinations, however they cannot actually be physically killed by the monster until they themselves physically scream aloud, so we get a lot of somewhat confusing is-it-a-dream-or-is-it-reality scenes where the banshee tries to scare her victims into screaming with fear. This is neither an effective or convincing plot device and it comes across as hackneyed and lazy, not to mention the fact that it is more than a little ridiculous.

Anyhow, in amongst the banshee dream sequences we also have a rather melodramatic story arc surrounding Isla and her troubled relationship with her daughter Shayla. The scenes of mother and daughter arguing, crying and just generally complaining are incredibly tedious and make the already rather laboured plot and 90 minute running time feel infinitely stretched. These scenes along with a lot of this film does indeed feel like filler; there are only a few characters so by having them die in dream sequences then die again for real it is essentially a way to get more death for your dollar. I guess that shows a little ingenuity from our filmmakers at least.

Having said all that, there are some redeeming qualities to this film, believe it or not. First off, the acting isn’t all that bad. Sure, the dialogue is clunky at times but the actors do their best with what they are given and the presence, albeit brief, of Lance Henriksen is a welcome addition. Although, he is almost unrecognisable as the bloated, toupee wearing mad banshee specialist Professor Broderick Duncan, who also appears for some unknown reason to have a penchant for wearing different coloured nail polish on each finger, seemingly as a further indication of his wackiness.

Another plus has got to be the creature effects. Whilst the film still suffers from some decidedly dodgy CGI squirty blood the banshee herself looks pretty good, all haggard and toothsome. I should mention that one of the posters doing the rounds makes this look like some kind of Red Riding Hood porn parody; this is incredibly misleading as we only see the banshee as a monstrous hag throughout the film.

Although this is far from the worst horror film I’ve seen this year it’s also pretty far from being the best too, which is hardly a glowing recommendation, but in an industry where a lot of horror films are churned out purely on the assumption that the fans will literally watch anything, it’s nice to see something that tries to be a little different. I think the idea of a banshee horror films is actually fairly promising, but there is no real exploration here of the myths and folklore surrounding the origins of the creature and no explanation whatsoever of, well, really anything that happens.