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By Ben Bussey

The sainted Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy in cinema is curious. Whilst his writings have long been hugely influential resulting in numerous screen adaptations, very few Poe movies adhere that closely to the text. This has been never more true (pun intended) than of the various movie versions of The Black Cat. Universal produced two pictures that bore the title in their horror heyday, the earlier proving the most enjoyable collaboration between Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff (who can forget Karloff’s “the phone is dead. Even the phone is dead!”), but neither that nor the later version with Basil Rathbone took much from Poe beyond the title. When Roger Corman tackled it in Tales of Terror he beefed the narrative up with bits liberally lifted from another Poe tale, The Cask of Amontilado; and when Dario Argento took it on in Two Evil Eyes he too incorporated elements of various other Poe stories, notably The Pit and the Pendulum, and brought it into the modern day with Harvey Keitel as a crime scene photographer.

Then we have these two takes on the Poe tale from two of the masters of Italian trash cinema: Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat (1981), and Sergio Martino’s Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) – which, just in case that title wasn’t magnificent enough for you, is alternatively known as Eye of the Black Cat, Excite Me!, and the title on the British version, Gently Before She Dies. Neither film bears much more than a passing resemblance to Poe’s story, but both modernise the key themes whilst tarting them up with much of the expected Italian excess.

To start with Fulici’s film (for no better reason than that’s the one I opted to watch first): as noted by Stephen Thrower in the extras, it’s a curious one for the legendary goremeister to have made at the time, coming straight after one of his best-loved films, 1980’s City of the Living Dead, and followed later that same year by another two of his most iconic movies, The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery (with the notorious New York Ripper coming in ’82 – say what you will about Fulci, but a dawdler he was not).  By comparison with those notoriously gruesome and outlandish affairs, The Black Cat is relatively sedate and low on bloodshed: it even omits some of the gorier details from Poe’s tale, feline eye-gouging notable by its absence. Still, even with the gore in comparatively short supply, Fulci’s signature weirdness still shines through, as he gives a vaguely supernatural spin on a fairly standard giallo format – only set in rural England. (So would that make it, erm, a yellow…?)

David Warbeck makes his Fulci debut pre-The Beyond as another rough-around-the-edges good guy, this time a Scotland Yard detective called out to a docile country village when a young couple mysteriously vanishes, whilst Mimsy Farmer takes the Catriona MacCall-esque role as a wide-eyed and open-minded woman – in this instance an American photographer – who ventures into mysterious territory. But the film is really dominated by two key characters: Patrick Magee’s eyebrows. Fulci loved his close-ups of eyes, and he really gets his fill of them with Magee, with the actor’s formidable strips of fur above really intensifying these moments. And, this being Fulci, intensity is key. Magee takes the role closest to that of the narrator of Poe’s tale as a crumbling old man whose only companion is – guess what – a black cat, with whom he shares an entirely mutual contempt. However, Magee is also a psychic, and comes to assist the police when their investigations prove fruitless – but then a simple case of disappearance proves to be a mysterious death, and not long thereafter more people meet untimely demises under strange circumstances.

Watching The Black Cat, I did find myself pondering whether Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg might have taken some inspiration from it on their West Country action comedy Hot Fuzz, as in many respects it’s a similar set-up: big city cop comes to sleepy village, people start dying in bizarre and hideous ‘accidents.’ And, as ever with Italian exploitation, there is much of comedy value here, intentional or not: the usual awkward dialogue, often contrived and unconvincing plot developments, and a notable absence of logic and reason (including a poltergeist sequence which – as Thrower also notes – Fulci admitted made no sense whatsoever, apparently shooting the scene at a producer’s behest). And while the gore is unusually minimal for Fulci, we do have a few overly drawn-out grisly moments, notably a harsh burning alive sequence marred only slightly by use of a rather obvious puppet.

But even so, that curious Fulci magic shines through, and it’s interesting to see that sensibility applied to an English setting and a comparatively grounded narrative. It’s very pleasing aesthetically, the lovely locations captured beautifully by Sergio Salvati’s camera, and a really gorgeous score from the great Pino Donaggio. And if you’re a cat person, the titular moggy is really cute too. Though I suspect that isn’t the desired effect. It perhaps undermines the overall effect when that which is intended as a figure of dread instead makes the viewer exclaim “nyaawww, diddums.”

And so, to Sergio Martino’s version of The Black Cat with its extravagantly overlong title. I must admit right away that I’m at a comparative disadvantage coming to Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key, as I’m considerably less well-versed in Martino’s work – his 1973 movie Torso is the only other one I’ve seen. But taken on its own as a Poe adaptation, I can tell you that Your Vice Is A Locked Room plays every bit as fast and loose with the story as Fulci’s version, but it’s way more 70s and European – first and foremost because it’s filled to the brim with sex.

Luigi Pistilli takes the lead in a role far closer to Poe’s troubled protagonist: a failed author and teacher who has descended into alcoholism, debauchery and cruelty, as we learn early on when he drunkenly humiliates his wife in front of a party of young hippies, and shortly thereafter sexually assaults his maid (who, as the characters never cease to remind us, is a ‘negress’) again in full view of the crowd. Not that his wife, portrayed by Anita Strindberg, is necessarily that much more sympathetic: though she clearly suffers at her husband’s hand, she too appears to have nothing but contempt for him, and even more contempt for his beloved pet, a – wait for it – black cat named – wait for it – Satan (and by contrast with the cat of Fulci’s film, this one really is quite a fearsome little bastard). It would seem the root of the couple’s problem is good old fashioned mummy issues, as Satan was the pet of the husband’s deceased mother, who it’s suggested he had a perhaps unnaturally close relationship with. And, as tends to work best for people with major issues, they deal with it all in the best possible way – by having it off lots and lots. But at the same time, a series of murders occur in which Pistilli would seem the most likely suspect. And all this before Edwige Fenech shows up about 30 minutes in as their long-lost niece all grown up.

Okay, apologies if I’m preaching to the choir here, but this is the first movie I’ve seen Edwige Fenech in (nope, I never even saw Hostel 2), and as I gather is only natural of heterosexual male viewers, my instant reaction to her appearance on screen is to momentarily lose all verbal faculty and damn myself for not having spent my entire life watching her films. I mean, I don’t want to slight the beauty of Anita Strindberg, but when Fenech shows up I pretty much forgot everything else that was going on. Holy guacamole, she is one striking woman, and as such you entirely believe that a drunken old lech would want to get with her despite being her own uncle – and that his wife would feel similarly, for that matter. Apologies if this all comes off a bit crass and sexist, but I don’t think it can really be disputed that a good part of the enduring appeal of the old giallo movies is their voyeuristic treatment of often hypnotically beautiful leading ladies, and Fenech is without doubt one of the most beautiful of them all. The fact that she spends a great deal of her screen time wearing little or nothing obviously doesn’t hurt.

But I digress. I think there was a film I was meant to be talking about, wasn’t there…? So yeah, Your Vice Is A Locked Room largely downplays the Black Cat elements in favour of abundant sex, murder and psychological warfare. Twists and unexpected reveals are plentiful, and as ever for giallo the locations are lovely and very well shot. Naturally this Blu-ray transfer looks tremendous, as of course is also true of the Fulci movie.

Extras are plentiful on both films, if a little on the academic side. On Fulci’s movie, Stephen Thrower offers some interesting insights into The Black Cat in a talking head piece on the film’s history, and a look at the film’s UK locations today; we also have a new interview with actress Dagmar Lassander, and an archive camcorder interview with the late David Warbeck from 1995 (marred by deteriorated sound and picture quality, but watchable nonetheless). There’s also a commentary from Chris Alexander. For Martino’s film the extras are a bit more of a mixed bag; the new interview with the director and a new retrospective featuring Fenech and writer Ernesto Gastaldi (Update: I was mistaken, the latter isn’t new, it’s from 2005) are very agreeable, but the ‘visual essay’ on Martino’s filmography from Michael Mackenzie and a similar Fenech retrospective from Justin Harries may be a more acquired taste. Also, as on Arrow’s recent Blu-ray of Nightmare City, we have another brief interview with Eli Roth discussing his love of the film, which is amiable enough if a little extraneous; I suppose it depends how much you value Eli Roth’s opinion.

All in all this box set may be more for the Italian horror completists than anyone else, but it’s a worthy purchase nonetheless, and an interesting reflection on the length and breadth of Poe’s influence. But if you want a really great telling of Poe’s actual story, the Diamanda Galás rendition from Closed On Account of Rabies is bloody magnificent.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats: Two Adaptations by Sergio Martino & Lucio Fulci is available now on dual format DVD and Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.

By Ben Bussey

My fellow horror fans, we have a firm contender for the best worst film of 2015. Just in case we need to make the distinction, I don’t mean to say Some Kind of Hate is a flat-out bad movie; those are the ones that tend to just leave you utterly cold and numb, do nothing you haven’t seen innumerable times already, and have you checking your watch every 30 seconds praying it’s been half an hour. They’re films that leave you struggling to find anything worth saying about them afterwards, and we see way too many of those around these parts as it is. But a truly great bad movie – in the tradition of Plan 9 From Outer Space, Troll 2, Birdemic and (so I’m told as I’ve never actually seen it) The Room – those are not films that have been lazily, cynically thrown together by filmmakers with no real interest in their work. The great bad movies are the work of people who really care, really want to make a mark and really have something to say. More often than not there are the seeds of a good idea there, and certainly concerted efforts are made to create something unique that truly stands apart from the crowd – it’s just that the end result winds up standing apart for all the wrong reasons.

I’m not sure any film this year has wrong-footed me the way Some Kind Of Hate has. For the first 30 minutes or so, I was genuinely gripped and impressed. We’re introduced to a troubled, introverted goth loner teen from a broken home, constantly set upon by others, struggling to stand up for himself in the face of persistent mockery and persecution. Finally he snaps, strikes back at a preppy bully – and winds up being held at fault by the authorities whilst the bully, presumably, faces no repercussions. This is an ugly scenario which sadly rings true to real life; a friend of mine at high school went through much the same thing, and that combination of the school’s ignorance and the baseless spite of the bullies leaves a mark that can still sting even twenty years later (and we didn’t even have to worry about the internet back then). High profile anti-bullying campaigns of late have brought the subject very much onto the global stage, and as such Some Kind Of Hate initially seems like a very timely and potent piece of filmmaking with a strong message for this generation’s youth. And I do stress initially…

After striking back at his bully, our young protagonist Lincoln (Ronen Rubinstein) winds up at Mind’s Eye Academy, a reform school out in the wilderness which seems somewhat unorthdox to English eyes but I can only assume is de rigueur in California; there’s an emphasis on meditation, yoga and talking about feelings. Not that there’s any indication that this approach works for the latest crop of inmates, as when word gets out of the violence that got him there, Lincoln promptly finds himself targeted by bullies once again, and facing the dilemma of whether he should try to fight back, or just take the abuse. Up to this point, Some Kind of Hate isn’t making too many missteps; we may have some rather stock characters in Lincoln’s conveniently harmless roommate Isaac (Spencer Breslin) and two-dimensional dreamgirl Kaitlin (Grace Phipps), and we might wonder why a kid with an iron cross tattoo on his neck is playing beta to black bully Willie (Maestro Harrell), but still, the film paints a tense, even harrowing portrait of how it feels to be bullied.

But then, the horror movie conventions kick in. Characters become conveniently isolated, left doing jobs in quiet areas by themselves, there are the standard little noises in the background, the “who’s there?” moments – and then the murders start happening. Next thing you know, Lincoln’s seeing a ghost – and we soon come to learn that this is the ghost of a girl named Moira (Sierra McCormick), who was also the victim of cruel, relentless bullying at the academy some years past. The harsh, comparative realism of the early scenes now takes a back seat to fairly standard modern ghost story tropes, replete with those always-dull scenes of characters doing historical research to uncover some horrible secret. It’s all a bit dull, and by this point Some Kind of Hate starts to feel a let down.

However, by the time the final act kicks in, the tone has shifted even further. We’ve gone from hard-edged naturalism, to modern horror cliche, to… well… absolute batshit insanity. Actually, ‘insane’ might not be the best descriptor. This isn’t a word I’m generally that comfortable using, but by the last thirty minutes or so, Some Kind of Hate is well and truly stupid. The action amps up into arch melodrama, with a succession of sequences surely intended to be terrifying, paying off for the tension of earlier scenes, but which instead wind up laugh-out-loud hilarious. We’ve got horrendously overwritten dialogue delivered in a histrionic fashion and absurd plot twists aplenty: declarations of love bursting out unconvincingly at totally inappropriate moments; a villain who really needs to learn when to stop with the screaming, the crying and the impassioned monologues.

Most glaring of all, our supernatural antagonist has perhaps the silliest way of killing her victims imaginable. I suppose I should label this a SPOILER, but… ever see that episode of Red Dwarf when they wind up on a prison space station which immediately reverses the effect of any crime, so if you hit someone you only wind up hitting yourself? Well, that’s essentially how it is for Moira – harm she does to herself simultaneously effects other people. However, where Red Dwarf of course played that idea for quite natural laughs, Some Kind of Hate seems to think they can play it for bona fide scares. Perhaps it made sense on paper; Moira cuts herself, and those cuts then appear on her intended victim, making a statement on self-harm or whatever. But in practice, it just gets ridiculous. I mean, there’s an actual scene in here when, in order to finish off her victim, Moira repeatedly bashes her own head against a wall… and at no point did anyone involved in the production of this film think to make like Graham Chapman and say, “stop that! It’s silly!”

As is surely apparent by now, I can’t exactly concur with the Fangoria quote on the official artwork above declaring Some Kind of Hate to be ‘the next contemporary horror classic.’ This is a deeply, nay fatally flawed film, which is on the one hand a terrible disappointment given the promise of the first act – but, on the other hand, does warrant a sort-of recommendation, because it does end up hugely entertaining, just probably not in the way its makers intended. And to my mind, winding up so-bad-it’s-almost-good is a hell of a lot better than just winding up boring as shit like so many other low budget indie horror movies. This is a film filled with good intentions, with hints of a worthwhile message, but the main impression it’s bound to leave you with is that the filmmakers responsible need to take a good long look at themselves before they think about getting behind the camera again.

Some Kind of Hate will be available for VOD and download via FrightFest Presents from 19th October.

By Tristan Bishop

I think it’s fair to say that Crimson Peak is one of the most eagerly awaited horror films this year – Guillermo Del Toro’s first venture into darker territory since 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth was bound to get people excited. Those of us who were left dismayed by the cancellation of his HP Lovecraft adaptation (not to mention his Silent Hills videogame project) now finally had something to look forward to. And then that trailer hit – it looked stunning and scary, a throwback to Hammer horror, but with no expense seemingly spared. A few days ago, however, Del Toro tweeted “One last time before release. Crimson Peak: not a horror film. A Gothic Romance. Creepy, tense, but full of emotion”. A number of us horror fans were slightly miffed by his choice of words, echoing the cultural snobbery that has plagued our genre for hundreds of years. There’s not space here to list the directors who have tried to distance themselves from the term ‘horror’, but the reaction of ‘oh, I don’t make horror films! I make fairy tales/terror films/thrillers’ is one we’ve all come across countless times – often from directors who have made great horror films. So was Del Toro right? Well, partially.

Gothic romance is actually a very good way to describe the plot of Crimson Peak – which pretty much spells out all its aims early on. The excellent Mia Wasikowska takes the lead role as Edith Cushing, a young woman who is trying to get her stories published. However she is constantly turned down as publishers see her stories as ghost stories – a genre not considered fitting for a lady. She disagrees of course, claiming that ‘the ghosts are just metaphors for the past’ – and during one exchange, claims she would rather be Mary Shelley than Jane Austen. Del Toro is spelling out the films DNA for us here – Hammer, Shelley & Austen – add the visual style of Mario Bava (with the volume turned up to 11) and take a huge dollop of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and here we are!

Of course, any gothic romance needs a gothic romantic interest – so enter everyone’s favourite Marvel villain, Tom Hiddleston as Sir Thomas Sharpe, who is trying to secure funding from Cushing’s rich father (Jim Beaver) in order to build a mining device to extract ‘scarlet clay’ from his British mine. Sharpe, along with his mysterious sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) seem to plot amongst themselves to have Edith fall for Sharpe, and, despite her father’s best efforts (he has a hunch that the Sharpes are not to be trusted), she does. Daddy Cushing soon befalls a mysterious death – his head is repeatedly smashed against a wash basin by an unseen figure, which apparently is taken to be an accident, and Edith and Thomas are soon married, and the film shifts to England, as Thomas takes her back to his home in Cumberland (which actually was once a county – it’s now part of Cumbria, fact fans), and the remote, sprawling but run-down mansion of Allerdale – a place where the roof has caved in, black moths flitter through the corridors, whole sections of the house are off limits, and red clay ooze seeps up through the floorboards in a ridiculous (but admittedly powerful) visual metaphor.

Of course daddy’s father’s hunch was right, and the Sharpes are up to no good – If you have even a vague knowledge of gothic horror you’ll spot most of the plot reveals pretty early on, but that’s not really the point here. As with the 60’s Italian gothics in which Barbara Steele would inevitably play two roles, it’s all about the sumptuous visuals and elegance, and Crimson Peak pretty much constantly delivers on this front. No lie – this is probably one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Cinematography, set design and costumes work together to create an eye-searing marvel – indeed, the foyer of Allerdale will no doubt be seen as a classic location in years to come, and those with a penchant for costume drama will be drooling over Edith’s dresses. Equally drool-inducing are the leads. Hiddleston is perfectly cast here; although Cushing is the name of Wasikowska’s character, it’s Hiddleston who appears, with his upper-class elegance and razor sharp cheekbones to be taking the mantle from the great Hammer namesake. Wasikowska (who is pretty much great in anything) plays strong yet innocent to perfection, and Chastain nearly walks away with the film as what amounts to a sexier version of Mrs Danvers.

Genre buffs will have some fun spotting references too, from the literary allusions to several visual nods to Bava and his ilk (black gloves, red balls, a real red-herring straight razor), yet the film will be accessible to those who have never really dabbled in the gothic before – In fact, the less you know of the tropes, the more effective the film will be.

The one sour point for me was the use of the ghosts in the film. As beautifully designed and animated as they are, they feel secondary to the main plot; in fact, aside from one unforgivably silly moment at the climax, Edith’s early assertion about metaphor rings true here – she is the only character who sees the supernatural creatures, after all. Personally I found that these moments weren’t necessary and made the tone uneven, even overly sentimental at times. Without the ghosts, Del Toro’s insistence that the film is not a horror film would be spot on, so it’s a shame that he felt the need to include them at all.

This niggle aside, there is an awful lot to enjoy with Crimson Peak – and it’s great to see such an old-fashioned story given the Hollywood big-screen treatment. Indeed one hopes this might be the mega-hit that Del Toro has been searching for so he can finally get some of his pet projects off the ground – it certainly has popular appeal and, frankly, purely as eye-candy it’s a phenomenal prospect. Just make sure you catch it on the biggest screen possible.

Crimson Peak is in cinemas from Friday 16th October.

By Ben Bussey

Getting a bunch of pretty young people, dropping them in a single location and killing them off one by one has long been the standard for low-budget horror. Should you so happen to make that single location somewhere interesting and unusual, and make the deaths similarly distinctive, then you just might be on to a winner. We could literally spend hours reeling off the number of movies which hinge on that same essential format, but watching new horror movie The Sand I’m most reminded (and I doubt I’m alone in this) of The Raft, perhaps the most memorable story from anthology movie Creepshow 2, in which a bunch of teens find themselves trapped on a narrow raft in the middle of a lake when a tar-like amorphous mass with a taste for human flesh surfaces in the water. The Sand plays out along much the same lines at feature length, but this time they’re on a beach the morning after a riotous party, spread between a lifeguard station, a parked car and, for one unfortunate sod, stuck in a metal barrel. Coming to boasting killer hangovers, one of their number – a cute topless girl (tick your first box) – staggers down to the sand from her sleeping position on a bench, and promptly finds herself unable to move. A macho dude rushes off to help, lands face down – and also cannot move. Moments later, they’re both torn to pieces and pulled down into the sand by some unseen monster beneath the surface. And so our survivors must try to figure out a way to get to safety without ever touching the ground (echoes of Tremors).

Going in, The Sand feels very much like one of those movies which can go either way. Opening found footage style with snippets of cameraphone footage from the night before’s beach party – before, rather unconvincingly, all and sundry agree to put their phones in a bag, which come the morning will be left conveniently out of reach (really, has any modern technological advance proved a greater thorn in the side of horror movies than mobile communication?) – the stage initially seems set for a trashy, beer-swilling, bikini-clad spectacle in a Piranha 3D style. However, once things progress it becomes clear that director Isaac Gabaeff and writers Alex Greenfield and Ben Powell are less interested in presenting a horrific critique on Spring Break culture than exploring a classic monster movie survivalist set-up. The results, while far from earth-shattering, are for the most part reasonably entertaining, even if they do feel a bit thinly stretched for a full-length 85 minute movie.

A big plus point is the creature itself. It’s sort of shame (though understandable) that the poster art gives away the monster’s ultimate appearance in the final scenes, as it’s built up in a very interesting way. Happily, this film dispenses with the obligatory science nerd character who gets to explain everything away; instead, our protagonists are all equally clueless, and come to figure out the unseen enemy’s MO through observation and (for the less fortunate ones) personal experience. The manner in which it kills is both agreeably gruesome and imaginative, and although there’s the now sadly commonplace over-reliance on CGI where practical FX could have done the job, the gore gags are still pretty well done; likewise, the CG creature FX occasionally give away what a low budget production this must have been, but once those Lovecraftian tentacles come bursting out in the moonlit climax, it all looks pretty impressive.

The cast, however, isn’t quite so endearing, and this is an issue given that, for the most part, this is a movie centred on people sitting in one place talking. Brooke Butler was a good choice for the immediately obvious final girl, and I suppose it’s testament to her acting ability that I didn’t recognise her from her diametrically opposite role in All Cheerleaders Die, despite the fact that, as in that earlier film, she spends pretty much the duration wearing tiny shorts and an even tinier top. Beyond her, however, the picture-perfect pretty ensemble is largely unlikeable and unrelatable, and particular sympathy has to be given to Cleo Berry who gets laboured both with both the stereotypical black guy and fat guy jokes as the one of their number stuck in a barrel. However, these performances all come off as masterful by comparison with the painfully misjudged cameo from Scream’s Jamie Kennedy, which belongs in a totally different film (which would also be totally unfunny).

Still, all things considered The Sand is a perfectly passable evening’s entertainment. It’s got some good gore, a cool monster, and lots of pretty people sitting around in swimwear, so you can’t really go too far wrong. Whether you’ll remember anything about it two days later or ever have any desire to revisit it is another matter.

The Sand is one of the first titles being released to VOD in the UK via the new FrightFest Presents platform, from 19th October.

By Tristan Bishop

The Slashening cost $6,000 to make. It’s a horror comedy ‘tribute to Halloween, Black Christmas and Slumber Party Massacre’. It’s distributed by Troma. It’s called The Slashening. The signs aren’t great, really, are they?

I may have said it before, but I don’t enjoy writing damning reviews of low budget films that people have obviously worked hard (and probably for free) on. I respect anyone who manages to complete a feature film, and I’m of the opinion that films (like all people) should be given a chance. That said, the only thing I enjoy less than writing damning reviews of low budget films is watching terrible horror comedies. So you can imagine the quandary in which I find myself.

To be fair, The Slashening had my attention to start with, opening with a sleazy middle-aged couple attempting to seduce a 16-year old pool boy into a threesome, followed by all three of them being killed by an unseen slasher, but this is followed by a scene with two girls singing along to various parodies of popular songs which set the tone for the following 75 minutes: it’s not funny, and it goes on for way too long. I’m referring to the scene explicitly here, but the same criticism can be levelled at the entire film. The plot is basically no different from the films it is paying tribute to – masked killer terrorises house full of girls having a party (or ‘get-together’ as the girls keep correcting people – this is pretty much the standard of the running gags on offer here), so I’m not going to give it too much attention; after all, the film-makers certainly didn’t. What we’re given is basically a parody of the genre, much like the first Scary Movie film, but less witty (I know, right), and without any of the outrageous sight gags that at least made that particular mess worth one viewing.

But I feel at this point in the review that I’m being too negative – I always say that I can enjoy elements of pretty much any film I sit through and so….well, the actors look like normal people. I liked that. Freed from the constraints of the studio system they are unhindered by industry pressure to conform to the ‘TV pretty’ level of attractiveness that you might expect. Sadly that also extends to the performances; although far from the worst I have ever seen, this is strictly amateur-dramatics stuff – which, when you consider the budget of the film, is exactly what this is, so maybe that’s not too much of a nasty criticism after all.

And now – to the bad points. The humour (which this film must ultimately be judged upon) is repetitive and predictable at best, and cringeworthy at worst, with a heavy emphasis on sex jokes and naughty words that won’t impressive anyone over 19 years old that doesn’t live in their mother’s basement and eat cold spaghetti out of the can. Of course, one could argue that particular demographic is where most slasher films are aiming, but this one falls well short of their requirements by an almost total absence of gore and nudity. The lack of the latter is at least addressed in some way by sequences where we ~almost~ see the girls undress, and, later, share a kiss, but these gags just end up underlining what is lacking here. As for the violence, it’s pretty much all off-screen, until the last ten minutes when we finally get a few gloopy sequences, but by this time the hardcore gorehounds will have shrugged and popped their eighties classics back into the DVD player.

In all fairness to The Slashening, it has a harder job than most films by dint of being a comedy – Bad comedies tend to be the worst type of bad films. At least with a bad horror film, or thriller, one can laugh at the shoddiness onscreen, but it’s very hard to laugh AT a film which is trying desperately hard to make you laugh WITH it – it just ends up being embarrassing.

Just to underline the extent of which I enjoyed The Slashening I will leave you with a quote from my review notes. At approximately 65 minutes into the film I have written ‘MY GOD WHY IS THIS NOT OVER YET’. One for the poster quote, Troma?

The Slashening is out now for VOD and download in the US, via Troma.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

There’s quite a wave of a horror filmmaking that seems to be happening in South America at the moment. Festival initiatives such as Blood Window are bringing more and more of these films to the fore. Children of the Night (formerly ‘Limbo’) is an example of this wave, coming from Argentinian director Iván Noel, who, following a cursory glance at IMDb, has some experience in directing features and particularly ones with prominent roles for children.

A journalist receives a letter asking her to visit and investigate a recent spate of deaths at a home for orphan children called Limbo. Once there, she realises all is not as it seems and finds herself fighting to protect these strange children, and their formidable matron, from a violent group determined to destroy them. If it’s not quite obvious enough from the title, this is a vampire film. It’s a film which likes to incessantly remind the viewer from the outset that this is a vampire film, via ham-fisted hints in the dialogue, such as mentions of Peter Pan and the fact that our heroine was put up for adoption as a child because she’s a haemophiliac. The result of this is that its lengthy opening sequences are relatively free of tension, as it’s half an hour into the film that the narrative itself ‘reveals’ the vampiric nature of the children in Limbo. That’s a long time to spend on something that’s obvious from the outset.

This is a shame, because there’s a nice idea at the core of this film. Unfortunately, that idea is over-shadowed by inconsistent pacing and tone, which ultimately makes the film a bit of a drag to watch, for the most part. If anything, the film suffers a bit from having a few too many good ideas battling against each other. It certainly doesn’t help that the film boasts some ropey acting and editing. It gives the impression of a half-baked film, nothing quite fully falling into place.

That being said, there is a lot to admire in the film. I’ve already alluded to the fact that there are interesting ideas here, and as such the film is at least a bit original. Watching a half-baked good idea is at least a bit preferable to watching the same old shit again. This is at least an attempt to do something different with established vampire mythology. The Dracula links are heavy-handed, but the best child performance comes from the striking-looking Lauro Veron as the Count’s descendant. The best thing about the film, for me, is Ana Maria-Giunta (who sadly passed away earlier this year) as Erda, the adult who takes care of the children at Limbo. Her performance is the strongest in the film, and her presence seems to counter-balance some of the more heavy-handed moments. There are some striking sequences, too, such as when the group of the child-vampires pursue and destroy two vampire hunters in retaliation for two deaths. The film’s climax, when a day-time attack by vampire hunters is interrupted by an eclipse, is really worth sticking the film out for.

All in all then, Children of the Night is something of a breath of fresh air, but it could really have benefitted from a tighter script and much improved editing. We’re given bones but only some of the meat, which is a shame. I can only presume that the film was made on a very low budget (IMDb seems to think it was made for $3 million, but I find that extremely surprising) and it’s evident that Noel takes on a lot of the work himself. There’s certainly potential here, and I think I’d love to see more from Noel, but perhaps working with a larger team of collaborators (especially a story and script editor). Children of the Night is worth checking out if you’re curious about a new take on traditional vampire mythology, but be prepared for some rather rough edges.

Children of the Night is out now on DVD , Blu-ray and VOD in the US, via Artsploitation Films.

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT | Official Trailer | Artsploitation Films from artsploitation on Vimeo.

By Ben Bussey

We all know very well how frustrating it is to see new movies endlessly recycling the same basic concepts with little to no variety. However, there’s a particularly potent brand of frustration that emerges when a new movie comes along with a comparatively fresh and inventive premise, but then fails to fully do it justice. So it is with The Final Girls, a glossy comedy horror which is impressive in its ambition, and effectively executed in parts, but ultimately bites off way more than it can chew.

In a nutshell, it’s The Last Action Hero (or, if you’re less of a populist, The Purple Rose of Cairo) as a slasher movie. Our main protagonist Max (Taissa Farmiga) is the daughter of struggling actress Amanda (Malin Akerman), whose only success story after decades in the business is her breakthrough movie Camp Bloodbath, a cult 80s slasher bearing considerably more than a passing resemblance to the Friday the 13th series. Sadly, this is to remain Amanda’s prevailing legacy, as the opening scene sees her killed in a horrendous car crash (which, somewhat inexplicably, leaves passenger Max completely unscathed).

Skipping ahead to three years later, the now college age Max is still struggling to move on with her life when, under duress, she accepts an invitation to an anniversary screening of Camp Bloodbath at a local independent cinema. Seated with her best friend (Alia Shawkat), their best frenemy (Nina Dobrev), her best friend’s movie nerd brother (Thomas Middleditch) and her potential future boyfriend (Alexander Ludwig), Max suffers through the bad acting and unconvincing plot developments as long as she can – but just as she gets up to leave, the cinema bursts into flames. With all the exits seemingly blocked off, Max and co try to escape by literally cutting their way through the screen – and, in a puff of movie magic, promptly find themselves living Camp Bloodbath for real.

Sounds like the stage is set for a Scream-esque comedy horror bulging with knowing jokes and references – and, dependent on your point of view, that’s either a great thing or a living nightmare. I lean more toward the former, but can empathise with those who’d say it’s the latter. All in all, the humour of The Final Girls doesn’t get too smug; the film doesn’t feel the need to beat us over the head with slasher deconstruction the way dear departed Wes Craven’s 1996 hit and its many imitators did, and instead credits the audience with having a decent working knowledge of the genre’s conventions. Plenty of the gags work well enough; none, however, are exactly laugh out loud funny.

There’s a pretty significant problem with the tone and content which, in this instance, can be attributed to one frankly baffling decision: why the hell did anyone think it would be a good idea to make The Final Girls a PG-13? Just so there’s no misunderstanding here, I am not diametrically opposed to PG-13 horror as a rule the way some particularly willful fans tend to be; there are plenty of subgenres within horror that work perfectly without the need for R-rated content. However, a slasher movie – even a parody of one – is not one of those subgenres. There needs to be gore; there needs to be more than a single F-bomb. Nudity isn’t necessarily a cast iron prerequisite – my personal favourite slasher, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, is notably devoid of boobies – but if you’re going to make it a key plot point that a character must perform a striptease in order to lure the killer, you really need to have room for those money shots. (Given it’s been bumped up to a 15 here in the UK, I suspect many viewers will be left feeling a bit short-changed.)

But an even bigger tonal issue is the at times very awkward balance between comedy and tragedy. The real heart of the film is the reunion of Max and her mother in the form of Camp Bloodbath character Amanda, who is of course utterly unaware of being a real person or having a daughter. This in part brings echoes of Back To The Future, with Max attempting to play along but inadvertently taking on a reversed parental role, but there’s a particularly raw edge here given the real world loss of Max’s mother – and the fact that, within the story world of Camp Bloodbath, Amanda is intended to die. This does lead to some very bold and powerfully emotional sequences, almost on a par with the more tragic moments in Shaun of the Dead (and I doubt I’ll ever hear Bette Davis Eyes quite the same way again) – but this time around, these scenes sit rather uncomfortably amongst the overly broad, often somewhat ham-fisted jokes. It doesn’t help that the film frequently seems to think it’s much funnier than it actually is: I’m thinking of Adam DeVine’s motor-mouthed jock and Angela Trimbur’s nympho exhibitionist in particular.

On top of which, The Final Girls tries and fails to give its supporting characters anything interesting to do, with an excess of subplots which are underdeveloped and ultimately go nowhere. In attempting to squeeze in comedy, drama, YA issues, to both homage and lampoon 80s slashers, and to dish it all up with a perhaps excessively flashy, computer-assisted visual style, director Todd Strauss-Schulson’s film is trying to squeeze way too much in, and despite flashes of brilliance we’re ultimately left with something that simply doesn’t gel. And it’s a crying shame, because with a little judicious reworking – and for the love of god, an R rating – we might very well have had a modern classic on our hands.

The Final Girls is out on DVD and Digital HD in the UK on 12th October, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. US readers can catch it in limited theatres and on VOD on October 9th from Stage 6 Films with Vertical Entertainment.