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By Svetlana Fedotov

You ever feel like someone is out to get you? Like someone or something is purposely hounding you, intent on making every day of your life just a tiny bit more miserable than the last? If so, then you’re either batshit insane or completely on point, and luckily (or unluckily) for the lead character Guy in Negative Space, it’s the latter. A comic exploring suicide and depression from the viewpoint of a company intent on harvesting the negative emotions for nefarious purposes, it mixes Cabin in the Woods aesthetics with the wispy, indie art of a person who has spent too much time looking inwards. A solid, if not a bit bizarre, work, Negative Space keeps strong with original art and a twist ending, but leaves the reader wandering how much is story and how much is idea.

As stated, the comic follows the lead, Guy, a dumpy, depressed writer who, mid-way through writing his suicide letter, gets writer’s block. Deciding to clear his head before following through with his plans, the comic flashes between him walking around and monologueing, and a secret headquarters that watches his every move, waiting for him to die. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t seem to do the deed, so the company is forced to play the world around him, making his day just a little worse and eventually culminating with his house being blown up. Still unshaken, it’s not until his regular coffee guy is kidnapped does he finally notice that there’s something weird going on and following his tracks, ends up somewhere deep on the edge of sanity.

Alright, here’s what I liked about the comic. I adored the character design of Guy. He’s literally an ugly, dumpy little man who is depressed which, let’s admit it, is surprisingly rare. ‘Ugly’ and ‘lead character’ don’t go hand in hand with comics and even the characters that are alcoholic or depressed or just plain shitty (*ahem* Green Arrow) still sport a perfect six-pack and a beautifully coifed hair like they just stepped off a Supernatural audition. It’s not really relatable, which makes Guy a much stronger character. His permanent frown and matching paunch make a perfect combination for someone who I actually have some sympathy for. Honestly, I just dig the art in general. Though Ryan K. Lindsay is known more for indie and self-published work, this might really be the kick his career needs to go big. Beautifully detailed and delicately colored, he’s great at making individual characters and playing with the nuances of facial expression. It’s pretty damn cool.

While, I dig the concept of Negative Space, I can’t tell if I’m in love with the story or the idea. I think the idea of a company following your every move for the most wicked of reasons and adding a horror twist that I won’t ruin for you, is pretty rad. Also, starting the work on Guy getting writers block on his suicide note is hilarious. But the story itself is a bit blah. Maybe its Guys monologueing on and on about how down and out he is while he slugs through life or the over-confident character architecture of the people on top, but the characters just seem a little flat. It’s a bit of a plug and play; set up the scene and tape in the persona. But perhaps I’m being too hard; it is only the first issue. Maybe it’s one of those things where the character matures and grows with each issue and there is a bucket load exposition that will even everyone out, but it’s not in the first issue. Stick around for what happens after the end though; I mean, what’s up with that?

Given that Italian exploitation cinema of the 70s and 80s is among the oddest in the world, it seems quite the feat to find an Italian movie of that era which is a bit odd even by the nation’s standards. The principle claim to fame of Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination in the UK is the fact that it made the Video Nasties longlist back in 1984, giving British actor Ian McCulloch the rare distinction of a nasties hat-trick, with Zombie Flesh-Eaters and Zombi Holocaust (itself set for a Blu-ray release shortly from 88 Films) also getting banned. Still, if there is such a thing as a typical video nasty, Contamination certainly isn’t it.

In theory it’s one of your standard spaghetti knock-offs; much as how the Zombie movies clearly riffed on Romero, and the likes of the Bronx Warriors movies borrowed liberally from Mad Max, The Warriors and Escape from New York, Contamination is pitched as a similar take on Alien. And yet, given it’s set on Earth, opening in New York before moving the action to South America, with a ragtag bunch of mismatched truth-seekers trying to unravel some bizarre mystery, it feels in many respects like a direct retread of Zombie Flesh Eaters. While there’s barely an original idea in it, and the story gives the impression they were just making it up as they went along, somehow its haphazard approach results in something which feels unlike any other movie. If you like them strange and silly, Contamination is most definitely one you don’t want to miss.

Opening with a seemingly unmanned ship drifting into the harbour of New York (told you it was like Zombie Flesh Eaters), it transpires this particular boat carries not a bloodthirsty ghoul but a slew of large, slimy green eggs. Just what these things are or where they have come from is unknown, but they have this habit of glowing, throbbing and emanating a weird whale-song type music when they’re about to hatch. And when they do hatch, the stuff that sprays out has the curious effect of making people’s stomachs explode (there’s one of your key nods to Alien; but whereas Ridley Scott only gave John Hurt that treatment, Cozzi dishes it out left right and centre).

New York cop Marino Masé witnesses the first gruesome gut-busting scene, and finds himself locked up in a high tech (sort of) secret science lab, where military scientist Louise Marleau suspects a link between these mysterious eggs and a recent manned mission to Mars, based on the hysterical testimony of Ian McCulloch’s traumatised astronaut who claimed to have witnessed such eggs on the red planet’s polar ice cap. Somehow deemed the most suitable people to stage an investigation into the bizarre phenomenon, the trio trace the eggs back to their point of (earthly) origin at a Colombian coffee plant – where they discover a bit more than they bargained for. Gunfights, cheesy dialogue, an old school alien monster and yet more exploding chests ensue, all set to a groovy Goblin soundtrack.

Prior to last November, I was largely unaware of Contamination, before I had the good fortune of seeing it on the big screen at Abertoir Horror Festival 2014, with Cozzi and McCulloch in attendance. It’s nice to see that the post screening Q&A with director and actor has been included on this Blu-ray, detailing behind the scenes stories almost as compelling and bizarre as the film itself – including the fact that the production was at least partially funded by drug traffickers, and that the crew may have brought back more than just the camera and lighting equipment from Colombia. Cozzi himself comes off as a very amiable chap, and he certainly isn’t under any illusions about the type of movie he made in Contamination – though it isn’t necessarily as ridiculous as his more family-friendly cult favourites Starcrash and Hercules. The Blu-ray also includes a vintage Italian TV featurette on the making of the film, a more recent interview with the director, a brief academic featurette on the Italian rip-off market (not that that’s quite how they describe it), and a fan commentary from Fangoria’s Chris Alexander.

In short – to repeat perhaps the most commonly used phrase in BAH history, it’s another great package from Arrow Video. If you’re already a fan of Contamination, you shouldn’t need any further persausion to track this down; if you’re not already a fan of Contamination, you might find yourself becoming one sooner than you’d think.

Contamination is out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

By Ben Bussey

I realise it’s bad form to start off a review with a stab at someone else’s, however… as well acquainted as we are with absurd, over-enthusiastic DVD cover quotes which invariably promise far more than the film itself ultimately has to offer, the choice of cover quote for Adam Green’s latest movie Digging Up The Marrow really does take the biscuit. Rather than declaring it the scariest and/or best film its kind since forever, as we’re well accustomed to being told, this particular quote – from the rather notable source of Ain’t It Cool News’s Harry Knowles – tells us that Digging Up The Marrow will “change the way you view the world.” Now, despite spending some time searching I’ve been unable to locate the source of this quote at the time of writing, so as I’m unaware of the context in which it was said I can’t really give a full assessment of that statement. But even so, as a pull-quote – wow. There’s hyperbole and then there’s hyperbole. I’m not quite sure what one’s angle on the world would have to have been in the first place for this film to significantly impact that vision. The only way Digging Up The Marrow has impacted my worldview is by bringing me to believe that Adam Green is even more self-satisfied than I took him to be beforehand.

Because I don’t want to assume that everyone is well aware of Adam Green and his body of work (an assumption the man himself seems quite comfortable making), here’s a brief primer: writer, director and producer Green came to prominence seemingly out of nowhere in the mid-2000s with Hatchet, an indie throwback to 80s slashers heavily promoted on social media as an antidote to the deluge of watered-down 70s remakes and Asian remakes that seemed to dominate the genre at the time. The film itself was fine as basic slashers go, if a little heavy on fan service with its numerous horror icon cameos and in-jokes. However, through the likes of the Hatchet sequels, anthology movie Chillerama and I gather in his sitcom Holliston (in which he plays himself)*, fan service and in-jokery has pretty much become Green’s stock-in-trade since. Whilst he clearly has some ambition to make a mark as a filmmaker, he seems a little too preoccupied with creating a mythology around himself as a key figure in contemporary horror fandom.

What makes Digging Up The Marrow such a disappointment is that it takes a genuinely interesting premise, but squanders it by keeping the focus squarely on building the legend of Adam Green. As a result, what might have been a hugely entertaining creature feature, of a kind we don’t see many of in contemporary indie horror, winds up instead a tedious exercise in flagrant narcissism.

As with Holliston, Green casts himself as himself in the lead, whilst esteemed screen veteran Ray Wise – who may get top billing, but most definitely plays second fiddle here – portrays William Dekker, a retired cop with a bizarre story to tell. Dekker says real monsters exist in a netherworld he calls the Marrow, and what’s more he says he knows how to get there, via an opening in the ground, by an old cemetery in the middle of a forest. Sceptical but intrigued, Green and his DP Will Barratt (also playing himself) agree to shoot a documentary about Dekker and explore his claims. Of course, it’s apparent immediately that Dekker is not playing with a full deck (pun absolutely intended), but even so there does seem to be something to his story. Pushing on despite the building tensions within the group, Green is determined to get to the bottom of things, and get some genuine hard evidence on camera that monsters really are among us.

Okay, credit where it’s due: with this premise, Digging Up The Marrow might easily have wound up yet another found footage horror, and it is commendable that Green resisted this, opting instead for a metatextual, pseudo-documentary format. As a horror fan and a sometime frequenter of festivals, the movie shows a world I recognise, and part of me is pleased to see that immortalised in this way. However, the film seems far more interested in showing us this world – and, sorry to sound like a broken record, Adam Green’s role in it – than it is in delving into the Marrow itself. The film is largely inspired by, and indeed takes its title from the artwork of Alex Pardee, who paints bizarre monsters and crafts a mythology around them; Wise’s Dekker is there to convey this mythology to us, from his years of experience watching the creatures and charting their history, culture and customs from a distance. Were the film to dive headfirst into this mythology, and make this the focal point, I for one would have found it considerably more interesting.

It occurred to me while watching Digging Up The Marrow that, back at FrightFest 2011, Adam Green hinted that he may have been approached to remake Troll Hunter** – a film with which Digging Up The Marrow most definitely shares a great deal of common ground. However, where Troll Hunter saw its initially dubious filmmakers throw their scepticism out the window once they saw the creatures with their own eyes, Digging Up The Marrow keeps its filmmakers sceptical – and its mysterious monster expert untrustworthy – even once it becomes clear that there is indeed some truth to his claims. This, combined with a slew of loose ends which are not tied up by the somewhat abrupt and anti-climactic finale, robs the film of any sense of wonder it might have had.

The main problem with Digging Up The Marrow – even putting to one side my hang ups about Green’s self-promotion – is that, despite the title, the potentially fascinating netherworld of the Marrow itself is barely dug into at all. The film feels to be about 95% people talking, with barely a handful scenes in which monsters come into play – and when they do at last emerge, it’s via obvious cheap jump scares. Green may aspire to do something better than found footage, but he doesn’t hesitate to fall back on the subgenre’s cliches. Worse yet, when the monsters are finally shown, they don’t all look that great; hell, a couple of them look like cast-offs from the Ghoulies movies. Even the ones that do look good we don’t get the chance to really appreciate, as they appear in fleeting, poorly lit, shakeycam shots (another found footage motif). Yet again, this is a crying shame, as Pardee’s artwork, which is shown in the film, could have resulted in some wonderfully unusual and cinematic creatures. I just don’t think this particular set-up, and this particular filmmaker, were the right choice to bring that vision to life.

Now, I will concede that it may be a little unfair of me to criticise Green for putting so much of himself into his movies, given that I myself frequently make a habit of working autobiographical aspects into my writing on film. I like to rabbit on at length about how being a lifelong horror fan informs my life – who am I to condemn Green for doing likewise in his work? Well, I would argue that there’s a time and a place. Criticism – editorials in particular, which are invariably based on personal perspective – is, to my mind, an acceptable arena for a writer to discuss such matters. Filmmakers, I think, are more than welcome to do so in interviews, behind the scenes videos, DVD commentary tracks. However, within the context of a feature film itself, unless you’re Orson Welles or Clint Eastwood (and very few are) I tend to think it’s more becoming of a filmmaker to avoid the spotlight. Even Tarantino got wise to this after Pulp Fiction. I trust Green comes to this understanding sooner rather than later, as in spite of his failings I do still think the makings of good filmmaker are in there somewhere. He just needs to learn to put the story first, and put his need for attention right to the back.

Digging Up The Marrow is out now on DVD from Kaleidoscope.

* I say ‘I gather’ as I’ve never actually seen Holliston, so obviously I don’t know how its tone and content compares with Digging Up The Marrow.

** I admit I could be mistaken about this – Green didn’t name the film he had been approached to remake, but did say it had played the festival that weekend (and Troll Hunter played that year). The matter came up in an on-stage discussion with a number of other US directors, which can be seen on the Revolver Blu-ray edition of The Woman.

It’s no surprise when a low-budget straight to DVD shark movie turns out to be complete and utter garbage, but there’s a particularly bitter sting in the case of Shark Killer. Contrary to the utterly generic ominous fin cover art chosen by distributor Image Entertainment, this was a movie that, on a conceptual level at least, tried to take a somewhat different approach to the cheapo shark flick subgenre; an old-fashioned boy’s-own adventure treasure hunt angle, as opposed to the half-baked Jaws retreads with absurdist twists we’re more accustomed to these days. On paper, the potential is there for something that stands apart, with genuine entertainment value; but, alas, through the old combination of lack of funds, lack of invention and almost certainly lack of anyone involved really giving a damn, Shark Killer winds up yet another instantly forgettable generic digital age B-movie, further sullying the waters that are already overloaded with so much chum.

Our titular slayer of Selachii* is a big buff dude with the suitably pulp hero name of Chase Walker (Derek Theler). No friend of animal rights activists, Walker is world renowned for his talent for getting rid of pesky sharks the old fashioned way: straight up killing them, more often than not with nothing more than a knife and his bare hands. Not bad for someone who apparently hates the ocean, despite the fact that he spends most of his time there. Fresh from completing his previous mission of doing away with such a sea critter in his native Hawaii, Chase gets summoned out to Cape Town at the behest of his estranged adoptive brother Jake (Paul du Toit), who it seems has become quite a successful career criminal since they saw each other last (as well as losing all trace of his accent, du Toit quite clearly being 100% Sarf African). While the tensions between the two obviously run deep, Jake needs Chase’s expertise on a very specific job: to hunt down a great white which happens to have swallowed a very big, very valuable diamond. With the assistance of Jake’s ultra-glamourous lawyer/advisor Jasmine (Erica Cerra) – who obviously finds Chase utterly contemptible at first, and argues with him a lot, all the while falling for his roguish charms – Chase sets out to track the Great White down, but soon enough finds out that Jake is not the only person who wants the diamond, as the shady, Bond villain-ish crime lord Nix (The Mummy’s Arnold Vosloo, filling the time-honoured position of comparatively big name actor they could afford to hire for maybe two days), is after it too.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable Romancing The Stone-type adventure, doesn’t it? And if they’d put any effort and/or money into the whole endeavour, it might have been. Alas, this is Asylum/Sy-Fy movie of the week level filmmaking, which immediately rules out any possibility of Shark Killer being of any value whatsoever. Time was, the cheap and crappy rip-off movies of this sort would have been the likes of Cannon’s King Solomon’s Mines and Hercules, or the recently reviewed Hawk the Slayer; movies which, while clearly working with limited resources and ripping off other, better films left right and centre, still managed to meet the correct quota of set pieces which conveyed a sense of the fantastic, to the extent that they’re still watchable even decades later. In the case of Shark Killer, however, it’s hard to imagine anyone giving a damn about the film even six months from now. It’s 95% people talking about going on an adventure to catch a shark, 5% actually showing it – and the limited number of ‘action’ scenes included have absolutely no sense of scale or excitement. And again, this being Asylum/Sy-Fy standard it’s clearly aimed at network TV, meaning they can’t even throw in a bit of gore, nudity and profanity to liven things up: it’s patently absurd that the BBFC have slapped this with a 15 certificate for ‘Strong Violence,’ whilst the considerably grislier (and better) 12A-rated Jurassic World is currently thrilling the undies off young whipper-snappers everywhere.

Again, it makes me sad to have to describe Shark Killer this way. I do love a good old fashioned adventure, and last year’s underrated Day of the Mummy demonstrated that it is possible for microbudget horror to successfully venture in that direction. Shark Killer might have managed this if they’d put a bit more work in; instead, it’s just another lazy, supermarket bottom shelf filler set to be instantly forgotten. Writer Richard Beattie, co-writer and director Sheldon Wilson: you may have your hearts in the right place, but guys – you’re gonna need a bigger vision.

* Thank you Wikipedia – fingers crossed I’m using the term correctly.

Already available on VOD & download in the US, Shark Killer is out on DVD in the UK on 20th July, from Image Entertainment.

British contributions to the sword and sorcery genre are surprisingly few and far between. The Americans and Italians churned them out like butter, but the UK was a rather less active participant. It’s not too hard to see why; the genre came to prominence after John Milius struck gold (or perhaps ‘forged steel’ would be a more apt analogy) with Conan the Barbarian in 1982, and in the 80s the British film industry was at its knees and hard-pressed to produce practically anything. However, it should be noted that it was two years before Arnold Schwarzenegger first pondered the riddle of steel that British director Terry Marcel would bring to the screen a tale of swordsmen, sorcerers, giants, elves, dwarves and – er – beleaguered nuns, centred on a bitter blood feud between estranged brothers, one of whom wields his mighty sword in the name of truth and justice, whilst the other seeks to conquer the world with tyrannical cruelty.

Sounds epic, right? Well, just remember one thing – this was a British film made in 1980. Even Hammer were out of the game by this point, so there really wasn’t much money going around. The opening scene, taking place within a golden chamber whose walls look suspiciously like spray-painted tinfoil, really sets the tone for what’s to come: 90 minutes of cheap and cheerful fun, although with a surprisingly mean streak for a film which still carries a PG certificate 35 years later.

Our first steps into this medieval fantasy realm show us the villainous Voltan (Jack Palance at his most rasping) murdering his own father for refusing to bequeath the mystical secrets that would enable him to be all-powerful. Moments later his more dashing younger brother Hawk (John Terry – no, not the footballer) shows up and, whilst cradling his dying father, is granted a mighty gift with which to dispense justice – a magic sword with a big fist on the hilt. Okay. So, Hawk swears vengeance on his brother – and soon enough, via flashbacks featuring none other than Catriona Maccoll as his lost bride, we learn that their father’s death is not his sole reason to seek revenge. Meanwhile, Voltan does what any mad tyrant seeking to conquer the world would do: he… erm… kidnaps a nun and holds her for ransom. Anyway, more shit happens, and soon Hawk has assembled his own band of brothers including an elf, a dwarf and a giant (the latter of whom happens to be Carry On mainstay Bernard Bresslaw), and together they gear up to liberate the captured nun, and end Voltan’s reign of terror once and for all.

From that basic plot summary it all sounds a bit nondescript, and in many respects it is. And yet, there’s something so endearing about Hawk the Slayer which sets it apart. In common with a great many sword and sorcery movies of the era, it attempts to convey epic fantasy with laughably low production values – and yet, the material is not played overtly for laughs. The film actually boasts a pretty decent cast, and while they’re having fun with it they’re not exactly making fun of it. Having known Bresslaw exclusively for his Carry On roles beforehand, I was surprised and impressed by how well he fit the part of the rough, tough giant Gort. He and Peter O’Farrell’s dwarf Baldin bounce off each other particularly well, even if the dialogue they’re given probably sounded funnier in the writer’s head. Still, there are some genuine chuckles to be had, though they tend to be of a somewhat sadistic variety; as much as Voltan is a ruthless bastard stabbing people willy-nilly, Hawk and his mates are not averse to a bit of the old ultraviolence either. They may limit their punishment to those who’ve done something to warrant it, but they still take clear delight in dealing it out – albeit it in a bloodless fashion, this being a PG (it’d be a 12 if made today, no doubt).

It’s not all such good news performance-wise, though. Terry’s a fairly bland and unimpressive lead, Palance’s excessive hamming barely conceals his clear apathy about the whole thing (an on-set interview in a TV behind-the-scenes show included in the extras seems to indicate the Hollywood veteran was not particularly invested in the role, not that anyone could blame him), and Ray Charleson’s curiously detached performance as the elf Crow seems to belong in a different film entirely. But of course, these kind of off-target performances are vital to the charm of films typically classed as so-bad-they’re-good; Hawk the Slayer seems to come up in a great many such lists and it’s easy to see why. It’s derivative, silly, badly-structured, and doesn’t make a great deal of sense – and yet there’s no denying it’s a lot of fun to watch.

And the other key ingredient to Hawk the Slayer’s charm is its wonderfully anachronistic disco-charged keyboard soundtrack. Producer and co-writer Harry Robertson (who I’m delighted to learn from his IMDb page also co-wrote the Children’s Film Foundation films Sammy’s Super T-Shirt and Electric Eskimo, which I remember enjoying as a kid even though I’ve no doubt they were absolute crap) provided the score under his composing name Harry Robinson (clever pseudonym, eh?), and it sounds so reminiscent of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds that at times my wife and I started spontaneously singing “the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said…” Again, it’s no less incongruous than any number of electronic soundtracks on sword and sorcery films – but given these films are set in times and worlds that never were, what’s the difference? It’s hard not to feel at least a little affection for anything with a soundtrack this toe-tapping.

Final thought in closing: perhaps the most famous reference to Hawk the Slayer appears in an episode of Spaced, when Simon Pegg’s short-lived replacement at Bill Bailey’s comic shop earns a punch in the face for scoffing, “Hawk the Slayer’s rubbish!” I doubt I’d have quite the same reaction as Bailey under the circumstances; indeed, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that particular choice of words. But it’s good rubbish, damn it all. One man’s trash is, after all, another man’s treasure – and one man’s Excalibur is another man’s sword with a big fist on the end.

Hawk the Slayer is out on UK Blu-ray on 6th July, from Network.

By Jamie Brownlie

Writing for this site is seriously starting to make me wonder if I actually like movies or if I just like the idea of movies. This is the fourth review I’ve written for BAH and I’ve yet to see a movie that I truly love. I love movies, I think. I think I love horror movies, my DVD collection bears proof of that. I love action movies, my ability to recite all the dialog of Die Hard (to the annoyance of my friends) attests to that. So what’s the problem? It’s all pointless rambling, so on to the review.

Superman’s wife (Lois Lane?) has been killed by the big guy from The Princess Bride. Superman then kills the big guy’s brother in order to go to prison to exact revenge on the big guy. Violence ensues. The end.

I literally watched Vendetta yesterday and I can honestly say that I don’t remember very much about it. I know Andre the Giant wasn’t actually in it. Neither was Superman. The giant is played by current WWE superstar, Paul “The Big Show” Wight and Superman is played by Dean “I used to be Superman” Cain.

I went into this movie really wanting to like it. Even though I haven’t watched pro wrestling in almost fifteen years I’m still fascinated by its history and story and consequently I’m pretty open to wrestlers transitioning into the acting world. Through sheer happenstance I caught an interview with Wight on a local radio station last week promoting the movie and he came across as very personable, articulate and genuinely interested in being an actor. He had nothing but good things to say about Cain and seemed excited about the movie. This got me excited to see the movie. Then I got asked to review the new Soska movie. I had no idea it was Vendetta, but awesome, I was down.

And now I’m let down. This movie is the cinematic version of mashed potatoes with no gravy. You can eat it but it’s not particularly appetizing and it’s ultimately going to leave you feeling disappointed. And like mashed potatoes with no gravy it’s bland and completely unmemorable. It’s not terrible per se, it’s just, for lack of a better descriptive, blah. Blah, blah, and more blah. The acting is okay, I guess, but the story is horribly, horribly clichéd. The pacing is off and, sadly, the directing is not the best. I had high hopes for the Soska sisters in this one. The WWE must have had confidence in them as well as this was the second movie they have done for the company, the first being 2014’s See No Evil 2. Unfortunately, like I said, they failed. Every genre has a specific style, requiring a specific feel, look and tone. The Soskas understand horror, that can’t be denied. However, they don’t understand action. The fight scenes don’t flow, the tension necessary for this type of revenge film is missing and the frenetic pace that low budget action films desperately need is nowhere to be found. You can blame it on the actors or the writers, but ultimately, it’s up to the directors.

There are four groups of people who will watch this movie: Soska fans, wrestling fans, Dean Cain fans (that’s a thing, right?) and people who randomly come across it on Netflix, where it’ll eventually go to die. All, I’m afraid, will be disappointed.

If I take anything away from this film it’s that guys in prison do lots of push-ups, CGI blood spray still looks like crap, and The Big Show has the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. Seriously, the dude could palm a Chevy.

Oh, and (spoiler warning) it took Superman a knife and gun to fall his giant. The Dread Pirate Roberts did it with his bare hands. Who’s the real giant slayer?

Vendetta is out now on VOD and limited theatres in the US, from Lionsgate.

By Ben Bussey

It’s curious how I find myself teeming with respect and admiration for Guillermo del Toro, yet seem to have very little of those sentiments for the bulk of the Hispanic horror filmmakers crossing over to English language work in his wake. Promoted heavily on its links to del Toro’s output (specifically producer Belén Atienza, who also has Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphange on his CV), Out of the Dark is the feature debut of Spanish director Lluís Quílez, and from the moment I first read about it I was hit with the sinking feeling it was going to be another of those bland, mainstream-friendly horror movies with no bite. There seems to be a fairly standard set-up: good-looking well-to-do couple with young child relocates to strange new locale with dark secrets in its past; strange things start happening, and soon enough scepticism goes out the window as the once-rational adults realise something genuinely supernatural is going on.

This was what I anticipated going into Out of the Dark, and as much as I would like to have been proven wrong, I wasn’t. This is tedious, by-the-numbers, jump scare-loaded high gloss horror at its most repetitive and mundane, wasting the talents of all involved, from camera and production design teams who clearly know what they’re doing, to a cast who are capable of doing truly great work when given material that challenges them in any way. It’s so sad to see a directorial debut on which basically everyone involved seems to be just going through the motions, producing something which may well meet certain expectations technically and aesthetically, and may even aspire to connect emotionally, but instead just trudges through painfully over-familiar territory bringing nothing new or interesting to the table whatsoever.

Just to give you the essentials: the handsome young well-to-do couple are Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman, who have relocated with their daughter from London (presumably mentioned to explain the fact that, despite her parents both being quite clearly American, their child has an English accent) to the small town of Santa Clara in Colombia. Stiles is going to work at her father Stephen Rea’s paper factory, with a view to taking over the business once he retires. Rea, naturally, dotes on his daughter and granddaughter but barely conceals his contempt for his son-in-law. The handsome, well-to-do family unit move into a lavish, remote mansion which – wouldn’t you know it – has been uninhabited for more than 20 years. It’s only after they arrive that Stiles and Speedman learn of the tragic history haunting the town, including the firey death of hundreds of children centuries earlier – and, of course, it isn’t too long before their little girl starts having inexplicable encounters with mysterious, disfigured children who just might be the ghosts of those very cursed kiddiwinks. Ah, but then it transpires the real tragedies and dark secrets might in fact lie that little bit closer to home… and you won’t need to be a rocket scientist (or, I dunno, paper scientist) to figure out why, and/or who’s really to blame.

Creepy kids can be an effective angle, and Out of the Dark’s use of the diminutive antagonists may prove effective for the least demanding of jump-scare junkies (I assume such people must exist or they wouldn’t keep making these damn films). But though the potential is there to get genuinely sinister, Out of the Dark repeatedly pulls its punches, as if afraid to get too grim for the mainstream audience it clearly covets. But there’s the danger in contriving to make a film that appeals to everybody: you’re liable to wind up with something that isn’t really for anybody. A ‘well-made’ horror film at its most anonymous, Out of the Dark boasts no surprises, no suspense, and ultimately nothing to warrant a recommendation, other than that it looks quite nice. If that’s what you want from your horror movies, then knock yourself out.

Out of the Dark is out now on Region 2 DVD from Entertainment One.

By Jamie Brownlie

Oh, look. Ben’s sent me another movie. What am I in store for this time? It’s definitely going to be micro-budget, that’s a given. Oh, and it’s going to be a horror movie, this is Brutal As Hell after all. But what kind of micro-budget horror movie is the question? Dear Lord, don’t let it be found footage. Please, God, no found footage.

Micro-budgets are always horror. Sometimes they mix in comedy, but they’re always horror. Fledgling movie makers are drawn to horror like pedophiles to playgrounds. All you need is a killer, a victim, a weapon and a bucket of fake blood. Throw in some boobs and you’re golden. With a (very) little bit of money, a bunch of friends and a modicum of knowledge, a wannabe filmmaker can whip out a full length movie over the course of a weekend.

Wait a second, this isn’t horror. This is a… crime movie? It’s a micro-budget movie, but it’s not horror. I’m officially befuddled.

Billy and Steve (Brandon Galatz and Graham Jenkins, respectively) have a problem. They owe Tyvan, a less than understanding drug dealer, a large chunk of cash for a quarter pound of weed he fronted them. For those of you unfamiliar with the weed game, a quarter pound is a good sized chunk of weed. Sadly, our duo didn’t listen to enough N.W.A. and didn’t know you shouldn’t get high off your own supply. Yes, instead of selling the weed, they smoked it. Now Tyvan wants his money. Now. In a moment of desperation they decide to get the money by knocking over a car wash for the week’s worth of lottery tickets sales it has in the safe. Rounding out their crew is the sketchy Mary Lou (Alexis Martino) and Byrdy (Zane Byrdy), the getaway driver.

A micro-budget crime movie. Weird. I’m actually going to go one step further and call this a hard-boiled, micro-budget film noir. Now before you start rolling your eyes, I’m not saying this is the next Touch of Evil, but the elements are all there. You’ve got the rundown city settings, the violent criminals, the femme fatale, the bad guy hero who’s not quite as bad as the really bad guys, and most importantly, the feeling that shit’s going to go wrong in a very bad way.

A micro-budget film noir is a big undertaking. For most films of this budgetary level the story is secondary. Usually it’s about the kills or the gore or the boobs. Definitely, not about the story. However, with a crime flick it’s all about the story, and this one actually does a pretty decent job with it. The characters are well fleshed out and you understand them and their motivations, as fucked up as they may be. There’s enough plot twists, back stabbings and double dealings to keep you interested and on your toes. The acting is also pretty spot on, particularly from Martino who is excellent as the manipulative, drug addled Mary Lou.

On to the bad…

I’m always leery when a movie puts a band’s name in the opening credits. It usually means that at some point the movie is going to descend into the realm of music video. This movie had three bands in the opening credits and numerous music video moments. Sometimes these moments can work for a movie, usually in comedies. However, in this case it just kills the foreboding tone the movie has spent precious time building up. And speaking of tone, it’s all over the place in this thing. 90% of the time it’s deadly serious and then when you least expect it, they throw in something that’s completely out of place. At one point they put a counter on the screen showing the number of times they drop the f-bomb in the scene. Why? It’s pointless, not funny and brings you out of the drama developing on the screen. Another case in point: in an effort to get information form Mary Lou, Tyvan threatens to have his boys rape her, or as he puts it “run a train.” His boys come over and drop their pants. We see them from behind, from the waist down, in their old beat-up, saggy, dingy boxers. If it was meant to be funny, it fails badly. If it was serious, it is the most ineffective, non-threatening scene involving the threat of rape ever filmed. Also, Tyvan, the drug dealer, sucks. Pure and simple. They try to sell him as this scary, ruthless thug but then make him a ridiculous, white boy rapper who delivers half of his lines in horrible, horrible rhymes. Sean Patrick Leonard, the actor who portrays him, isn’t terrible and does a capable job when he isn’t spitting verse, but as a rapping drug dealer, he comes across as a bad retread of Alien from Spring Breakers.

So yeah, for every silver lining there’s a dark cloud. This movie is a perfect balance of good and bad. The story, writing and acting are all above average at some points, but the tone is uneven, the last act drags immensely and the ending kind of sucks. It makes sense, it just kind of sucks. Would I recommend it? If you like micro-budget films and are looking for something truly different, then yes. Would I watch it again? No, probably not, and I feel weird saying that because there is a lot of good in this film, it’s just in the shadow of all the bad.

Sweet Leaf is out on DVD and VOD in the US on 23rd June, from Wild Eye Releasing.

By Svetlana Fedotov

Empty Zone is written a little like everything you ever read while reading like something you’ve never really read before. It’s a mish mash of a million subjects that have been played to death, but what they did with that pile of ideas worked out pretty decently. A sci-fi, dystopian, horror, riot-grrl-robotics-expert of a tale, Empty Zone shows that just because a world is over-run with technology, it doesn’t mean that the human spirit has completely disappeared. In fact, it might just be the last frontier. With stunning art and smooth dialogue, it leaves the reader on a hell of a cliffhanger, but still leaves more questions than answers.

The comic follows our protagonist Corinne White, a haunted young woman with a killer body and punk-rock haircut, as we take a peek into her everyday life of drinking, squinting in the sun, and taking mysterious jobs. In the not-so-distant future that she resides in, entire cities have become wired and even human beings have gotten cybernetic enhancements, which, luckily for her, work in her ability to steal information via the human wirings. Unbeknownst to her, she’s not the only one looking to tap into the human energy, as others go about doing her job in less comforting ways. As she goes about keeping her ghosts at bay these shadowy men are determined to let the ghosts out.

So, the first issue is basically all set up of the world and explains who Corinne White is and what she does. While it has a hell of an ending, there isn’t much of an initial story and instead focuses on character development. Essentially, it’s a great start to a graphic novel, but as a standalone issue, nothing really happens in it. Speaking of character development, White turns into a bit of an unoriginal character, full of tropes and sadness and swigging booze and shit, but the way the creator presented her keeps me sort-of into it. Jason Shawn Alexander, the man behind both the art and story, creates actual ghosts to haunt her dreams and though he spends way too long having her bang the spirit of her dead lover, it solid pathway to creating sympathy to her. This comic pretty much reads as an homage to Blade Runner with ghosts. But the ghosts are fucking cool.

The place where Alexander really shines is in the art. Bold with heavy inks and scraggly people, it’s the perfect companion to a tale of depression and personal growth in the future. The colorist LuisNCT captures the essence of the Alexander’s pencils beautifully, overflowing the pages with hushed greys, power reds, and the fuzzy inking of dirty snow on the ground. It’s easy to get sucked into the work by art alone, but it’s a shame that the story struggles to say afloat. As stated in the intro paragraph, it’s decent. Perhaps it’s one too many subjects, where instead of picking one or two ideas to focus on, the giant rigmarole of possibilities forced Alexander to only work with surface instead of really diving in. But, I mean, for real, those ghosts are pretty cool.

By Tristan Bishop

Quick! How many truly great second sequels can you think of? Nope? Me neither* – as film fans we can doubtless reel off a fairly lengthy list of sequels that improve on the original, but by part three of a series we are generally left disappointed. Whether this is as a result of a successful franchise becoming a cash cow and therefore subject to more studio tinkering, or the film-makers becoming bored with the formula and it noticeably showing is a moot point. What I do know is that the dreaded number ‘3’ suffixing a film title is generally a reason to lower your expectations accordingly. In the case of the Insidious series, the first film, although flawed, turned up at the right time: the wash of torture porn/ordeal horror had reached critical mass by 2011, and those of us sick of the sight of people tied to chairs were clamouring for a new type of fright flick. With Insidious, we got our new direction. Although heavily indebted to Tobe Hooper’s 1982 Poltergeist (itself not coincidentally now rebooted for the new generation), Insidious bought back supernatural scares instead of torturous psychopaths, and introduced the key element of fun back to mainstream horror, and films such as Sinister and The Woman In Black (both 2012) followed the spooky formula into box office success. The violence had been toned right now (almost non-existent in some of these examples), but the ghostly jump scares were given centre stage; instead of wanting to throw up our lunch we were now spilling our popcorn as we jolted in our seats.

By the time we got to Insidious 2, however, silliness had rather taken over – whereas the first film had some unpredictable twists and good laughs, we now had a parade of CGI ghosts and characters visiting spectral worlds. I must confess I don’t remember a great deal of it – I watched it on the same day as You’re Next (2011) and had a great deal more fun with Adam Wingard’s film, but I do remember thinking it was a waste of a good rental. So, I didn’t have high hopes at all for Insidious 3 – and seeing that the usually reliable James Wan had stepped away from the director’s chair to give his long-time writing partner (and actor in the Insidious films) Leigh Whannell his first directing duty made me even more suspicious – although as Whannell had written the previous films (and the first three entries in the Saw series) he might well have been the obvious choice to continue the series in the vein in which it started.

What we have here is actually a prequel. Set ‘a few years’ before the events of the first film, we have sweet teenage girl Quinn (Stefanie Scott) still coming to terms with the death of her mother a year ago, visiting psychic Elise (Lin Shaye returning from the first two films) in the hope of trying to contact the departed. Elise, having apparently had some nasty experiences with demonic spirits in the past, has decided to give up on her gift, but is so touched by Quinn that she decides to try one more reading. Of course, this is quite the mistake, and somehow Quinn ends up haunted by a grim spectre referred to as The Man Who Can’t Breathe (not a snappy name, is it?). After being distracted by a mysterious figure waving at her in the distance, Quinn gets hit by a car and ends up at home in leg casts, looked after by her father (an unimpressive turn by Dermot Mulroney). Of course, the demonic visitations increase, and Quinn and her father, realising how much danger they are in, enlist the help of not only Elise, but also ghost-hunting video bloggers Specs and Tucker (Whannell and Angus Sampson, again returning from the previous films).

There is some fun to be had with Insidious 3 – the meeting of Elise, Specs and Tucker (who of course become an unlikely team) give rise to some amusing lines, but this doesn’t happen until fairly late in the film, and by this time we’ve already had to sit through the pretty uninteresting build-up. The problem is that the central character of Quinn doesn’t even feel like a real character: the film tries to give her some indie cred by putting her in a Pixies T-shirt and having PJ Harvey posters on her wall but unfortunately it just isn’t enough, and she ends up as pretty-but-bland as a Laura Ashley catalogue. In lieu of a main character that we actually care about, we are left with zero tension and the film falls back on jump scares to entertain us – sadly many of these are fluffed (especially the shock ending, which lead a fair few of my fellow cinemagoers to loudly exclaim ‘what the fuck?’ as the credits rolled – an unsubtle but entirely fair bit of criticism, I felt), although one or two certainly hit the mark.

Another area the film could have been improved is in an exploration of the spirit worlds that Elise can enter to confront the demons. Instead we are given some guff about ‘The Further’ which is divided into ‘dark and light’ worlds; an unsatisfying and easily-digested bit of nonsense which appears to be treated so vaguely so not to offend anyone’s idea of an afterlife.

So we’re left with the aforementioned amusing moments (and look out for a James Wan cameo), and a couple of effective jump-scares. However this won’t be enough to justify a viewing, even at a fairly brisk 97 minutes, for anyone but the most undemanding of series fans.

*OK I’ve come up with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and, er, Toy Story 3. Return Of The King doesn’t count.

Insidious Chapter 3 is in cinemas now.