Society

"Society" (1989, Brian Yuzna, Wild Street Pictures) is a body horror film which was actually the directorial debut from Yuzna who brought us "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond" so... you know what you're in for.

Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) is a teenager in Beverly Hills. He lives with his wealthy parents and sister, Jenny (Patrice Jennings). Despite his luxurious lifestyle, Bill feels alienated from his highfalutin family, and this is the main focus of his weekly meetings with his therapist, Dr. Cleveland (Ben Slack). Bill becomes obsessed with finding out what's going on when Jenny's ex-boyfriend, Blanchard (Tim Bartell), gives him a cassette tape which seems to implicate his family in a disturbing and murderous act. As Bill begins to delve deeper into the mystery of his family and the apparent elite cult that they are a part of, he begins to suspect that he may be more alone than he thought.... And that his enemies may have gruesome plans for him...

An entertaining and gooey horror comedy which builds to a fairly disturbing and equally funny climax. The effects (by Screaming Mad George (Joji Tani)) are surreal, perverse and delightfully gruesome and are, in all fairness, the true star of the film which is admittedly a little clunky in the plot department.

This is definitely a must-see for any body horror fan and will leave you chuckling and possibly also a little traumatised.

[Image: Wild Street Pictures]

Hani

Garbage Pail Kids

"Garbage Pail Kids" (1987, Rod Amateau, Atlantic Entertainment Group, Topps Chewing Gum, Atlantic Releasing Corporation) is the live action movie based on the popular 80s parody trading cards.

A spaceship shaped like a metal trashcan somehow ends up under the protection of an antiques shop owner, Captain Manzini (Anthony Newley). It's never really explained how this comes to be. Manzini befriends a local kid called Dodger (Mackenzie Astin) who is getting relentlessly bullied by a group of older teens who look old enough to have mortgages. Dodger accidentally sets the garbage pail kids free during a scuffle with the bullies in the store, introducing us to seven of the kids: Greaser Greg (Phil Fondacaro & Jim Cummings). Valerie Vomit (Debbie Lee Carrington), Ali Gator (Kevin Thompson), Foul Phil (Robert Bell & Chloe Amateau), Nat Nerd (Larry Green & Jim Cummings), Windy Winston (Arturo Gil) and Messy Tessie (Sue Rossitto & Teri Benaron).

Together, Dodger and the gruesome kids attempt to help the girlfriend of one of Dodger's bullies on whom he has a crush. But Dodger is soon to learn that ugliness is not always on the outside...

A cheesy film full of disturbing puppets and toilet humour. It boasts a pretty flimsy plot and a sing-song that goes on way too long. I'm not sure what kind of bet Newley lost to be in this film, but I have to say that it kind of gives me a different kind of respect for him, really.

A film so bad that you just have to shake your head and wonder who the target audience really was. On one hand it is definitely not the kind of film most parents would want their kids to watch and on the other its humour does not really appeal to most adults. A really strange concept by all standards.

[Image: Atlantic Entertainment, et al]

Hani

Troll 2

"Troll 2" (1990, Claudio Fargasso, Filmirage) is an infamously bad film about a fairly strange 'average' family taking a holiday in a town that's not only boring; it's infested by goblins. Luckily the goblins are vegetarians... Also, noteworthy that this film is not a real sequel.

Joshua (Michael Stephenson) appears to be an everyday kid. If an everyday kid talks to the ghost of his deceased grandfather, that is. He lives with his mother and father; a misguided couple who don't seem to comprehend what a vacation is; and his teenaged sister.

The family head to the town of Nilbog (genius, right?) where they are creepily welcomed by the locals. But luckily for them, Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby), warns Joshua that the townsfolk are actually goblins in disguise and that, if the family eat the food offered to them, they will be turned into vegetation which the goblins will eat!

Can they avoid a fate worse than death? Can they escape the clutches of the world's most melodramatic witch/goblin (Deborah Reed)? Why can't the goblins just grow their own vegetables like everyone else?

A horror comedy so bad that it's perfectly watchable. The acting, with the ironic exception of young Joshua, is entertainingly stilted and the outlandish plot manages to be both mediocre and hilarious. The goblin costumes are also reminiscent of homemade Halloween costumes. A real trashy movie that every B-movie fan should see; even if it's just for a good laugh.

[Image: Filmirage]

Hani

The Greasy Strangler

"The Greasy Strangler" (2016, Jim Hosking, Drafthouse Films, Rook Films, SpectreVision, Timpson Films, Filmrise) is a surreal dark comedy horror film about a killer who strangles victims to death while wearing nothing but a layer of grease... It's also a film about love, betrayal, weirdos, nakedness and disco... Kind of.

Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) is a strange man who runs a disco walking tour with his son, Big Brayden (Sky Elobar). The tour offers little in the way of facts, disco or free refreshments; much to the chagrin of the customers. The father and son also live together, hang out a lot in their underwear and eat a lot of excessively greasy food; just the way that Big Ronnie likes it. Big Ronnie also enjoys moonlighting as a greased up murderer in the buff, washing himself off at the end of his escapades at a car wash run by his blind disco friend, Big Paul (Gil Gex).

Big Brayden meets Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo) on one of his father's walking tours, and the pair fall in weird love, much to the distaste of Big Ronnie. The perturbed Ronnie begins a campaign immediately to win Janet over from his son.

A very marmite movie that will either have you rolling your eyes and laughing or completely repulsed. Maybe both. The characters are outlandish and dirty and the dialogue is purposefully stilted. If you're up for watching some fully frontal nudity with a lot of swinging prosthesis' and a fair amount of cartoonish gore then this is the movie for you.

This is a film that will stay with you forever and have you wondering why you watched it for weeks, possibly years, to come. And yet, like me, the experience has probably taught you nothing and you will definitely watch more like it in the future.

[Image: Drafthouse Films, et al]

What a pair of bullshit artists!

Hani

Manhattan Baby

"Manhattan Baby" aka "L'Occhio del male" (1982, Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film) is an Italian giallo horror film from 'godfather of gore', Lucio Fulci. That makes it sound good. Don't get your hopes up too much...

The film serves as one of Fulci's weakest in my book, and certainly a far cry from his masterpiece, and a personal favourite of mine; "The House by the Cemetery".

We follow young Susie (Brigitta Boccoli) who, whilst in Egypt with her parents, Professor George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) and Emily Hacker (Laura Lenzi), is given a mysterious amulet by a strange, blind woman. Upon Susie receiving this unusual treasure, her father is struck blind whilst in an unexplored tomb and the family have to return immediately home to New York city.

While her parents fret over George's temporary blindness, Susie shows her new shiny thing to her younger brother, Tommy (Giovanni Frezza), and both siblings begin to fall under the amulet's power. This includes the ability to pop off on adventures to Egypt whenever they like, bring back poisonous creatures, ship off people who annoy them to the desert and summon the shambling undead.... Kids stuff, really.

As well as suffering from being very slow and somewhat dull, the plot jumps randomly from scene to scene making everything hard to follow and becoming a chore to watch. The characters also don't behave quite human enough: no one seems to notice all the missing people for starters!

One thing I did enjoy was watching George walk around with his glasses on over his massive eye bandages. Truly weird.

The film just lacks atmosphere and coherence and not even a zombie bird attack scene can save it from that!

I do love the DVD cover art, though

[Image: Fulvia Film]

 

Hani

The Tall Man

"The Tall Man" (2012, Pascal Laugier, Image Entertainment) is a thriller with a disturbing message masquerading as a horror film. It is not a horror film.

Beware, spoilers below...

A small former mining village called Cold Rock has seen a lot of child disappearances over the years. The villagers have associated these disappearances with an urban legend known as The Tall Man, a figure who is seen taking the children into the woods where they disappear without a trace. Jessica Biel plays Julia, the town's nurse. We see Julia's son, David, being kidnapped and follow her as she fights for his return...

The film starts off as a horror, but quickly boils back to a confusing mystery plot that seemed to be going in a different direction, before quickly jumping in yet another direction and passing into a plot quicksand pit that delivers a garbled message about child abduction being a good thing? Provided, apparently, that the children are taken from the poor and delivered to the rich. Besides this somewhat misguided premise, the film suffers from a jumpy, complex plot which wasn't intriguing enough to make the big twist very forceful.

For me, the only redeeming feature of this film is Biel's character showing injuries throughout the film that didn't miraculously heal themselves in that good ol' fashioned Hollywood manner.

[Image: Image Entertainment]

Hani 

Holidays

"Holidays" (2016, Kevin Smith, Gary Shore, Adam Egypt Mortimer, Scott Stewart, Nicholas McCarthy, Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, Sarah Adina Smith and Anthony Scott Burns, Distant Corners Entertainment, XYZ Films) is a horror anthology inspired by different well-known Western holidays and celebrations.

Valentine's Day
A bullied teenaged girl has a crush on her swim coach and decides to get him something gruesome to show her feelings...

The characters are quite well built up in this short with a fun, if slightly predictable end. But the run time is very short in order to fit in the whole calendar and so the short suffers a little by having to pack everything in quickly, losing some of the pacing.

St. Patrick's Day
A teacher tries to make a withdrawn new child come out of her shell. The child informs her that she will only smile when she makes the teacher's deepest wish come true and leaves a small snake emblem on the desk. Over time, the teacher's wish comes true, but maybe not the way she really wanted.

A short that has some really good, creepy elements and a lot of potential, but just didn't have much to do with St. Patrick's day (other than snakes) and managed to feel oddly longer than the other shorts. It didn't pack the punch that the plot deserved.

Easter
A little girl sneaks downstairs the night before Easter to catch the Easter Bunny delivering her eggs, only he is not what she anticipated, and there is a penalty for seeing him in the flesh...

Probably the most successful short of this anthology, the plot packs a nice punch but the small run time and budget also limit it.

Mother's Day
A woman who cannot stop becoming pregnant every time she has sex is taken hostage by a coven of women who cannot have children.

A pretty horrific premise, but the short was a bit artsy and dithery and then switched direction completely again.

Father's Day
A woman finds an old cassette tape from her deceased father and listens to it. The voice on the tape takes her down memory lane (he recorded it whilst out walking with her younger self years before) and then asks her to go to a special location to meet him...

A beautifully made short that came together into an emotive piece. However, the time limit again robbed the plot of the finale it deserved and made the rest of the build up seem wasted.

Halloween
A douchebag who runs a pay-per-view webcam porn site using ladies he's lied to as his cam stars meets his deserving demise at the hands of his victims. Oh, and it's also set on Halloween.

This is the Kevin Smith piece. I like Kevin Smith, but his work can be very hit or miss for me. This one was a miss. My main problem with it was that it had very little to do with Halloween; the most horror-centric holiday on the calendar and you take it to this generic, anytime of year gore-fest. Talk about wasted opportunity. The short also tried to be funny, and also be serious and didn't seem to know what it was.

Christmas
Seth Green and Clare Grant star in this virtual reality/jingle-all-the way inspired piece. A man goes to extremes to ensure he gets the latest gadget for his family's Christmas; a UVU virtual reality visor which shows you the real you. However, he and his family may not be too comfortable with their real selves, or each other's selves once they plug in...

A good concept with some good scenes that are again reminiscent of older festive films. Although it wasn't the most engaging short in the bunch, it did its job.

New Year's Eve
A serial girlfriend murderer sets out to welcome in the new year his way....

A good short with some gore and a nice twist. It rounded off the anthology on a high after some obvious lows.

This anthology is a mixed bag containing a lot of misses. There's no enveloping story which could have brought it together and each segment is very short (even by anthology standards) and has to round off quickly often taking away from each piece's story somewhat. Some segments are better than others, but certainly none jumped out enough at me to make me want to rewatch this film again. I think each director was trying too hard to make their segment the 'weirdest' of the bunch and many veered too far away from their core holiday, losing the point of the film.

There are better anthologies out there which make this one look like a film student's 2nd year project.

[Image: XYZ Films]

Hani

Street Trash

"Street Trash" (1987, J. Michael Muro, Street Trash Joint Venture, Lightning Pictures) is a bad taste body horror film about homeless people based in New York.

A liquor store owner discovers a case of old, cheap booze called Viper in his stock which has gone bad. But he decides to sell it cheap to the local homeless community. Unfortunately, Viper
causes anyone who drinks it to gruesomely melt to death.

The cops are trying to find the cause of these puddle-y deaths and also deal with Vietnam vet, Bronson, who has taken over the local junkyard as his own private, hobo kingdom.

A strange splatter film that makes other splatter films look sensible. This is definitely my favourite film about melting New York hobos... Possibly because it's also the only one! Gross, stupid and crude this film is just insane to the max.

The effects are daft, with the men and women melting into gooey primary colours, but also gross with body parts sagging off and splattering all over the place. The characters are oddly funny and sad and the film enjoys a grimy shock factor.

Some scenes of note include an excellent chase scene and a game of 'keep away' with a severed member instead of a lunchbox and a lady melting boobs first into a gooey mess.

Weird. So very, very weird.

[Image: Lightning Pictures]

Hani

Basket Case 3: The Progeny

"Basket Case 3: The Progeny" (1991, Frank Henenlotter, Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, 20th Century Fox) is the third instalment in the Basket Case franchise. And the worst.


Following on from the events of the second film where Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) had tried, in a fit of madness, to sew his deformed, evil twin, Belial, back onto his torso, we find Duane locked up in a padded room at Granny Ruth's home for 'unique individuals'.


Granny Ruth (Annie Ross) is planning a trip for the whole group to visit her ex-husband's home so that Belial's girlfriend, Eve, can give birth to a litter of fleshy, evil lumps. Duane attempts to escape on several occasions, gets caught up with law, meets a girl called Opal (Tina Louise Hilbert) and generally fails at life, despite being able bodied and no longer telepathically controlled by his evil twin, who is giving him the silent treatment after his previous sewing escapades.


Henenlotter has made a few funny, weird films. The first being the original "Basket Case" (a bad movie night favourite) and of course not discounting the fabulously irreverent "Brain Damage" and the cheesy fun that is "Frankenhooker". However, if I'd thought "Basket Case 2" was pretty bad, I certainly wasn't prepared for the third one. An often dull and ridiculous film that can't even be saved by cartoonish gore. I found it frankly uncomfortable to watch. Imagine if the deformed creatures from "Spy Kids" ended up in a nursing home run by a crazy old bat and you have this film.


I have a pretty good threshold for bad B-movies, but this one wasn't even fun.

[Image: Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment]

Hani

Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

"Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" (2015, Christopher Landon, Broken Road Productions, Brucks Entertainment, Oops Doughnuts Productions) is a zombie horror comedy.

A small group of scouts (Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan) head out on their last camp, with full intentions of ditching the overnight and heading to a much cooler "seniors secret party" happening in town. A zombie outbreak puts a stop to their plans and they have to take down as many zombies as possible with the help of an ass-kicking barmaid from the local strip club (Sarah Dumont).

A pretty predictable horror comedy gross-out with a really promising and engaging set up which quickly becomes very samey and joins the other primordial soup of 'zombie comedy horrors' already out there.

The acting is good, the characters are even pretty likeable and funny, but sadly there's only so much that cheesy one-liners, zombie kitties (and tits) and buckets of gore can do in a genre so overdone as the zombie comedy horror genre.

[Image: Broken Road Productions, et al]

Hani

Sleepaway Camp

"Sleepaway Camp" (1983, Robert Hiltzik, American Eagle Films, United Film Distribution Company) is a slasher set at an American summer camp.

Since the summer is drawing to a close, I thought I'd see it out with an old favourite. Angela (Felissa Rose) was very young when her brother and father were killed in a motorboat accident on the lake. She now lives with her eccentric aunt and her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten). Angela is very quiet and introverted and doesn't speak much. This makes her a target for bullying when she and her cousin arrive at summer camp.

As soon as camp begins mysterious deaths and accidents begin to happen, all linked in some way to Angela and anyone who is bothering her. This film covers some quite shocking subjects including a paedophile chef, rape, camp bullies, bad camp staff and gender identity. All while also delivering some truly campy gore. Pardon the pun.

By far the most memorable part of this film is its infamous twist ending which still holds some punch to this day, despite its confusing sub-plot. While the film is tropey and definitely sits on the exploitation movie shelf, it covers some unsettling ground.

[Image: American Eagle Films]

Hani

Da Possessed

"Da Possessed" (2014, Joyce Bernal, Star Cinema, Regal Entertainment, Regal Films) is a Filipino horror comedy and is actually a remake of an Indian movie called "Muni 2: Kanchana".

Ramon (Vhong Navarro) is a big scaredy cat. He lives at home with his over-protective mother, brother, sister-in-law and their children. He sleeps at night in the same bed as his mother because he is so scared of everything.

When his mother's house is in danger of being repossessed because she cannot keep up with the payments, Ramon gets a job as a landscape artist for a rich tycoon. Ramon's shift boss is the tycoon's beautiful daughter, Anna (Solenn Heussaff) - who's main skills are looking sultry, doing bad cartwheels and flashing her knickers -, who takes a shine to Ramon.

In his attempts to impress Anna, Ramon unwittingly digs up the graves of three people who were killed unfairly and he and his family are then haunted by the unrestful spirits. The spirits take turns possessing Ramon's body as they try to avenge their killer, with mischevious consequences.

A strange film that is pretty standard plot fayre, and yet has some quirky characters and ridiculous situations. For me, it was something a little different due to my unfamiliarity with Filipino films in general, but at its core it's a pretty standard, if oddly charming, horror comedy.

I did enjoy the end scenes, however, which appealed to my sense of humour.

A little ridiculous, but not the strangest film I've seen! It could have done with being a little shorter, however...

[Image: Star Cinema & Regal Films]

Hani 

Zombeavers

"Zombeavers" (2014, Jordan Rubin, Epic Pictures Group, Armory Films, Benderspink, Hypotenuse Pictures) is a horror comedy about zombie beavers.

A group of college girls go out to a riverside cabin to forget about their man troubles only to be shortly joined by said men. Sadly for all involved, the river is home to a band of ravenous and bloodthirsty zombie beavers...

A campy film which, in the style of Sharkando, knows it and thrills in it's stupidity. While it's not the best nature fights back horror comedy out there, I enjoyed it. There's bucketloads of blood, a host of ridiculous action (the beavers cut the phone lines.... The BEAVERS cut the phone lines....), puns, and a few tongue-in-cheek nods to 'Jaws'. It's a good brainless summer romp.

All the characters are worth your contempt. Not a single one of them has any redeeming properties. However, this is perfect for this kind of movie. I don't want to see them succeed; I want to see them being eaten by ridiculously unrealistic zombie beaver handpuppets!

It's not big, it's not clever and it's proud of the fact. Perfect crappy movie for a night in with friends and a pizza.

[Image: Epic Pictures Group, et al]

Hani

 

Shark Night

"Shark Night 3D" (2011, David R. Ellis, Relativity Media) is about an idyllic lake side cabin which is infested with man-eating sharks. Oh, and beautiful people in swimwear. Lots of swimwear. And hillbillies. Also a few hillbillies.

Sara (Sara Paxton) and her friends are staying at her parents' holiday home in Louisiana for a frivolous weekend of sunshine, beer pong, highspeed speedboat chases and water-skiing. Within minutes of arriving they've all practically stripped off and are frolicking in the water. Essentially in doing so they attract the attention of not one, but several hungry sharks. They are then fighting for their lives as they try to avoid being eaten by sharks or killed by angry, jilted hillbilly exes.

This film is dumb. It's dumb and it's completely unapologetic about that fact. From the purposefully bad characters to the completely ludicrous plots and ridiculous shark scenes this film is awful and it knows it. Whilst I'm a fan of so-bad-it's-good as a horror genre, I do draw a line somewhere, and Shark Night sits right on that line.

In some ways it's a perfectly serviceable party movie. It's definitely the kind of film that lends itself to drinking games and I would be happy to have it play along in the background over a few drinks with friends. However, it's not engaging enough to be quotable or interesting enough to have anyone want to actually stop their conversations and watch it. The kills are funny in their unlikeliness but there's no meat to this movie. It's not even shitty enough to be ironic, it's just bad.

[Image: Relativity Media]

Hani

Cannibal Holocaust

"Cannibal Holocaust" (1980, Ruggero Deodato, United Artists) is an Italian cannibal exploitation movie about a group of young people, lead by Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke), who go into the Amazon Rainforest to film a documentary about cannibal tribes and fail to return.

We follow Prof. Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) who has been tasked with going into the rainforest to search for the missing film makers. He is helped by the military who take a young indigenous tribesman hostage to help them bargain with the tribes.

During their journey they come across some horrific scenes of cannibalism and butchery of wildlife. After randomly bathing naked, Monroe and his team are taken to the cannibals' place of worship where they have to join in the feast in exchange for getting the remaining film cannisters back from the first group, who they have learned by now are dead and eaten.

Monroe takes the surviving film back to New York where he learns from watching it that Yates and his team were far from nice people and possibly deserving of their horrific fates...

Essentially this film is gross. Gross beyond gross. The number of real animals slaughtered live on camera is just sickening and, considering that is just for the film's benefit, kind of marrs any comment the film was making about documentaries creating situations for effect... One particularly graphic scene involving a monkey's face and a knife I'll never unsee. There is also a lot of torture of women and sexual violence, the iconic skewered woman scene and the slicing of body parts for food. I'm not afraid of gore. I enjoy gore, even. But I like my gore fun and fake.

Really the film is more than just a gross out movie about cannibals, but the style of it was more car crash than intrigue: I couldn't look away but I wasn't enjoying what I was seeing. It's a social commentary about journalistic practice, integrity and ethics. But it's also a shock-film made to make you squirm, and while it is highly successful in doing that, I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it or would put myself through watching it again.

Image: United Artists

Hani

The Lost Boys: The Tribe

"The Lost Boys: The Tribe" aka "The Lost Boys 2" (2008, P.J. Pesce, Thunder Road Pictures, Hollywood Media Bridge) is the sequel to 1987 vampire film, "The Lost Boys".

I am a huge fan of the original film. It's funny, silly and gross and full of good tunes. The sequel, unfortunately, pales sorely in comparison. Even the extremely goofy third film, "The Lost Boys: The Thirst" manages to outshine the second one, even if it's only because it actually attempts to alter the plot somewhat.

The problem with "Tribe" is that it is a badly done redo of the original. Instead of the two Emerson brothers being forced to move to the fictional seaside town of Santa Carla, California to stay with their nutty grandfather and their kind of loopy divorcee mother, it is brother, Chris (Tad Hilgenbrink), and sister, Nicole (Autumn Reeser), also named Emerson, who move to Luna Bay (also a beach town), to rent a house off of their nutty aunt after their parents are killed.

Other parallels include the surf shop scene which is essentially the same as the comic shop scene, except instead of meeting the Frog brothers there, they are recommended to visit the Frog brothers' van by the surf shop guys.

The surfer vampire gang attempts to follow the same layout as the previous film's biker vampire gang. This is pretty forgiveable because it would make sense, I suppose, that vampires share the same habits and hierarchy. I did appreciate Kiefer Sutherland's half brother, Angus Sutherland, playing the part of head boy vampire, Shane, but it really wasn't enough of a nod to save the film.

Hands up, I've admitted my, possibly misguided, appreciation of Corey Feldman before. But even I can say wholeheartedly that this film sucked and his performance did not help it. The nods to The Goonies also did it no favours.

Essentially, the protagonists are annoying and lack the more three dimensional characteristics of Michael and Sam from the original and the badly scripted dialogue doesn't give the impression of being tongue-in-cheek and comes across as more stilted.

I have a high tolerance for bad films, but I just wasn't feeling this one, and the end scene with Corey Haim remains a sad homage to the troubled actor. I also just feel plain bad for Jamison Newlander who's scenes were deleted. Although, maybe he's happy about not being officially credited in this film... I don't know.

All in all, I'd recommend either sticking to the wonderfully funny, cheesy 80s original and pretending there were no sequels at all, or giving the extremely crappy, cheesefest third one a spin and ignoring this one altogether.

[Image: Thunder Road Pictures]

Can I ask what's meant to have happened to Edgar Frog's neck tattoos between film 2 and 3 or do we not talk about those?

Hani 

Videodrome

"Videodrome" (1983, Canadian Film Development Corporation, Famous Players, Filmplan International, David Cronenberg) explores porn and how we view life in our advancingly technology-dependent world in an excellently (Rick Baker) gore-soaked way.

Max Renn (James Woods) is a TV executive for a cable channel. It's the 80s, VHS and Betamax are still shiny new technologies, and he thinks he's found the most interesting thing ever to show on TV: foreign snuff porn of questionable quality! The underground programme is called "Videodrome" and Renn is determined to get to the bottom of it. He has become sinisterly obsessed.

As his life becomes more entwined into the cult-like Videodrome lifestyle, his view on life changes and he begins to see things that he is not sure are real or not... Is he losing his mind or is he becoming part of a new reality? His femme fatale friend, Nicki (Debbie Harry of Blondie), also gets herself involved as she and Renn fall into the Videodrome trap together.

His searchings lead him to the hub of the technological cult, but has he gone too far?

This film was a slighlty different step for Cronenberg at the time and hinted towards where he would take his movies next. Videodrome manages to balance slightly obnoxious cerebral plot with a message about society's obsession with technology, with the confusing, but gory action his audience had come to expect. He manages to make a social comment on video and technology while also exploiting just that as his platform to do so. The film remains ever relevant and the effects make for undated, uncomfortable viewing.

[Image: FilmPlan International, et al]

Hani

The Dorm

"The Dorm" (2014, Rachel Talalay, Nomadic Pictures) is a college based horror.

Vivian (Alexis Knapp) starts college a semester late. She's shy, self-conscious, reliant on lots of medication that she doesn't truly need, overly dependent on her elder sister and keen on frumpy, unflattering clothing. On her first night, however, she manages to get to know a few housemates who invite her to join them in drinking their "tea". Feeling like she's being accepted, Vivian joins in and soon becomes fast friends with Sarah (Cassie Steele) and the group. Or so she thinks...

Over the coming days, Vivian experiences several transformations as her face, hair and body begin to alter to suit her beauty ideals. She is over the moon... and is quick to become just like the bitchy, drunken, popular twits she'd once despised.

However, soon Vivian begins to worry about these transformations as she learns that she is becoming more and more like her dorm room's previous occupant (who disappeared). Could her new friends be behind this? Is this more of a sinister trick than a happy miracle?

At just over an hour long, the film manages to cover a lot of ground. The themes of outer beauty and society's obsession with becoming beautiful and being accepted are very interesting. The characters aren't all explored to their full extent, but it's a horror film. What do you want?

There's some chilling points and a few gore elements, although the film is more of a psychological thriller than a slash fest. There's also some really effective tension built as our protagonist becomes more aware of what is going on and her friends become more and more... strange.

The main flaws are with the plot. I get what's happening, but I don't understand the motive. The whole premise of the film is just off; why would anyone do the things that start this ball rolling? Seriously?

Aside from that, it's not terrible. It has an odd score and some of the bar scenes are oddly quiet. I'm pretty sure this was done for effect to hone in on our, now very selfish, main character, but it plays out weirdly as if there's something missing.

Some of the ghostly parts are very nicely achieved, however, and this film certainly has some merit as a night-in trashy college flick.

[Image: Nomadic Pictures]

Hani

88

"88" (2014, April Mullen, WANGO Films) is not really a horror movie. It's more an action movie reminiscent of the likes of "Pulp Fiction" and others.

Whilst yes, it isn't a horror, I still want to mention it here because it's good, it's gory and it stars one of my favourite modern day scream queens; Katharine Isabelle. I love her. I can't help it. Not only because she is super hot and in some of my favourite films, but also because she is downright hilarious and, as proven in this particular film, extremely adaptive as an actress.

Gwen (Katharine Isabelle) walks into a highway diner with an injured hand, a gun, a backpack and no idea what the hell is going on... From there we're taken on her journey between two timelines where we get to know more about who she really is and what has brought her to this diner. As it happens, she's a pretty dangerous lady on the lookout for whoever killed her lover. And, wouldn't you know it, it was probably someone pretty dangerous who did it!

A fun and very violent film with more than one similarity to Tarantino (timeline styling, violence, gang banter....). The characters are all very colourful, very memorable and very disposable. It's stylish, witty and not scared to make you think a bit. The story manages to avoid too much confusion, despite the fractured timeline style, and everything links up nicely by the end.

So, if you're a fan of Katharine Isabelle..., or you like Tarantino-esque films..., or you like action movies.... or gore.... or if you are anyone at all... I recommend giving this movie your time. It's worth it.

[Image: Wango Films]

 

Hani

The Stomach

"The Stomach" (2015, Ben Steiner, FUME FILMS) is a short horror film standing at fifteen minutes of sheer absurd entertainment.

Frank (Simon Meacock) is a medium who can communicate with the dead in the weirdest way - they speak through his stomach! Frank's brother has been exploiting this talent for financial gain for a while now and Frank is fed up with it. However, when some bad people start using his service to gain information from a dead friend with a grudge, both the living and the dead try to stop Frank from freeing himself.

A mix of body horror, schlock horror and ghostliness, this film is not afraid to be different and out there. The concept is easily as fun and weird as "Basketcase" or other genre greats. The effects are fun, the plot is strange and the short runtime make it a snappy, different head turner.

[Image: FUME Films]

 

Hani