Quarantine

"Quarantine" (2008, John Erick Dowdle, Screen Gems, Vertigo Entertainment, Andale Pictures) is the American remake of 2007's found footage film, "REC".


Duplicating the story, we follow Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her crew who are filming a documentary about the lives of a Fire Crew for their news station. When they get a call out, Angela and her camera man tag along, excited to get some action on film. They are called to an apartment building which has been locked down with everyone inside, due to the unusual behaviour of one of the tenants which is suspected to be some kind of virus. The Fire Crew and Camera Crew enter, along with some police but soon find themselves also locked in the building as it is quarantined to contain whatever the hell is going on in there. Soon they are all fighting for survival amongst a horde of infected friends and neighbours... while being sniped down from the outside, barring any hope of escape...


An unnecessary remake that didn't do much other than recreate the original concept scene for scene but in English. The film does have some great effects (that ankle scene) and Carpenter gives an amicable performance as our some-parts terrified, some-parts sassy protagonist.


All in all, the film is well made and enjoyable, but I'd be more inclined to watch Rec above it if given the choice.

[Image: Screen Gems]

Hani

Shock Waves

"Shock Waves" aka "Almost Human" aka "Death Corps" (1977, Ken Wiederhorn, Zopix Company) is a shipwreck-cum-Nazi-zombie-survival movie.


Captain Ben Morris (John Carradine), his crew and his passengers are involved in an accident when travelling across sea. They are forced to abandon their wrecked boat and the survivors find their way onto an nearby island.


They are shocked to learn that the island is not completely uninhabited when they meet a reclusive SS Commander (Peter Cushing) who warns them to leave the island as it is dangerous.


Unable to heed his warning, due mostly to the fact that they lack any means of escape, the survivors find that they are being hunted by a swarm of undead Nazi super-soldiers created during WWII. The Commander had purposefully sunk his ship containing them, trapping himself on the island in the process. But, being zombies, the creatures have been lying dormant in wait of fresh victims...


A slow moving film that lacks the strong plot necessary to keep up momentum, but managing to be entertaining in its sheer silliness and feature a very cool setting. The zombies seem to be mostly aquatic and we are treated to many scenes of them slowly rising from the shallows to trap their victims, walking underwater and jumping into unused swimming pools. They are also decked out in Nazi uniforms and wearing dark goggles which protect them from the dangers of daylight.


I would have enjoyed a little more of both John Carradine and Peter Cushing in this film, but despite their relatively short screentime the film is still engaging thanks to our cast of hapless, squabbling tourists and final girl, Rose (Brooke Adams).


A slow film that does not deliver much in the way of gore or scares; most of the action is off-screen. However, the film is well made, enjoys some good underwater scenes and is nonetheless a good yarn worth checking out. Even if it's mostly just for the begoggled zombies.

[Image: Zopix Co.]

Hani

The Belko Experiment

"The Belko Experiment" (2016, Greg McLean, Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, The Safran Company, Troll Court Entertainment, Orion Pictures, BH Tilt) is a horror movie along the lines of "Battle Royale".

Mike (John Gallagher Jr.) works at Belko Industries; a non-profit of no explained purpose based in Columbia. He and his colleagues (including girlfriend, Leandra (Adria Arjona) and boss, Barry (Tony Goldwyn)) come in to work to find new, heightened security. This isn't the only strange thing to happen that day... With shifty security, a limited, non-local skeleton staff only being allowed entry and a strange voice over the loudspeaker giving terrifying orders, it looks like things might get violent. And, spoiler alert: they do. Really violent.

An intense, savage romp that remains entertaining, but doesn't cover any new ground. The story is not the most innovative, but the action keeps moving and the characters remain three dimensional. The casting is good; especially Wendell (John C. McGinley) who makes an excellent creep and an equally effective office-politics Goebbels.

While I think the creators intended the film to have some deep meaning about office life, human survival and faceless corporations it kind of gets lost in the gory, gory, gorefest that is most of this film. A slimy, bloody, B-movie massacre, but not as cerebral as I had anticipated.

[Image: Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, et al]

Hani

The Institute

"The Institute" (2017, James Franco, Pamela Romanowsky, Jeff Rice Films, Redwire Pictures, Campbell Grobman Films, Dark Rabbit Productions) is a period horror set in The Rosewood Institute; a real life place in Baltimore which was closed in the 90s.

A grief stricken well-to-do girl called Isobel (Allie Galerani) checks herself into the institute in order to get over her parents' death. She is subjected to torturous "treatments" at the hands of Dr. Cairn (James Franco) and his staff.

A dull and arduous movie that takes a long time to get going and then doesn't deliver anything worthwhile. The acting is tedious and the plot is over-trodden tropes that have been done better elsewhere. The story waivers between wanting to be psychological and wanting to be supernatural and the draw for our leading lady to wish to stay at the institute is very weak.The horror elements fall straight into the sexploitation category and don't manage to make much more of it than re-tread ground already done rather effectively in the 60s and 70s.

All in all the only thing I enjoyed about this film was the slide at the end of the credits where I learned that Rosewood was a real place and that led me down a short rabbit hole about the place's history. And guess what, it was nowhere near as interesting as the film hinted at.

[Image: Dark Rabbit Productions, et al]

Hani

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

"The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1977, Don Taylor, American International Pictures) is one of the film adaptations of H.G. Wells' famous novel.

Andrew Braddock (Michael York) survives a shipwreck and eventually lands on an unknown island after 17 days at sea. He finds himself the welcomed guest of honour at the island's leader's house, that of Dr. Moreau (Burt Lancaster); a mysterious and unusual scientist who has been living on the island for some time.

Moreau is joined by a mercenary called Montgomery (Nigel Davenport) who serves Moreau as his associate, but does not like the man, and a beautiful young woman called Maria (Barbara Carrera). There are natives on the island, too, who are very odd-looking, they almost do not look like men at all. Moreau's personal servant is one such native called M'Ling (Nick Cravat).

Braddock becomes intrigued by Moreau's experiments and learns, to his horror, that the 'natives' are not in fact human at all, but man-beasts: the results of Moreau's twisted experiments to make humans from wild animals....

Although key aspects of the story were changed for the screen, and Moreau's experiments lose some of their shocking awfulness by being entirely serum based, instead of part vivisection, the film still packs a cold, dreadful punch.

Michael York is always so upstanding and polite. His portrayal of Braddock is good, however, and his anguish is quite disturbing. Lancaster portrays an excellent Moreau. His menacing intellect and his obsessive control over the island are unsettling. The makeup and effects are really impressive, but then, John Chambers was the makeup designer (Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and other such impressive credits) so it could not be anything but.

It's a relatively tame flick, considering the subject matter, but this is in most part due to the era in which it was made. But it is still an enjoyable film with some solid performances, but not as much mystery as I would like.

[Image: American International Pictures]

Hani

Victor Frankenstein

"Victor Frankenstein " (2015, Paul McGuigan, Davis Entertainment Company, TSG Entertainment, 20th Century Fox) is a retelling of Mary Shelley's famous novel.

We meet the currently nameless hunchback destined to become the iconic assistant, Igor (Daniel Radcliffe), working as a clown and aspiring physician at a circus, where he is brutalised and beaten often by his 'circus family'. He is saved by Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) who sees the young man's astounding intellect and potential when Igor's dream girl, the beautiful acrobat, Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay), is hurt during a performance and tended to by Igor.

Upon being freed from the circus, Igor is taken to Frankenstein's impressive home where the trainee Dr. quickly corrects Igor's deformity and posture, which was not a true hunchback condition and shows him his impressive scientific experiments. Together they assemble a creature which they bring to life to impress Victor's peers and superiors at university. The experiment succeeds but, instead of being met with applause, Victor is dismayed to find that his creature has brought him only disgust and it soon becomes violent, forcing him to kill it.

Not disheartened by this, Victor and Igor continue to work on a bigger, better creature whilst dodging the attentions of a determined Scotland Yard inspector who suspects the pair of murder and worse.

Although the horror elements are remarkably tame, the film attempts to retell the tale through Igor's eyes in an imaginative fashion and updates the plot without losing too much of the original tale.

McAvoy and Radcliffe make an excellent pair of mad scientists with McAvoy playing the titular Victor Frankenstein in true charismatic, maniacal brilliance. Radcliffe brings a new dimension to the usually humorous assistant character of Igor, with a confused ethical code, heroic qualities and a sympathetic charm.

It was nice to see Igor get a new lease on life (and some intellectual credit) and to see the tale from a different perspective. However, the film itself does nothing particularly ground breaking and certainly won't appease the gore hounds. It stands as a fun retelling but can be boring in places and, despite the excellent performances of the main characters, it does not break free from other Frankenstein remakes as anything unique.

[Image: 20th Century Fox, et al]

Hani

Hollow Man

"Hollow Man" (2000, Paul Verhoeven, Columbia Pictures) is a modern day retelling of H.G. Wells' famous story, The Invisible Man (a fantastic book!).

Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a ego-maniacal scientist, who along with his team (including his ex-girlfriend and her new lover), is working on an injection that can render a living creature invisible.

Finding success with animals, albeit with a nasty side effect of insanity, Caine decides the next logical step is to try it out on a human. Getting the support from his team, he steps up as human guinea pig and becomes invisible.

For a while he enjoys his new found freedom, but when the attempts to bring him back to the visible realm fail, he begins to lose it and things turn nasty.

Soon, he decides he likes being invisible better anyway, as he can do whatever he wants... to whomever he wants....

The effects are still pretty top notch to this day, which is impressive for CGI-centred work. But I'm still a bigger fan of physical effects.

The acting is good, the effects are good and there's certainly a lot of blood, but on the whole it's a pretty unremarkable 2000's misadventure, and besides updating the scenery, doesn't really do anything that the original tale and subsequent films haven't done already.

[Image: Columbia Pictures]

Hani

REC

"REC" (2007, Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, Filmax International) is a Spanish 'found footage' zombie-esque horror.

Ángela Vida (Manuela Velasco) is a TV reporter for a local show in Barcelona called "While You're Asleep". She and her cameraman, Pablo (Pablo Rosso), are following the local Fire Crew for the night. The first segment of the film primarily consists of her interviewing firemen and complaining about how boring it is, and how she'd like an emergency call to come in. Lucky her, one does!

They set off with firemen Manu (Ferrán Terraza) & Álex (David Vert) to the house where an old woman has become extremely aggressive and the police have shut down the building with all other tenants trapped inside. The crew enter along with a couple of policemen, an officer (Vicente Gil) and a younger cop (Jorge-Yaman Serrano). It soon becomes apparent, however, that even the policemen aren't completely aware of the situation.

When they try to confront the woman she attacks them, and we delve into a zombie house of horrors.

While the story itself isn't anything new, the confined space of the building, excellent shaky-cam work and disjointed filming work really well. A lot of the jumps happen in the dark when either the camera comes back on just in time of an oogie-boogie moment, or when Pablo sticks on the nightvision, showing us the full grotesque image of the creatures.

I'm not usually a found footage fan, but 'REC' really kicks the action up a notch and makes for quite a thrilling ride! The ending is also very effective and leaves the audience wanting more. Just remember, it's in Spanish so expect to have to read some subtitles!

[Image: Filmax International]

 

Hani