The Eyes of my Mother

"The Eyes of my Mother" (2016, Nicolas Pesce, Borderline Presents, Tandem Pictures, Magnet Releasing) is a black and white horror drama about trauma.

Francisca's mother (Diana Agostini), an ex-surgeon from Portugal, teaches the young girl (Olivia Bond) about anatomy. One day, a creepy stranger (Will Brill) asks to use the family's bathroom. Against her instincts, Francisca's mother lets the man into the house, where he brutally murders her. Francisca's father (Paul Nazak) comes home and beats the murderer bloody before dumping him in the barn - An event that the murderous intruder will live to deeply regret. Francisca (Kika Magalhães) grows into a disturbed young woman, with an unusual fascination with death...

A slow burning film punctuated with disturbing scenes of suggested  mutilation and gruesome ideas. Francisca is a lonely girl, who's young experiences with horror have left her broken and unfeeling. There's a lot of unsettling content in this film.

Despite this and despite Magalhães' engaging performance as the main role, the film does suffer from being so slow and quiet, however, its bat-shit, mental content makes up for this in abundance. A truly awful vision.

[Image: Magnet Releasing, et al}

Hani 

Let's Scare Jessica to Death

"Let's Scare Jessica to Death" (1971, John D. Hancock, Paramount Pictures, The Jessica Company) is a film about an emotionally fragile woman who is experiencing strange visions and nightmares.

Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is recovering from a meltdown. She and her husband, Duncan (Barton Hayman), and their friend, Woody (Kevin O'Connor), have all given up their jobs and moved out to a farm in Connecticut known to the locals as 'The Ol' Bishop Place'.

Upon arriving there, they discover a squatter called Emily (Mariclare Costello) living in the house. Being 70s free spirits, they decide to let Emily stay because she can play guitar and stuff... Oh, and Woody fancies her.

Jessica is scared to tell the others, in case they think she's going crazy again, but she's begun to hear voices, see a mysterious blonde girl in a white dress and has been grabbed by pale, grasping hands under the water when swimming. When she's told an eerie tale by a local, she begins to see things fall in to place... or is it all just in her mind?

A slow chiller with a twisty and slightly confusing plot. This film is very much of its time, but still manages to have a few nice chilling scenes. On the whole, however, the title promises things that the end product does not deliver. And the story is definitely not what I was anticipating!

[Images: Paramount Pictures]

Hani

The Sacrament

"The Sacrament" (Ti West, Eli Roth, Worldview Entertainment, Arcade Pictures) is a found footage film about the goings on behind the scenes of a secluded religious commune.

 

We follow two reporters (Joe Swanberg and AJ Bowen) and fashion photographer, Patrick (Kentucker Audley), who are travelling to the 'Earth paradise' that is the Eden Parish commune, where Patrick's sister, Caroline (Amy Seimetz) has been living since getting over her drug addiction.

 

The Commune is run by charismatic and freaky leader, Father (Gene Jones), who is keen for Patrick to 'visit'. However, the staunch security the three men are faced with is daunting and they soon begin to suspect something sinister is going on in the idyllic farming community.

 

A tense, sometimes funny and engaging slow burner, which builds up to a dramatic climax. The characters are interesting (especially for a found footage style film) and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

 

It's more of a dark thriller than an all-out horror, however, and draws very much from the horrifying real story of Jonestown, bringing a very melancholy feeling and poignancy to the film.

 

[Image: Arcade Pictures]

 

Hani

Black Sheep

"Black Sheep" (2006, Jonathan King, The New Zealand Film Commission, Icon Productions) is a horror comedy about killer-zombie-were-sheep.

Henry (Nathan Meister) has a sheep phobia. Which is a shame because he comes from a long line of sheep farmers. He's returned home to the farm to arrange land ownership with his sheep farming brother, Angus (Peter Feeney). Unbeknownst to Henry, Angus has been doing some mad science as well as sheep farming and has created some Jekyll and Hyde style potion which turns sheep into carniverous killers who's bite turn humans into deformed, blood thirsty, man-sheep hybrids. Henry must face his phobia and help fight to restore normality.

A fairly creative concept with a lot of gore and some fun puppetry. Sadly, I just didn't find the farce funny and the script didn't really merit a feature-length film.

The characters were annoying. I get the whole idea that the tree-huggers were meant to be annoying, but really the half-assed hippy banter got irritating after the first half.

The pacing was also not great, and there wasn't enough humour to keep it going.

Not funny, not clever, not engaging. I really don't understand all the online rave reviews out there!

[Image: The New Zealand Film Commission]

Hani

Demon Wind

"Demon Wind" (1990, Charles Philip Moore, Demon Wind Productions Ltd., United Filmmakers) is a low budget demon movie which uses every overused horror convention known to man.

See checklist:

• Boy and girl on a trip in the sticks? Yep
• Boy with bad past, digging it up a little? Yep
• Bad dreams and premonitions about a creepy place resulting in the characters deciding to go to said creepy place? Check
• Creepy petrol station and even creepier couple owning it? Certainly!
• Inhospitable locals? You got it!
• Religious stuff and the weirdest demonic beginning ever? Uh huh
• Crusified remains? Yep
• Evil fog? Oh yes!
• Spooky old books and characters dumbly reading them aloud to begin the mayhem? Of course!
• Demons?
• Zombie things?
• Spew?
• Bloody writing?
• Magick spells?
• Ghosts?
• Confusing, 2D characters?
• Inescapable location?
• Odd special effects?
• Creepy children?
• Demonic voices?
• Evil fog?
• A place you can't leave or escape?
• Technology failing them?
• Never-ending shotgun rounds?
• Yes to all!

Oh yes! This film is like 10 films in one. And all of them kind of suck!

Oh, but one thing that was missing.... Demon Wind! That was what made me click play on the YouTube machine! I wondered, is it about demonic gas? Evil methane? Or is it a place like the name of the house is 'Demon's Wind' or something? Nope. Still confused!

The main character is called Corey (Eric Larson) and he and his girlfriend, Elaine (Francine Lapensée) are driving to Corey's old family home; a delapidated farm house in the middle of nowhere. His father has committed suicide after telling Corey that their family is cursed for worshipping Satan and that his grandparents had died in the cottage in a fire started by a Demon worshipping madman cleric.

How's that for a plot? Bloody crazy? Oh, it gets better.

So, it seems ol' Corey just couldn't have himself and Elaine have all the family tree, family death plot viewing fun to themselves, and invited all of their friends. And the friends actually turn up! Go figure!

Some of the friends are hilarious:

• You have a magical karate kid magician who looks a lot like Jared Padalecki (but obviously isn't as he's way too young!)
• You have the sensible dude (you know he's sensible because he speaks proper English and wears glasses) who from some angles kind of looks like a very young Alan Tudyk (but isn't).
• And you have your jock, who looks a bit like Zack from "Saved By The Bell". But isn't.

The characters are all a bit touchy-feely and everything just seems plain forced. There's also some awkward demon-boob-groping, which is a bit reminiscent of "Basketcase", but with clothes.

The dialogue is terrible, and the demons (and pretty much most of the plot) is like a crappy copy of "Evil Dead". There's also a lot of shots of demons spewing white stuff and I believe most of the SFX budget was blown on one particular scene where Magician dude and the dude called Stacey (Jack Vogel) blow apart some zombie-demon/deadite-knockoffs with sawed off shotguns. Body parts flying everywhere!

I especially enjoyed the very 80s/90s neon light special effects!

The end is just confusing with Corey and Elaine suddenly becoming super witches and then Corey's head going all Coneheads-meets-Star Trek.

One thing I really liked though; how do you have a haunted farmhouse and a place for your characters to be stuck in if your farmhouse has been inconveniently burnt down in the opening scene? Easy! Alternate dimensions! Enter through the door and go back in time to the full house. Enter from the side of the ruin, and stay in reality!

Things that really just annoyed me:

1. Maggots in an egg.... WTF?
2. They get magic knives, or Athanes, which will kill the demons. They use both up very quickly and promptly lose them.
3. Why did one girl turn into a demonic baby doll?!
4. Why did one guy grow backwards and turn into a dove?!

These are the questions I'd like answered!

Generally, a complete and utter load of crazy with some typical demonic voices and several plots going at once. In fact, I'm still confused! This film didn't know what it was, and tried to do everything. All that was missing was a possessed hand and some foliage rape and this damn circus would have been a complete rip from the great mind of Raimi. But again it's free, so if you want to find out for yourself just how awesomely bad this film is, get on YouTube!

[Picture: United Filmmakers]

"Demon Wind - It'll blow you away!"

Hani

Slash

"Slash" (2002, New Africa Media Films, Neal Sundström) is a rock band slasher flick set in the American countryside. It's also an 'Old Macdonald Had a Farm....' horror...

'Slash' are a young rock band on tour. After a show, a strange fellow called Billy-Bob shows up to inform lead singer Joseph 'Mac' Macdonald (James O'Shea) that his aunt has died and that his father Jeremiah Macdonald (Steve Railsback) requests his attendance at the funeral.

Mac and his band jump on their tour bus (while playing a riveting game of 'celebrity death cause') and head to Macdonald's farm. At the funeral a crazy Christian lady, Jesse (Jocelyn Broderick) begins yelling at Jeremiah about his cursed family and the legend of his father Jethro (Danny Keogh), who murdered people and harvested their blood to feed his crops... Apparently, this began due to an old slave superstision that if you sprinkled chicken blood on crops they'd grow better... it appears the Macdonalds took this tradition a couple of steps further...

The band stay the night, only to become the latest victims of Old Macdonald and his blood thirsty farm.

A relatively good opening scene with young Mac (Adam Woolf) spying his grandfather's handiwork before an accidental barn fire killed ol' Jethro (or did it? Dun dun dun!) is kind of spoiled by a severly overacted scene where two teens are murdered in the corn field while on their way to a nightclub Halloween party. Of course, any sane person would feel up their girlfriend's boob after a car crash.... Ray's a dick. Also, if I ever see a scarecrow with clearly human teeth, I'm not going to pee next to it! I'm going to run like heck! Geese!

Some stilted editing ruins an otherwise pretty good running-away-from-the-killer-through-a-corn-field-and-cemetery-in-a-short-skirt scene.

'Slash' have just the worst stage presence ever! They're way too pleased with themselves through the whole boring first track. And the typically portrayed big-headed axeman annoys me. No matter how good a guitarist you are, if you can't be bothered to be on stage for the gig and are too busy getting jiggy with a hippy groupie chick, you're outta the band!

I did enjoy the changing room papered with iconic band posters though; System of a Down and Creed.

Like all low budget slashers, 'Slash' feels the need to mention and parody several famous slasher genre films...

The awkward romance between bassist chick, Suzie (Suleikha Robinson), and Mac is odd. And her idea of pillow talk is disturbing; a threesome between he, she and his grandfather's spirit!!! Really???

I did enjoy Jeremiah's character though. He's always 'yanking your chain' and makes a creepy yet likable antagonist.

Billy-Bob was also a pretty interesting character, between taking the mickey out of the band members, being creepy and killing chickens.

Who knew the ultimate death machine was actually the combine harvester?!

I did kind of enjoy the idea of the band having a song called 'Old Macdonald's Farm' though, which also actually included 'ee ii ee ii oh' in the lyrics.

Some, but not all, of the acting in this movie is pretty wooden, and most of the characters are unlikeable, except for Jeremiah, Mac and Billy-Bob. But on the whole, there's a lot of scythe related deaths and the scene with the combine harvester is pretty gruesome.

I can't stomach a horror with too happy an ending though... although I suppose it's not really a happy ending for everyone.

Another bargain bin buy, but it's not the worst I own...

[Picture: New Africa Media Films]

Hani