No. 352 : Willy's Wonderland (2021)

 

Willy's Wonderland at the IMDb

I found this soon to be cult classic on Amazon Prime and have to say that, despite myself, I actually quite enjoyed it. The film stars Nicholas Cage and appears to be from his ‘filmed in an afternoon to pay the tax bill’ phase. Its budget is listed as a lowly $5m and it was sponsored by the Malaysian film industry to the tune of 30%, which is confirmed by the credits list that suggest most of the post production was carried out overseas.

With a foreign backer to appease the film took the bold decision to have its star have literally no lines of dialogue whatsoever - I imagine that saved plenty on the dubbing costs alone. Apart from a few grunts Cage has nothing to say at all, and if the intention was ‘mysterious’ it came across as ‘constipated’.

Cage plays ’The Janitor’ a drifter, who for unexplained reasons, has a high end sports car. He drives through a small town when he hits a spike trap on the road causing a low end come to a stop - no budget for a big smash here. We quickly learn that this is small town movie cliché number one, with corrupt officials and police putting their well used plan into action. Cage doesn’t have the money for car repairs but a local businessman makes him a strange offer - clean up the abandoned fun house overnight and the $1000 repairs will be covered. Sounds like a good deal? HUGE mistake.

Whilst Cage gets his mops and brushes organised, we have a side plot with a bunch of high school kids who are plotting to burn down the titular fun house. These are your typical teen slasher fodder and I don’t think a single one registered with me. 

Despite having no lines, Cage does show character depth - he drinks a can of energy drink every hour and plays pinball, even when fighting off a hoard of rampaging animatronic characters. Yes, the fun house is inhabited by 8 mascots all of whom have murderous intent. In a large info dump from the sheriff, we learn that the fun house was owned and staffed by a bunch of child killers. When the game was up they carried out a ritual suicide which caused their spirits to inhabit the mechanical fun house hosts, like you do.

The robots were the best bit of the film with a good mix of creepy and exaggerated clown features with various animals and creatures depicted like a crocodile, woodland nymph and the titular Willy the stoat himself. As you’d expect the bad guys gamely line up for individual battle with Cage whilst their contemporaries take out the kids. We learn that the townsfolk lure in strangers to appease the bad guy spirits, lest they once again return to the town to seek their prey there. They should have called Cage in the first place, because as The Janitor, he quickly cleans house.

I was setting up to dislike this film. The opening has a lot of fast edits and has a washed out sepia tone. The gimmick of having Cage not speaking quickly wears thin and there are a lot of awkward scenes were a line of dialogue would move things on, whereas we get Cage looking awkwardly for a way out instead. His character and motivation are wafer thin but the fight scenes are decent and brutal with no time wasted with complicated explanations or justifications. The teens could have been wearing t-shirts marked ‘Fodder’ and their fates would have been no less obvious. Down the cast you’ll recognise no one apart from the lady sheriff who has a few decent credits, but was trying too hard to channel Darlene out of ‘Ozark’ to be effective here.

Overall this was a throwaway piece of nonsense that had just enough to keep me interested. The violence is fun and extreme and it demands nothing in terms of your attention or powers of deduction. The animatronics were well realised although it was clear that it was people in costumes for the fights and they weren’t as tough as invulnerable as the locals would have you believe. Guess you just need to hire the right janitor to take out the trash!

Best Bit : Need a new t-shirt

'W' Rating 15/23

No.344 : West of Hell (2018)

West of Hell at the IMDb

 

All aboard Rick & Morty’s Story Train for this trip to Disappointment with stops at Nonsensical Parkway, Confusion Central and bypassing Narrative Structure and Illumination Broadway.

We set off on a midnight train to Atlanta. At first it seems like a regular train with a bunch of murderous and mysterious characters, but there is more afoot that initially meets the eye. The train carriages themselves are set up like well appointed drawing rooms so that’s probably your first clue that things are not what they seem - there are no discarded copies of ‘Metro’ lying around and Baz hasn’t tagged the entire carriage.

We meet Jericho, who in another life was ‘Candyman’. He’s an ex-slave on a mission to kill all former slave owners and their first born children. One such child who is on-board is Annie, who has engaged the bodyguard services of ex-civil war soldier Roland. Candyman and Ro-land come to blows early on, but retreat to different carriages when things don’t go to plan - bullets don’t seem to be working for some reason.

We meet some other passengers, such as one chap who has a penchant for strangling prostitutes and another lady who has her ex-slave employed as her maid. They all have a past to hide but secrets are slowly revealed when they are joined by a shape shifter. As you have probably guessed things moved away from a conventional western when this chap appears, and employs ropey special effects to become each of our character’s dark secret.

After their pasts are laid bare the gang decide that the train they are on is on its way to Hell. Is there anything they can do to save their souls? Well, Lance Henriksen is in the last carriage and given he’s the Devil there may be some deals to be done…

This wasn’t a terrible film but it doesn’t have much to recommend it either. The production values were pretty low despite a couple of familiar faces such as the ‘jump to conclusions’ guy out of ‘Office Space’ making a brief appearance complete with unconvincing diabolical laughter. The lighting was poor in places with it hard to make out the action, and one character, who has a bag over his head, is virtually unintelligible. 

From the start I thought the twist was that they were on the road (tracks) to Hell and this proved correct - to be fair they didn’t really dress it up as anything else, so it wasn’t even a surprise never mind a twist. Lance was a pretty laid back Devil and offered little in the way of menace. As is standard, he offered the characters deals to get out of their predicament - terrible, lop sided deals! We did get a chance to see some of our characters in flashback and were able to decide for ourselves who was worthy of the visit to the flames and who was a victim of circumstance. Some were evil and went down that path whilst others made noble sacrifices having come to terms with their crimes. There were no real surprises in anyone’s arc with redemption liberally sprinkled about whilst the real baddies got their just desserts.

There were a couple of decent ideas in play, but the film was limited by its scope and budget. The Devil must have better things to do with his time as did Lance who clearly only spared half a day for the production.

The film only lasts about 80 minutes and the story would have been better used as an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ or the like rather than a half baked full feature.

You will see a lot worse and there was enough to garner half marks although that hooded guy, whose dialogue I couldn’t make out a word of,  cost them a chunk on his own. Overall it’s not a train to catch but if you find yourself on-board, you may as well stay on for the predictable and undemanding conclusion.

Best Bit : What’s this noose doing here?  'W' Rating 12/23

No.339 : Wildling (2018)

 

Wildling at the IMDb

Here’s a film that flirts with a few genres but ultimately is a bit unsatisfying and undefined.

Tiny tot Anna lives in a cabin in the woods. ‘Daddy’ brings her food but she’s not allowed to leave lest ‘the wildlings’ get her. They are described as children eating savages and Anna has to make do with peeking out her window throughout her childhood. As she enters puberty and has her first period ‘Daddy’ starts to give her injections that make her sick. Eventually she begs to be allowed to go to ‘the better place’ and ‘Daddy brings in his gun. He’s not up to the task and decides to shoot his own head off instead.

The now teen Anna is discovered and coaxed back to civilisation by Liv Tyler’s policewoman character, who’s more of a social worker than a cop. Strangely the social services let Liv take Anna home where she meets Liv’s brother, Ray.

The film then shifts from what appeared to be a kidnap and abuse story to one of someone trying to integrate into society having never experienced it before - a bit like ‘Encino Man’. We get the usual bitchy girls and school bullies and soon Anna blossoms and goes to a cool party with Ray where she gets a bit of kissy face - but wait! Her teeth start falling out and when she runs off to the woods she rips the throat out of a would be rapist.

It’s soon clear that we are in the realms of the supernatural with Anna being one of the wildlings that she was once taught to fear. As she slowly transforms she has to deal with hunters, her admirer and ‘Daddy’ who it turns out is as good at suicide as he was at parenting.

I liked the first hour of this film but it lost it’s way in a haze of ropey CGI effects and confused character development. It reminded me of the TV show ‘Grimm’ with supernatural goings on running parallel with everyday life. The town has a man with a wolf’s head hat walking about with no issues as well as a well armed posse of wildling hunters who seem to have a free rein to shoot up and burn anything they like. No wonder as sheriff Liv Tyler is as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane.

Bel Powley was pretty good in the main role of Anna, with her bulbous eyes and bewildered looks selling the character’s introduction into the real world. She was let down with the transformation effects which gave her a hairy back and a bad manicure. Later on she went full wolf, and it looked more animated than Wile E Coyote.

There were probably three films boiled into one here, with the first of the locked up girl being the most interesting although somewhat reminiscent of ‘Room’. Later on the high school element was a bit overly familiar with the transformation and hunt portion being faintly daft.

All in all it was a decent and entertaining offering with a few wrong foots sprinkled about to keep you guessing.

Best Bit : Opening 20 minutes ‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.335 : What the Waters Left Behind (2017)

What the Waters Left Behind at the IMDb

As our regular reader will attest, we are not adverse to the odd foreign film here at the ‘W’ Movie Blog and, with that in mind, let’s head south to Argentina for this derivative murder fest.

We get some exposition to start as we learn of a small village that was beset by rising flood waters. It had to be forcibly evacuated by the military before it was totally engulfed with the population displaced - or where they? Obviously not.

Many years later a documentary film crew have returned to the village which has recently re-emerged, due to the falling floodwaters. They are pretty low rent, relying on an ancient VW camper van and some limited equipment. They have in tow a young woman who was a refugee from the village, and the plan is to capture her memories of the once vibrant town.

On the journey to the village we get to know our six victims, er, filmmakers, who have the usual list of quirks and character points such as love rivals and a small poodle owner. Yappy dug is definitely getting it.

They stop off at a small petrol station and visit the worst toilet this side of ‘Trainspotting’. The attendants are all a bit strange, especially the old woman who insists that they buy her pies in exchange for her ‘clearing up their shit. On the evidence seen, not much shit gets cleared up, even on a good day.

Our heroes get ripped off on the fuel and window screen wipe down so they roar off yelling abuse and ditching the rancid pies - huge mistake!

At the village things go OK at first with the refugee showing the team around and recounting some interesting tales. Their van however breaks down and it’s clear someone has cut the petrol pipe. They make the standard error of splitting up and soon they start to fall afoul of some colourful locals and a snake. As their numbers inevitably whittle down, we wonder who will survive and whether the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ people have their copyright infringement lawsuit ready to go.

I think if this film was in English it would have been easier to dismiss as a clear knockoff in an already crowed survival horror genre. As it was, the Spanish language and exotic locations kept me interested or at least reading the subtitles.

It’s clear early on that the villains of the piece were a ‘Sawney Bean’ type cannibal family, with the gas station pies the first hint that maybe the vegan option wasn’t so bad. They revealed themselves gradually, and the look of sheep skull hats and massive cudgels was quite impressive and very ‘Silent Hill’.

The big surprise was nothing of the sort and I was only caught unawares as it was actually presented as such and not just assumed. The locations were excellent for the first hour with what looked like a real life disaster zone being used. Once the action decamped to an obvious set for the cannibals lair I lost interest and the film any momentum that it had earned.

There were a few bone crunching kills but nothing you haven’t seen before and better in films like ‘Wolf Creek’.

Overall this was an interesting pastime but it offered little new apart from some inventive locations and costumes. I’d seek my thrills elsewhere if I were you.

Best Bit : ‘Nearly Done’  ‘W’ Rating 11/23

 

No.325 : What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)

 

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? at the IMDb

Well if nothing else, at least this Italian effort secures the ‘Longest title’ award from this long running blog - eat that ‘W.’!

I found this on Amazon Prime and for all intents and purposes it looked like a badly dubbed exploitation flick and, to a great extent, it was. It did however try to veer into social commentary; moral high ground that crumbled somewhat when you have a look at that poster!

The film opens with a caption saying that the film serves as a reconstruction of the facts - the implication being that all the brutal murders and teenage nudity are nothing to do with them, but are due to those bad folks who wrote the script. They just made the film you understand.

The film’s stall is immediately set out as some policemen burst into a flat to find a naked teenage girl, who has been hung from the rafters. We meet Detective Silvestri, who is a dead ringer for Henry Cavill and new to the job lady DA Stori who has a bit of Sophia Loren about her. The death initially looks like a suicide, but after some fortunate detective work involving a peeping Tom, they decide the girl has been murdered.

The grisly death is soon all over the papers including a full frontal front page of the dead girl hanging from the rafters, despite her being only 15 - at least the actress was 20 at the time, but is was still unnecessary.  The girl gets identified and her mother reveals, in a naked daughter flashback, how she discovered the teen was taking birth control pills. Mum engaged a private eye to watch over her wayward daughter, but this lead cools when the cops find his car complete with his body in several pieces. These are comically put back together by the boys in the morgue with his wife insisting on a full look before screaming the place down.

All is not lost though as an audio tape is found that reveals lots of teenage girls are part of a prostitution ring that involves some influential people. Soon a motorcycle riding, cleaver wielding nutter is on the scene and every girl - and the cops are in danger. Who will survive the chopper onslaught?  And how high does the conspiracy go?

This film was a decent bit of exploitation slasher nonsense for the first hour, but it ran out of puff towards the end with the big finale looking daft and staged - well the big crowd behind the barriers was a clue!

Closing captions revealed that 8,000 girls go missing in Italy every year and nothing was being done. How kind of the producers then to make this kind of risible nonsense that would appeal only to the kinds of people they were looking to decry? Teen girls jumping around in the buff between scenes of gory, and at times comic, murder made for an unsettling viewing experience.

The main cast were decent albeit badly dubbed. The detection angle faded badly as the film progressed with the cleaver baddie being identified when they checked who had bought motorbike tyres recently, with one purchaser being listed as a butcher. Didn’t know Goodyear needed your CV to sell you a couple of tyres!

There were a couple of half decent chases but the villain was pretty ineffective and there was no real mystery or scares.

As a moral piece the film floundered badly, and as an entertainment it failed miserably. There were a couple of unintentional lighter moments but these were lost in a morass of suspect subject matter and unconvincing body parts.

Best Bit : Let’s Put This Guy Back Together  ‘W’ Rating 10/23

No.321 : When the Bough Breaks (1994)

When the Bough Breaks (1994) at the IMDb

We recently watched another ‘When the Bough Breaks and this 1994 version safely occupies the coveted ‘2nd Best ‘When the Bough Breaks’ award’ berth. Indeed if we find the 1947 version I can see this one moving into the bronze medal slot.

This and the 2016 version share only a title, with this effort being a detective thriller that makes no sense, and has no thrills whatsoever.

The film opens with a caption telling us we’re in Texas and it’s the 4th of July - regular captions chart the date as we head towards the 16th which is soon given some significance. Despite it pissing down road workers are digging a hole and teens are partying in the streets, but their endeavours are cut short when a pair of hands is discovered, flushed out of a drain. Cowboy hat wearing sheriff Martin Sheen is puzzled and can’t even offer a witty pun along the lines of ‘need a hand’ or ‘check out the second hand store’.

Instead he calls in FBI profiler Audrey (Ally Walker) who looks like she’s facing a chauvinistic department at first, but everyone turns out to be really helpful. She has Gillian Anderson’s hair off ‘The X-Files’ and as character traits she smokes a lot and is claustrophobic. She also has scars on her back for reasons that were unexplained. It may have been that they were laying character points for future sequels but happily those amounted to one straight to video offering only.

It seems that Audrey is the only one doing any work and she quickly establishes that a pair of numbered hands shows up every year and suspects a serial killer. Let’s hope so, or else a lot of villains must be getting handy. With some proto-internet skills she manages to identify a lot of the victims and soon tracks down a young mental patient who draws numbered hands on his walls. Gotta be a clue there surely? The boy chooses to be a mute, so slowly Audrey manages to get him out of his shell and the case starts to come into focus.

With July 16th approaching, and a girl already abducted, can Audrey solve the crime before another juggling career is destroyed for good?

This was an awful film that made no sense at all. The poster suggests a psychic element which isn’t covered in the film. It does turn out twins are involved but their psychic link is in full HD and never explored.

The detection was all over the place, including the uncovering of a red herring paedophile who drove about in an ice cream van wearing clown make up. Creepy as that sounds there was in fact loads of them working for a franchise. There must be a whole Texan generation of kids with an ice cream phobia! This was so ridiculous it was funny, with a flashback showing a child snared by a ‘free ice cream’ sign.

Despite his prominent poster presence Sheen does very little with all the work done by the dull and unengaging Ally Walker. I think she was let down in the edit however, as all her character’s quirks go nowhere and her breakthroughs were random and illogical.

I knew who the baddie was going to be early on as Ron Perlman was listed as appearing but didn’t show up until 70 minutes! His scenes were dreadful as was the whole finale which was lifted wholesale from ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.

You could argue it was left to the viewer to fill in the blanks, but that would just excuse glaring plot holes and bad writing. Having the mute ‘boy’ played by an obvious girl was a mistake especially as she looked like a young Justin Bieber - why not just use real twins or indeed have the twins be the same sex?

Anyway, I won’t waste any more time looking for nits and plot holes as it’s clear that the production didn’t bother, so why should I?

Te film was unintentionally funny in places, but overall this was just an incoherent mess.

Best Bit : Clown Face Ice Cream - ‘W’ Rating 6/23

No.312 : Water (2019)

Water (2109) at the IMDb

You know your picture isn’t going to be of the best quality when the best credit you can find for any of the cast is something called ‘Atomic Shark’ which has a shark with a nuke on its back for the poster. In fact most of the cast don’t even have their photo on IMDb which is probably explained by the fact that none of them appear to be actors.

We open with a man getting frisky on a lounger by the pool with his lady friend at night. She asks him about leaving his wife and fortunately she can ask her herself as she’s just come home. The wife has rushed home with news of her pregnancy but when she sees the sexy goings on she grabs a knife and goes on the rampage. There is a quick cut so we don’t know what happens but the wife ends up stabbed in the pool.

The girlfriend is quite happy with this turn of events and the pair chop up the body with an axe and burn the pieces. The man, Frank, decides he might as well go for the double and kills the girlfriend too. He calls in the cops and has enough influence as a top doctor to ally any suspicions. A year passes and Frank gets a call fro the insurance company - how would he like the wife’s $11m insurance payout? He celebrates with his new girlfriend in the pool but just as she’s getting down to earning her cut both she and Frank disappear into the water.

All the while, simpleton handyman Daryl is wandering about seeing things and talking to himself. He too gets a tickle in the pool but gets out after monetarily blacking out. Time passes and a real estate agent and his girlfriend take a midnight dip they soon regret before another family move in. This chap is an English movie producer and they move in after their adopted daughter is saved from drowning in the pool by a realtor. At least that’s what they think - we get an underwater shot of a mermaid like creature rescuing the girl.

The family sense something not right about the house - mostly water based things like the shower going cold and taps turning on. Maybe it’s haunted by the ghost of Super Mario? They try an exorcism but that’s a waste of time and we have to wonder who will get dragged into the pool next and what is behind this horror? Apart from the script, acting etc.

This was an awful film with the worst acting you’ll have ever seen, as long you missed ‘Albion Market’. The cast all crash each others lines and a lot of the script looks improvised, as characters trail off without finishing their…

There is plenty of sex to spice things up with the ladies of the cast looking like a job lot form some backstreet boob implant emporium. One lady takes her top off and her boob remains in the same flattened shape as her basque top. Breath out luv and it will pop straight back out.

I’m not sure of the pool’s motivation - it was a sort of moral guardian allowing only those not getting up to hanky panky to escape its watery tendrils. No one really notices the pool based issues, especially the police who keep telling people not to leave town and that’s it. The characters tend to avoid the pool later on but this is solved by the pool’s mystical ‘drag ‘em in feature’.

There was no effort at an explanation - maybe it used to be an ancient Indian burial pool? To be fair I did have a few laughs and the cast didn’t seem to be taking it that seriously so there’s no reason for the viewer to either. The film probably just hits the required level to be deemed ‘so rubbish it’s good'. But not that good.

Best Bit : The overacting albino priest doing an exorcism ‘W’ Rating 9/23

No.311 : Wrath of the Crows (2013)

Wrath of the Crows at the IMDb

Pretty grim Italian horror now, in the shape of this blood splattered offering which suggests a bit of mystery but really has none at all.

A group of people find themselves in a prison cell block. Nasty guards in military uniforms berate them, and they don’t know whey they are there. You basically have two options - is it a ‘Saw’ type maniac torturing them or is this a Hell or Purgatory type place? It’s the second one!

We don’t know which it is at first, but slowly we run through the motley crew of prisoners to understand how they found themselves in their current predicament. The first chap finds a white ribbon on his cell bars. This suggests that his judgement is that he is to be pardoned. Of course there is a twist and his pardon isn’t until tomorrow, which means he can be tortured in the interim. This takes the shape of him having all his teeth pulled out with pliers which we see in graphic detail. We flash back to his crime which was biting his girlfriend’s face off; so the punishment is just!

We also get a lady baby killer and another female from a circus who threw an axe into her love rival’s head. The rival is here too, and that was the first hint that we were looking at a spiritual house of correction, rather than it simply being some sadistic pervert who was calling the shots.

You also get the worst actor in living memory giving out the dinners. This actor chose, to quote ‘Tropic Thunder’, to go “full retard” and he does it in the most unconvincing manner imaginable. His back-story was that he killed a woman and ate her eyes with a spoon - so he is now condemned to be in charge of the spoons as he gives out his plates of slop. Take that irony!

After an hour a mystic chap appears, having come from an ‘Obi Wan’ tribute event. He fills out the bits of the story we haven’t guessed by explaining that they are in the soul harvesting game and, along with another character who used to be a prisoner but is in fact in on the game, they clear house ready for the next intake. Don’t let it be you!

This was a horrible film that was just plain nasty. I don’t need to see eyeballs being scooped out, or numerous faces being smashed to a pulp. I know it’s a horror film but the brutality was off putting with every character being doused in raspberry sauce before they were dispatched in an un-inventive, but nasty manner.

From the first scene I guessed they were all in purgatory and I was right. The characters were wafer thin, with old staples like the troubled priest and misunderstood witch all getting an airing. The sets and make up were decent, and at least they slotted in some flashbacks to reduce the tedium of endless cell block scenes.

There were however no surprises and nothing to keep me interested, just a cavalcade of dull characters who were judged and killed with no sign of redemption in sight. I think the learning was to be good, lest this pair of avengers put you on the list. Being condemned to watch this rubbish through again would be more likely incentive for me to reform!

Best Bit - A Day at the Circus!  ‘W’ Rating 4/23

No.305 : Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead (2014)

Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead at the IMDb

‘Wormwood’ comes from the book of revelations in The Bible and is a star or an angel. I don’t know why they have the spelling ‘Wyrmwood’ here or even what it has to do with anything. I guess it’s just an ‘end of days’ type of thing.

This is an Australian effort that tries to add a few new twists to the zombie movie - ridiculous twists that don’t make a lick of sense, but twists all the same.

The film opens with three men in leftover costumes from Mad Max 2 running from a garage and taking on a horde of zombies. They attach chains to a truck and wheel it back indoors as they dispatch a lot of zombies in a fashion that says ‘we’ve paid for this head exploding software and we’re going to use it’!

We don’t really know what’s going on but don’t worry - it’s one of those films that start in the middle and then go back to the start. The three men, now without their helmets, discuss how they got to be where they are. The first chap who is an Aborigine, tells of seeing loads of shooting stars before his brother turned flesh eater. He shoots his legs off but he keeps on coming so he finishes him off.

Another chaps says he doesn’t have a story as he had just killed his wife and child with a nail gun. We then get a long flashback with him trying to escape the madness with his wife and child before he, you’ve guessed, kills them with a nail gun.

The guys go full ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ on the truck and soon it’s a vehicular death mobile, complete with a harpoon gun that was just lying around.

Elsewhere three ladies are having a photo shoot which involves one wearing skeleton makeup - how prophetic of them! Two go full zombie and the other has to take refuge before being rescued by the military. It’s not much of a rescue however, as they turn her over to a bad actor mad scientist who injects her with zombie blood. The science, as it is, has determined that only people with O negative blood are immune to the zombie virus. It’s not made overly clear but I think the injections are to see where the tipping point is. I could tell them that - 3pm on ITV, weekdays.

Our original heroes set off to save the girl, who is one of their sisters. What follows are endless zombie kills and the deaths of most of our heroes. Who will survive and will the zombie plague be halted?

This was an alright film which has little to set it apart from its many contemporaries. As often happens a few unique properties to the plague are added to differentiate the film from the rest. Here it is that the zombie blood is flammable, so much so that you can use it to power your car, which is handy given that petrol is now inert. There was no science behind this and I’m glad they didn’t try. It did allow for a couple of gory deaths including one chap who was left with a delicious looking tandoori face.

I wasn’t invested in any of the characters and the non-linear narrative jumped around so much that I stopped bothering to keep up. The zombies were the white faced with bloody clothes type and, to be fair, the make up was good as were the many splattery kills. The tone seemed to shift regularly with pain and anguish followed by slapstick and comedy. At one point a bitten chap asks for the medical box and opens it to reveal two bottles of beer. Oh those Aussies!

There wasn’t much of a story to speak of and the majority of the film was spent putting our characters in place and then bringing them together. The end revelations were extra daft and no attempt was made to explain the crisis or solutions offered to halt it. I guess if you sign up for all of the standard zombie tropes and some above average kills you won’t go away disappointed.

Best Bit : Family Day Out  ‘W’ Rating : 14/23

No.301 : Witches in the Woods (2019)

Witches in the Woods at the IMDb

If you are only in the market for a two word review, here you go : ‘Don’t Bother’.

This was a dreadful waste of time that has nothing to recommend it. It borrows heavily from many other films, but only the dull bits, nothing that would make you sit up and pay attention.

It starts out in promising, but predictable fashion with seven friends heading out for a wilderness weekend in rural Massachusetts. The opening is full of sweeping shots that scream ‘quick use the drone, it’s going back on Monday’. The film opened with a pretentious quote about the nature of beliefs so you can guess it’s going to a more in the head than on the screen type of film.

The gang’s plans are derailed when the police send them back due to a road closure. They stop at a remote gas station and one of the more vocal ladies in our entourage takes issue with a hunter who has killed a bear out of season and by using an illegal claw trap. The hunter blames mobile phones for upsetting the bear’s sleep cycles and he’s menacing enough to make you think that he may be the inevitable killer who will kill our crew one by one.

The group soon manage to get lost and the truck gets stuck in a snowdrift. The dynamic is breaking down too, with a couple revealed to be having affair behind another’s back. There is also a bitchy one and a weird one and tempers soon fray. Two go off to find help and two blokes start to fight. We get small suggestions that more is at play here with dead crows strung to trees in a ‘Blair Witch’ kind of way.

The girl who goes for help comes back traumatised and the bloke gets his foot stuck in one of those bear traps we saw earlier. Full blown paranoia starts to take over with accusations of possession and ‘did you shag my bird?’ soon flying around.

Who will survive and what is the force that is whittling our group down, one by one?

I thought this film had potential but it took 30 of the 90 minutes to get the truck stuck and the remaining hour was a dull dive into a world of screaming and accusations. I’d hoped the scary hunter would be the villain ‘Deliverance’ style but thought it was more likely going to be a coven of witches, given the title.

It turned out to be neither with nothing more than a potential witchy influence being the cause of all the deaths and mistrust. There is no pointy hats or cauldron here, just a pamphlet for a witch trail and some good old fashioned cabin fever which set in after 20 minutes.

There were a couple of bloody deaths but nothing memorable and the cast were so unlikeable that you didn’t care anyway.

I’ve seen enough of these lost in the woods type films to know that cheap does not have to be dull. This one was dull and a waste of a decent premise. Maybe the demons that dwell within us are more scary than a pointy hat and a green face but this was flagrant false advertising.

Stay out of the woods and keep this one out of your DVD player!


Best Bit :  Millennial argues with redneck  ‘W’ Rating 4/23

No.296 : Wounds (2019)

Wounds at the IMDb

I never seek out psychological horror movies as I like a bit more show than tell. A hoard of zombies running around whilst on fire is always more entertaining than someone suffering some inner torment. Still, Netflix offered this one up and rather than scroll through any more options, I thought I’d give it a go. It was actually quite good and certainly better than the 4/10 it had garnered on IMDb.

That’s not to say it’s not without its flaws, and if you asked me to nail down exactly went on, I’d be struggling. I’m sure that was the intent; have a discussion and a think about it - not everything in life arrives on a plate.

The always watchable Armie Hammer stars as a New Orleans barman who works in a rundown booze shop, complete with cockroaches and colourful customers. Naked patrons drink for free, but alas the only person taking up the offer is a massive lady who plays pool.

The bar goes from empty to manic in moments as a fight breaks out leaving one drunk local with a huge wound on his cheek. The rest of the customers clear out, including a table full of college kids. When clearing up Armie finds a phone and heads home to his partner, her out of ‘50 Shades’. He manages to crack the phone and immediately gets messages begging for help. He assumes it’s a prank but when he investigates further the next day, he finds photos of bloody murders.

He goes on his errands and looks in on the slashed customer who refuses treatment despite the wound looking infected. He also notices that he’s being tailed and when he checks the phone it turns into a big bug so he lobs it out of the window, where it’s retrieved by his stalkers. The police, understandably, can’t do much but 50 Shades is doing her own research. She gets transfixed by a big black hole on the internet (a familiar tale) and researches a book called ‘The Translation of Wounds’ that details creepy rites and portals.

The couple fall out after Armie tries it on with an old flame and accuses 50 Shades of having an affair. He tries to secure a bed at his wounded friend’s place whose cockroach problem is getting worse - but not to worry, the friend has a new phone and a present awaits!

I enjoyed the first hour of this film but it tapered off at the end as Armie started to be overtaken by his demons and the story unfolded. There was no identifiable bad guy with the college kids only being seen at the start. I get that they opened the portal and the evil within was looking for a new host, but against the grubby New Orleans background it all seemed a bit fantastical and unlikely.

The opening scenes in the bar were enjoyable with the build up to the melee well done, as each participant was introduced. Armie and his partner didn’t seem a good match and their constant bickering was a pain. I did like the feel of malaise that permeated throughout, with the odd cockroach soon growing to a full on infestation - and more.

The idea of college kids raising an evil spirit was as old as the hills but at least they changed the formula somewhat with a kind-hearted bar tender getting dragged in due to his good deed.

The end scene was disturbing and although what went on was open to interpretation, I don’t think Armie is going to make happy hour. Decent entertainment was had, but if this were a bit clearer and not so contrived I think this could have been a winner.

Best Bit : Bit of a Bug Problem ‘W’ Rating 16/23

No.294 : Wishmaster (1997)

Wishmaster at the IMDb

‘W’ Movie royalty now as we look at the first of this franchise that spawned three sequels, all full of ‘W’ goodness. The no sequels policy remains however, so this is your only chance to have your wish of a great review realised - and dashed.

This popped up as a recommended offering on Netflix - the algorithm clearly has my number as it was exactly the kind of schlocky horror nonsense that I lap up.

We open in 12th century Persia with a voice over, and a day out for the special effects department. There is a lot of waffle about the granting of wishes and the demons that are being set free. Meanwhile someone is crafting a large opal - looks like a ruby to me. After lots of moulding and baking the jewel is revealed - already fully cut. Well it is magic. The carnage going on outside ends as the evil Djinn (basically a Genie) is trapped within the gem stone. There were a few decent kills in this sequence, and I liked the stop motion skeleton pushing its way out of a body the most.

We cut to the present day and Freddie Kruger, in the shape of a rich antiquities buyer, is awaiting the delivery of his new statue down by the docks. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. The Irish crane operator takes a drink and when a demonic voice gives him a fright he drops the box onto Freddie’s hapless assistant. In the debris the gem stone from the last paragraph spills out and is grabbed by a longshoreman who sells it to a pawnbroker.

Everyone is taken with the stone initially, but less so when it explodes during analysis and frees the evil Wishmaster. Our heroine, Alex, has been researching the stone and catches the attention of the wish offering miscreant. For reasons that are inexplicable, apart from driving the plot, the Wishmaster can offer up single wishes to people to charge up his powers. Once he has enough of these he then needs to have his target, Alex, ask for three wishes and on granting the third he can rule the world or something. No idea who made up these rules.

We get a good half hour of the Wishmaster offering up wishes - but beware! He’s a real bastard. One lady wishes to be beautiful forever and gets turned into a mannequin whilst another asks for a million bucks before it cuts to his mother buying life insurance just before dying in a plane crash. The point is clear - be sure of your wording and don’t get suckered because this guy basically does what he likes under the pretence of granting wishes.

In his human form the Wishmaster tracks Alex to a society party - will she ask the required number of wishes? and how will she turn the tables on the bad guy, as we know she surely will?

This film was a lot of fun and didn’t take itself seriously in the slightest. The effects varied in quality from the Wishmaster’s rubber face to some pretty impressive statues that came to life. The violence was so over the top you’d do well to be scared or shocked, and it was basically played for laughs with the demonic Wishmaster offering zingers at every turn.

Some of the wordplay was well done, with the Wishmaster’s interpretations being somewhat broad - Candyman said he’d like to escape from his job and got stuck in a big tank of water Houdini style - you didn’t ask for that! - get your money back!

Tammy Lauren was a bit wooden in the lead, but to be fair her job was simply to direct us from one special effect to another. The film was produced by Wes Craven and you could see the influence of his ‘Freddie’ films throughout - dark laughs and grisly kills galore.

I doubt I’ll look up the sequels but this one was great fun and well worth a look if you like your wordplay garnished with buckets of gore.

Best Bit : Liven up this party!  ‘W’ Rating  18/23

No.274 : Winchester (2018)

Winchester at the IMDb

Helen Mirren is always good value for fully immersing herself in a part and for doing what is necessary to show that she is free spirited and invested in the role. She doesn’t often let the lads go home empty handed, so to speak, This isn’t one of those films however, and I doubt she has ever been more buttoned up in her illustrious career.

She plays the title character, Sarah Winchester, who wears mourning clothes throughout this film which is set at the beginning of the 20th century. I was familiar with the premise of the story from my ‘Big Book of Weirdos’, but it’s fair to say that the writer of this effort took a few liberties with the plot and characters, hence the ‘Inspired by actual events’ title card.

The film is Australian but set in San Jose, California. I thought it was all sets and models but I see from the IMDb page that some scenes were filmed in the actual Winchester house which is now a tourist attraction. Most of the cast are Aussies however and the locations look a lot more Oz than L.A.

The real Sarah Winchester inherited the Winchester firearms fortune on the death of her husband. Her child died soon after and, feeling cursed, she set about trying to appease the spirits of those killed by her company’s products, whom she blames for her misfortunes. Rather than get in a good exorcist she chose to expand her home to allow the ghosts somewhere to stay. To keep them happy the building work continues around the clock and did so for more than 30 years before her death.

I can accept that this in itself may not be that an exciting film so the writer has chosen to imagine a lot of stuff including zombies and possession.

The story unfolds through the eyes of  Dr Eric Price, a boozed up psychiatrist who has grief issues of his own. The board at the Winchester Company are worried about the mad widow spending all their cash and hire Eric to check her out and to see if they can get her ruled incompetent. Owing to large debts Price agrees but we get the sense that despite the boozing he has retained his integrity and he won’t just rubber stamp her ticket to the Nut House, as the board require.

Price is at first sceptical, but over the course of a few days he sees things that start to challenge his pre-conceived notions. Is the house truly haunted or is he suffering the effects of coming off the booze and drugs? Sarah starts off a bit standoffish with him but after a few experiences involving her possessed nephew, some common ground is found.

Can the possessed boy Henry be saved? - get rid of those milky contact lenses for a start! - and will Sarah be removed from her sprawling home and the company’s board? Will Eric find his own redemption or is he destined to haunt some old house himself?

I quite liked this film but it was, like the house, a bit of a mess with too much stuff tacked on and other bits going nowhere. It was good that they used the original house and the bits they recreated were well realised with stairs going nowhere and doors opening onto sheer drops. The sense that work was always ongoing was well done, although there was a lot of pointless hammering and painting onto bits that had already been completed - that’s tradesmen for you I guess!

Jason Clarke as Eric was good - you’ll recognise him as John Connor from ‘Terminator : Genysis’ - or maybe not; I can’t remember it either! His dishevelled haunted drunk act was decent but he was undone by lots of cheap scares as a zombie faces poked out every time he looked through a window or keyhole. Mirren looked like she was going thorough the motions, dealing with a script that was mostly complete bollocks. They left any pretence of dealing with a woman with mental health issues to having it a full on haunted house with bogey men in every room.

I guess they’d call it a re-imagining of the story but it’s a disservice to a troubled widow to have the cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ wandering through the house at all hours. There is an element of ‘is she mad?’ Is Eric mad? Is everyone mental, especially those who stick it out to the end?

Given a true life story was used here it seemed a bit off to have such extreme elements added - why not just do an original story without making a real one seem ridiculous? It was passable entertainment with nice sets and decent straight faced performances, but overall you came out knowing less about the story, with the facts lost amid a lot of supernatural gubbins and jump scares.

Best Bit : Room full of loaded rifles? Bound to end well.
W Rating 13/23

No.272 : What Keeps You Alive (2018)

What Keeps You Alive

Canadian survival drama next, as we join a couple of married ladies on their weekend away at a remote family house. You can tell from that poster that things won’t go to plan; but who’s the danger?

The couple, Jackie and Julie, have been married a year and seem very happy although they do keep their bras on when having a cuddle! We learn snippets about their lives such as Jackie is a diabetic and needs regular insulin jabs. I knew that morsel of information would be important later.

The house was built by Jackie’s uncle who had also taught her to hunt. She recalls a time when she shot a bear and she was made to eat it over the course of several days - the attitude being that you only kill what keeps you alive - That’s the name of the film!

The girls meet up with the neighbour from across the lake who knew Jackie from years back, but she knew her as ‘Megan’. We also learn that a friend ‘Jenny’ had died in unspecified circumstances. This causes Julie to question what she knows about Jackie and starts to dig deeper into her past. Huge mistake - as Jackie throws her off a cliff in what was a surprising twist. Jackie goes home to rehearse what she’ll say to the police but when she returns to the body it has gone - Julie is alive and a danger to Jackie’s insurance scam plans.

The two stalk each other through the woods and we learn that Jackie is a grade A wack job who has had a series of wives and partners who have come a cropper. Has she underestimated Julie though? Maybe, as the injured Julie is rubbish at rowing and gets taken back to the house by Jackie with a pre-planned dinner date with the neighbours all that’s keeping her alive.

The dinner party goes terribly for all concerned with the body count soon amounting to everyone in the cast. The rest of the film twist turns like a corkscrew as each lady gets the upper hand before relinquishing it - who, if anyone, will survive? And is falling from 150 feet onto rocks really that survivable?

I liked this film despite some initial misgivings. It was set up as a mystery thriller but soon became a full on battle with some cracking bone crunching injuries and logic defying twists.

The direction was well done with some inventive angles used to convey the action; with surprises flashing in from out of frame before you get a chance to say 'for fuc…'

The two leads were great with psycho Jackie well played by Amy Adams look-alike, Hannah Emily Anderson. I liked her search for Julie as she changed from concerned to resting bitch face in a heartbeat. Brittany Allen was good too, as the put upon Julie, and despite some daft character decisions she pulled off the ‘oh no my wife is mental’ role well.

The last 20 minutes was a bit of a stretch of credibility with chances to end the whole drama being lost. ‘You know what? I’ll leave the tranquillised body there - actually I’ll drive back and have a look. What she’s gone…?!’

The only others in the cast, apart from a flashback young Julie, were the neighbours Sarah and Daniel. They were thinly drawn with Daniel a drunk (he was always drinking!) and Sarah a bit of a screamer and rightly so!

The film kept up a fair pace and although we saw that cliff top a few times too many, there was enough going on to keep me interested. A bit of tighter scripting towards the end would have helped, with the final twist well telegraphed from the start. 

Still good stuff and worth your time.

W Rating 18/23  Best Bit : Going Down!

No.266 : Wake Wood (2009)

Wake Wood at the IMDb

Lord ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish stars in this creepy horror from 2009 - the first release from the Hammer Studios brand in over 30 years.

The film opens with flashbacks of a young Irish couple’s life with their young daughter. One day she feeds her ham sandwich to an Alsatian and gets bitten to death for her troubles - shouldn’t have forgotten the mustard I guess.

The distraught couple move to the town of Wakewood (Not clear why it’s one word and the title is two - annoying!) with him working as a vet and her at a chemist shop.

One night their car breaks down and they head towards the home of local worthy Arthur who knows a mechanic - Arthur or ‘Barry off ‘Auf Wiedersein Pet’ as he’s better known, is having a few friends over. Only for a satanic mass! Young Mum Louise gets a good look at the strange goings on which look like a man being born out of a large husk. Probably not got broadband out in the sticks and they have to make their own entertainment.

Barry soon shows up at the couple’s house and, apropos of nothing, offers to resurrect their daughter. He has more clauses than a timeshare contract though, the most onerous being that the girl can only return for 3 days and the couple must stay in Wakewood for ever. Rather than call him a nutter they readily agree. Seeing as they have gone this far they also agree to dig up their dead daughter for some of her hair and desecrate the corpse of a man who recently got trampled by a bull. All in a day’s work in rural Ireland.

After a grim and pretty full on ritual the girl is returned to them and all is good for about 20 minutes. Soon they realise that something isn’t right about the little girl - maybe something to do with all those murders she’s committing? The couple soon realise that this unholy deal wasn’t perhaps the best idea, but what price must be paid to put things right?

I really liked this film. It had a creepy, unsettling vibe throughout with even the scene setting moments, such as Baelish doing his veterinary work, being overly graphic and visceral. There were a few clichés to dance around such as the whole town being part of a coven and some very specific rules about what can and cannot be done - 'don’t go beyond the wind turbines’ can't be in the ancient scrolls surely?!

The last half hour goes a bit bat shit crazy and it isn’t explained where the power behind all the events come from or who laid down the rules. I guess it’s the usual lesson in ‘don’t mess with the supernatural’. The story was similar to the excellent Strontium Dog story ‘The Moses Quest’ albeit with a bit more blood letting.

The study in grief of the young bereft parents was well handled and you could almost give them a bye for getting involved once you’ve seen the pain they were in. Barry did well to avoid an Irish accent and just went for ‘stuffy English laird of the manor’ instead. The main couple were excellent with the right balance struck between overly emotional and buying our sympathy.

The violence ratcheted up towards the end and as it was being carried out by a ten year old girl it was mostly done in quick edits - they must have told the young actress it was a video about kittens or something.

I think it’s a film that will stay with you and, despite being far fetched and a bit too gruesome to feel real, it was good disturbing fun and is well worth a look.

Best Bit - Man suffers from a lot of bull ‘W’ Rating 19/23

No.265 : Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil (1993)

Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil at the IMDb

I haven’t seen any of the proceeding four entries in this franchise, so please forgive me if I miss any character references or throwbacks to earlier instalments. Having seen the film I don’t think I have missed much, and any character development employed looks to have been accidental at best.

I watched the film and then did my research - HUGE mistake! It has what appears to me to be a generous 2.7 rating on the IMDB and none of the cast have done any other work since. It was also straight to video and is slated in some places as being soft porn, which would have caused me to pass it by had I known. To be fair I did manage to work most of these things out for myself during my viewing.

After some cheap 90’s credits we open with a hooker taking her customer back to her room. Obviously it’s a movie hooker so young, beautiful and not covered in cold sores. “We agreed fifty bucks” says the mark - or was he the film’s accountant talking about the budget? - before he gets knocked on the head by the hooker’s boyfriend. This small scene captures the film in microcosm - the mark gets the hooker’s bra off for a gratuitous topless scene before it is magically back on when the boyfriend appears. I had to pause that several times to pick up on that continuity gaff!

Unfortunately the mark dies and our hapless couple drag his body up the street in a blanket. It looks like the fat John has lost weight in the interim, given how easily he’s pulled along, but you don’t really notice as you are wondering why they don’t bring the car to the body? Meanwhile an evangelist is in his limo impressing his secretary with his biblical knowledge. His car nearly hits that of the murder/hooker combo and a homeless man gets wiped out in the aftermath. The Minister goes to help, but the homeless man dies, but not before a yellow squiggle leaves the dead man’s body and enters his. This ‘special effect’ looks like someone with a magic marker drew straight onto the film. We guess that this is some sort of transference going on as our Reverend immediately starts taking an interest in his busty secretary.

Our body disposal pair are now in the countryside and their car has broken down. They chance across a nitwit who calls himself ‘The Collector’ and who chucks stuff in the fire to make it flame up just a bit. Our geniuses think he’s a bill collector and resolve to knock him over his head and take his cash. Well that plan has never failed before. Soon the pimp is dead and the hooker is under the control of The Collector who immediately changes his name to ‘Cain’.

Elsewhere a couple are planning a night out at the dance club. William (who was in the previous films, apparently) doesn’t want to go but is dragged along anyway. Cain has hexed the nightclub owner and changed the dance night to one of magic. William is dragged on stage for a trick and Cain realises he is a Warlock and takes him under his power.

Will Cain’s plan to harvest souls to allow Satan to return to earth come to fruition? Who has taken over the preacher? And whose top is coming off next?

I enjoyed this film in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Its cheap rubbish but it knows it, and plays to its strengths of titillation and risible acting.

Star of the show is David Huffman as Cain who is hammier than a bacon sandwich. At one point the nightclub owner says ‘You don’t look like a rock star’ and he stands there, the spitting image of Ronnie James Dio. Every line is wonderfully delivered with accompanying hand gestures clear and present. At least they will have saved on the catering budget as he chewed the scenery in every shot. Amazingly he hasn’t worked since!

The three main ladies clearly weren’t cast for their acting abilities as each stumbled through their admittedly terrible dialogue before getting into their ‘love’ scene. These were all shot like 90’s power ballad pop videos with mood lighting, billowing curtains and a rock soundtrack. The scenes went beyond what would be normal and it looked like the producers decided to cut their losses and go for the soft core porn market. Or at least the market of people too ashamed to buy porn but want to get it through the back door with ‘horror’ films such as this.

The big denouement was shot in the dark so I’m not 100% sure what went down but there was a head chopped off somewhere. Further sequels followed so this effort must have made its money back, or at least the director found enough spare change to get a few more ladies disrobed.

I did like the special effects, especially the soul delivery which was a fried egg drawn onto the screen flying into Cain’s cloak. You don’t get that in the big blockbusters.

Overall one for a quiet night in when you are concerned someone may be looking for porn in your Amazon Prime viewing history. Right, where’s Part 6.

Best Bit : Disembowelled night club boss keeps cigar in mouth throughout + 4 others.
W Rating 14/23

No.258 : Where the Devil Hides (2014)

Where the Devil Hides at the IMDb

Pat Farrell in Lee Van Cleef’s hat stars in this low budget 'serial killer in an Aimish community' romp.

The film opens with Pat making dramatic statements regarding ‘the prophecy’ Word on the streets is that when six girls are born on the same day only one will live until their 18th birthday and that one will become the Devil’s Hand.

Before the title card appears the girls start popping out and Pat is on the scene with his sickle to get all biblical on their asses. He’s shoved down the stairs by Rufus Sewell out of ‘The Man in the High Castle’ but that’s not the end of the matter, sadly.

One of the six new mums, who has presumably seen the rest of the script, opts to smother her baby and cut her own throat. Probably easier to wrangle five accesses than six and it’s easier to remember who everyone is too, so it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.

We flash forward to the present day and the girls are about to celebrate their 18th birthday - which is strange as one of them looks about 30. Their community of New Bethlehem has accepted them but the nearing of the prophecy puts them all on edge - a good time for a skinny dip in the lake then. The girls meet a couple of horny lads, one of whom saves one of them after she has a fit and lots of visions.

They split up and go to their own homes but one is soon butchered with a big sickle after choosing somewhat bizarrely, to hide down a well. With the murder weapon clearly shown it has to be Pat who is the murderer - surely?

Things take a predictable path as the girls start to thin in number and we have to wonder if the prophecy will be true and whether someone with vested interests in local jam and quilt sales may be pushing things towards his own agenda.

As we near the welcome 86th minute, sorry 18th birthday, we have to wonder who will survive, who’s doing the killings and whether the prophecy will become true - bet you manage 3 out of 3 too!

This was a lot of clichéd and risible nonsense but I have to confess to quite enjoying it. The dialogue is atrocious with poor Colm Meany having to spout out so much drivel. Sewell gets little to do and you can almost see him mulling over new agent options as he delivers his Aimish lines that look like leftovers from ‘Kingpin’.

For a horror film they are quite coy with the sex and violence with a bare bum and a few off screen slashings all you get.

If you are looking for a new take on the serial killer genre you won’t find it here and the religious angle is just ridiculous and never given any traction, no matter how many ‘visions’ they crash cut in.
Overall a bit of throwaway hokum with nothing to really to recommend it apart from a few unintended chuckles and a plot that couldn’t be more transparent if it were written on glass.

Best Bit : Pat has a look for the ‘Devil’s sign’ - the dirty bastard.
W Rating  12/23

No.252 : Wendigo (2001)

Wendigo at the IMDb

A strange horror/monster/ghost story mash up now in this 2001 chiller. Patricia Clarkson stars along with the youngest out of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ as well as an English actor I didn’t recognise but he was in the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake.

The film opens with the three family members heading for a weekend in the mountains. Gawd knows why as it’s freezing and the area is populated by hillbillies but maybe the Paisley Glynhill was fully booked. They don’t get far in their Volvo before a stag appears in the road and comes worst off in the collision. The deer was being stalked by some hunters and they aren’t happy that the antlers were damaged in the collision. The Dad manages to talk them off but we see that arch hillbilly,Otis, remains unimpressed.

At the lodge they find a window broken and a bullet embedded in the wall. Rather than run for the hills they settle down for the night where the Boy is troubled by visions of a hillbilly home invasion. The couple also get it on on the sofa unaware that they are being watched by Otis. So far so predictable but the titular Wendigo has yet to show up.

The next day in town they are buying curry ingredients so that Dad can continue with his racist impressions. The boy is confronted in the thrift store by a supposedly enigmatic Native American who gives him a small statue of a Wendigo and spouts off some mystical gubbins. When he shows it to his Mum the man is gone and the assistant makes them pay $4 for the model - the oldest scam in the book! As they set off the mysterious Indian appears again - no doubt off to spend his share of the four bucks.

Next day the father and son go sledging and Dad falls from the sled mid run. The boy heads back to him but is scared off by some snow flurries and what looks like a monster made out of twigs. After passing out he’s revived by Mum who is worried for the husband whom they eventually find in their driveway having crawled home. It turns out he’s been shot - possibly accidentally by stumbling into a rifle range but more likely deliberately by Otis who thinks their house is rightfully his.

The family make a desperate dash to the hospital while the police seek Otis - will the Wendigo show up again to save the day?

I quite enjoyed this film despite it’s thin plot and far fetched premise. There’s not a lot going on apart from the standard strangers vs. locals squabble with a tree/deer monster thrown in to add a bit of value.

From the off the boy character is a bit strange and I think they are trying for a bit a ‘The Shining’ vibe from him. He’s meant to be a bit complex and introverted, and perhaps more in tune with nature than most but he just comes across as a bit dull and slow. Clarkson does better as the Mum although a lot of her scenes involve her running about a bit upset.

The hillbillies were more fun but a bit stereotypical as was the Sheriff who failed to convince - he deserves a hammering for that performance!

The Wendigo itself was ill-defined despite the wise old Indian in the thrift shop banging on about its powers. It was funny to see its P.O.V. shot when chasing the boy as it consisted of only a few twigs stuck around the camera lens. Towards the end it turned into a two legged ferocious deer which was confirmed by the Indian saying it could shape shift - my guess was that the costume shop was late in its delivery.

There wasn’t a lot or horror or scares here but it was a decent effort with some nice snow covered locations and a scenario that stayed just the right side of outrageously silly.

Best Bit : Twig man’s gonna get you!
‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.251 : Wer (2013)

Wer at the IMDb

I went into this film knowing nothing about it which turned out to be a good choice as there were plenty of surprises and wrong foots to keep me entertained. In retrospect the title is a bit of a clue but if you want to avoid spoilers read this after you’ve seen the film and we can compare notes.

The opening of the film isn’t too promising as it looks like it’s going to be another of those crappy found footage offerings. We see a young family of three enjoying a camp out in the French countryside. Happily two of them are grabbed by an unseen menace meaning we get to the film proper with the shaky camcorder consigned to the bin.

The narrative is driven along by the usual cavalcade of rolling news clips and we learn that a French local has been arrested for the crime. This hairy brute of a man seems a fair choice as he’s most hirsute  and doesn’t say much. The case however attracts the attention of an American lady lawyer who looks to defend the suspect and get to the bottom of the killings which now number three as Mom didn’t make it.

She butts heads with the French detective in charge of the case and conducts her own investigations which suggest that the authorities may have a vested interest in chasing the suspect off his land which is a prime location for a proposed nuclear waste dump, that the locals seem strangely keen on.

Things look good for the suspect when tests show he may have a crippling disease that would preclude him from any late night murdering and dismembering frenzies. He also looks to be off the hook when a fragging great grizzly bear is found in the countryside despite them being extinct in Europe for a century. The strobe test goes ahead however to determine if our man has the rare disease - huge mistake. He breaks his bounds and kills a load of people before escaping.

The lady lawyer, who is now starting to doubt her early protestations of our man’s innocence, resolves to try and track him down. Meanwhile her assistant has a worrying wound that’s growing by the day…

I really liked this film and am surprised that it isn’t better known. It’s largely shot in a manner similar to ‘Rec’ with a lot a steady cam work and running about in an almost drama documentary style. The pace is relentless and I like how it flipped from a straightforward detective story to a full on monster picture about half way through.

The violence was extreme with jaws pulled off and body parts scattered with abandon throughout. Some of the dialogue was subtitled which was fine for me but I know some people dislike it. I think the French setting was appropriate however with legends and ‘the old ways’ seeming more believable - unlike the bear which seemed totally out of place and was left unexplained.

There were a few too many cheap scares or my liking with all sorts of stuff jumping out like birds, bats and even a pig to give you an unearned jump.

They danced about the werewolf legend for almost all the film with diseases and reactions to the moon being full used in place of calling a wolfman a wolfman. This was OK and added to the film’s modern take on an aged and clichéd genre.

If you like a lot of gruesome violence and dislike the French this could well be the film for you as the body count must be in the dozens. I liked its reinvention of the genre and its fast paced and inventive script. Definitely one to look out for.

Best Bit : Jaw Dropping!
‘W’ Rating 19/23

No.249 : We Are Still Here (2015)

We Are Still Here at the IMDb

It’s winter 1979 and a middle age couple are heading towards their new Massachusetts home. We learn that they have recently lost their only son and the house, that they have bought cheaply, represents a new start. We know from the off that the house is a bit creepy and very beige, but the early signs of trouble are the usual false starts like a ball bouncing down the stairs and a broken photo frame.

They are soon greeted by a pair of neighbours with the man, Dave, strangely saying the house has not had fresh souls for 30 years while his wife presses a note into the woman’s hand telling her to get out of the house - she was unaware that her curtains were that bad.

They get around to unpacking and doing up the house but the sense of unease continues until an electrician, brought in to investigate a over hot basement, gets fried for his trouble. The suggested terror motif is quickly dispatched as he is confronted and Cajun cooked by some smoky figures with bright eyes. The couple aren’t put off - possibly because they got out of paying the electrician’s bill - but invite over a couple of relatives and their son and his girlfriend to visit.

The couple who are written off as ‘hippies’ have experience of the supernatural and the hope is that they can cleanse the house of the evil spirits and presumably the Kentucky fried electrician in the basement. The two couples head off to the local restaurant where they are made about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool by the locals who know the secrets of the house, I'll be bound! Meanwhile the son and his girlfriend let themselves into the empty house and pay for pilfering the Scotch by being carved up by the evil house dwellers. This pair are effectively fodder as the monsters tidy up after themselves and these atrocities are left unknown to our heroes who assume they’ve just been stood up. Nice that the monsters were keen to keep their security deposit intact!

The hippy couple start their efforts to clear the house of the unwelcome visitors but they are about as effective as a fart against a tornado. Whilst the man hippy is eating his sock and poking himself in the eye the townsfolk decide to take matters into their own hands - if our heroes escape the evil in the house will descend on the town, so they head over to help the cinder people - huge mistake. Who will survive? And why didn’t they just burn the house down years ago rather than let it kill a bunch of folk every 30 years?

I liked this haunted house horror despite it’s threadbare plot and OTT violence. The 1970’s setting was well realised with the leads sporting no end of stylish turtle necks and double knits. The actors did a decent job as looking shocked a lot and no one was scared of getting their hands dirty, as more claret was spilled than in a winery explosion.

The premise was a bit weak with the burned bodies of a wronged family showing up every 30 years in need of a fresh family to feast on. There was no reason offered for this timescale or what they were after - nourishment? revenge? A straight to DVD horror? Who knows?

The twin baddies of the monsters and the compliant townsfolk were well done, although it was more for laughs at the end when the locals showed up to help and ended up as the main course themselves. The crackling and smoking family of basement dwellers were well done and exuded some real menace.

The ending was pretty satisfying and I liked the end credits sequence that featured a lot of local newspapers recounting the horrors that had occurred over the life of the house.

I don’t think this film was particularly scary but there were plenty of gruesome kills and a nice air of unease throughout. Definitely one to check out.

Best Bit : ‘We’ll help…aaarrrrghh!’
‘W’ rating 19/23