Film Reviews by NP

Relishing in its micro-budget, ‘The Cellar’ – otherwise known as ‘Do You Like My Basement’ – is set almost entirely in one location. Claustrophobic, unsettling, and viewed mainly through the camera lens of film-maker Stanley Farmer (Charlie Floyd), this cellar plays host to visiting characters who are well played and often a little larger than life. This lifts the story and stops it becoming as dull as such a thin story might otherwise have been.

Not that there isn’t incident, and some of it impressively nasty. Farmer is an impressive narrator, never letting the fact that his filmic efforts have thus far been ignored. He is clearly determined to make what is almost a snuff movie, possibly for his own entertainment, or possibly to ‘break’ the market – despite the fact that he is desperately unhinged.

I enjoyed this. It has a vein of dark humour running through it - imagine a cut-price Saw film featuring a Jigsaw wannabe. What it lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in the seedy isolated obsession of its main character. My score is 7 out of 10.

The acting isn’t always stellar and the effects sometimes scream CGI, but as disaster films go, I’ve seen a lot worse. A real effort is made to portray life after another ice age, and the characters are genuinely likeable – which means the audience is given reason to care about them.

Where things fall down is a sense of dullness as the story attempts to keep the momentum going, with the endless display of jeopardy getting a little wearing. It’s worth sticking around for though because there’s no let up in pace, especially toward the end. My score is 6 out of 10.

This is a wonderfully original horror story involving an Army Veteran (Fern Sreaves, played by Leven Rambin), who returns home to discover a lone boy in the forest surrounding her home. The child, Cecil, is (mercifully) played in a very appealing fashion by Landon Edwards. Any sign of precociousness sometimes displayed by juvenile performers would have destroyed the story – because Cecil might not be an ordinary boy. As Fern is warned by several family members and townsfolk, there are rumours about a deadly spirit in the form of a child. When Fern begins to get sick, events take on a yet darker turn …

I really enjoyed this film. Director and co-writer Ramaa Mosley has crafted a terrific, increasingly compelling and mysterious tale that manages to be occasionally unnerving and sinister without employing much in the way of traditional horror trappings. Because of this, some viewers might feel a little short-changed by the lack of traditional scares and effects. For me, this wonderful looking, rustic, haunted woodlands story is very enjoyable and in places, genuinely moving. My score is 8 out of 10.

This is a strange production – by all accounts, a labour of love from director/writer Ashley Thorpe. Truly, the atmosphere and sensitivities of a 1920/1930 horror film are recreated here, albeit with layers of modern (mainly computer generated) techniques. As such, nothing is ever quite real, no location is completely convincing – which results in a very odd (and unique) overall ‘look’.

To go deeper than that, the project has attracted some names among its cast – Jonathan Rigby, Reece Shearsmith and Julian Sands – who all enter into the spirit of the production with gusto.

The documentary style sadly robs the story of many of its dramatic possibilities. Allegedly, the most haunted house in England should be host to some terrifying moments or recollections, but there’s nothing that really makes it through the veneer of ubiquitous CGI enhancements. What we end up with ultimately is a curio – good to look at and effective for a while, but not much to sustain it for its 73 minutes. My score is 5 out of 10.

There are some cigarettes smoked in this film. In fact, the amount featured might have blown the budget, as some of the special effects are more than a little rough. Not to worry, we have top-billed Klaus Kinski playing a man apparently being driven mad, so we’re in for some enjoyably extreme theatrics, surely?

Well actually, no. Kinski is at the most restrained I’ve ever seen him. That powerhouse of rolling eyes and bared teeth is subdued and on his best behaviour – or as much as you can be given the circumstances. It’s strange seeing Kinski in the Edwidge Fenech/Dagmar Lassandra role (Nora Orland’s incidental score has definite echoes of his subsequent work on ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’, starring Fenech in the titular role).

A fairly standard giallo, which has moments of great interest – usually involving Kinski.

For a film called ‘Day of the Dead: Bloodline’, this delivers what you would expect – nothing more, possibly slightly less. Rubber faced zombies stalk the city street set and deliver much theatrical bloodletting: cascades of the stuff shoot out toward the camera. Then we get to know the characters – sullen, pretty, some in love with each other, most just delivering deadpan military-isms: earnest recriminations and stoical retorts. Curiously, it’s a bit bland, the gore scenes committed perfunctorily, creepy moments and dark corners just the same as you will probably have seen before, rolled out with an alarming lack of tension.

In horror films such as this, heroic leads have to make illogical decisions. You could blame heightened emotions, the stress of the relentless apocalypse, or simply the need to place them in jeopardy. But they’re such a torpid bunch, you’re not really bothered about what happens to most of them.

Zoe, the main character, is well-meaning, pretty, brave, and is ultimately responsible for the death of hundreds. Most interesting is Max, the undead attempted rapist regularly taunted at close range by our heroes. My score for the film is 5 out of 10.

Nicely filmed stunning locations, brief moments of gore and horror, competent acting and sadly, one of the dullest films I’ve seen in a long time. There’s not a lot else I can say about this film, and that’s a shame, because the cast do as good a job as they possibly can.

José Ferrer as Nereus and Mary Louise Weller as Sherry are probably the best players, with Darth Vader James Earl Jones taking every opportunity to perform that famous growl and not much else. The monster that gives this project reason to describe itself as a horror film, is seen for barely five minutes before the perfunctory finale.

If you like looking at the beautiful country of Greece, you’ll enjoy this. Otherwise, whilst it isn’t a bad film, it is sadly bland and not really something I can highly recommend. My score is 4 out of 10.

This is the most technically accomplished of Andrew Jones’ North Bank Entertainments’ productions, and the most enjoyable since, I think, 2018’s ‘Jurassic Predator’.

Talky to begin with, it features decent acting throughout with a fine performance from noisy gum-chewer lead clown Don Taylor (Lee McQueen), and while the leafy, misty landscapes are clearly not anywhere near Utah, we do seem to get some cutaway shots of a snowy US state (the film is also titled ‘The Cabin Murders’) to lend some authenticity to the detail..

The interior location is the same as the one used for Jones’ 2017 ‘Cabin 28’, and this acts as a kind of sequel, with some characters returning from that film.

When the very likeable family are house-invaded, things take a decidedly nasty turn. There are moments of genuine shock - mainly fuelled by the fact that this was based on true events.

It’s good, nicely paced low-budget stuff and I had a great time with it. It’s restored my faith is North Bank Entertainment and hope this is the sign of similarly fine things to come. My score is 7 out of 10.

Joan Crawford tops the bill in this alleged thriller set in a circus where someone is killing off the acts. Sadly, at least two of the most interesting characters fall victim to the murderer. Crawford is in her sixties here, and yet the only person to comment adversely to her cooing naïve sweet nothings to hunky Frank (Ty Hawkins) is wayward daughter Judy Geeson.

Sadly, the real casualty here is the story. Despite strong performances from a suave Robert Hardy as Superintendent Brooks and an underused Geoffrey Keen as Commissioner Dalby, no progress is ever really made on catching the killer, therefore there’s no real sense of pace or progression. It comes to something when the most impressive scenes comprise of footage from a real circus, involving magnificent animals made to look silly by smiling, costumed humans. When the film’s running time comes to an end (SPOILER), the killer simply confesses and manages to escape despite running through a live circus packed with performers, public and police – but don’t worry: the killer is struck by lightning and is killed - very convenient, very anti-climactic. Also, Jim O'Connolly’s direction is sluggish and contains some strange choices – at one point, switching scenes abruptly, cutting off a line of dialogue. There’s even a musical number towards the end, just to obfuscate the mood even more.

Joan Crawford’s long career had some ups and downs: many people view her final film ‘Trog’ as her least enjoyable. I would say ‘Berserk!’ actually trumps that. The odd gory moment seems very out of place in a sadly dull production, which is the biggest sin of all, especially using – or under-using – a fine cast including Michael Gough, Diana Dors, Philip Madoc all attempting to breathe life into proceedings. My score is 5 out of 10.

I like films that are complex and difficult to follow – it makes me think the brains behind the production operate on a wider plane than mine, and it is good to be guided through a twisted narrative by such a lead. But this potentially interesting story seems to be made up of two separate films bolted together.

A family of moderately irritating people move to an isolated cabin and find an injured woman in the surrounding woods (Barbara Crampton, who in a prolific career, played Anne Sacchetti in the excellent ‘We Are Still Here.’) As is often the case, they become a lot less aggravating once dark things start occurring. On that score, the production cannot be faulted.

As we go through the events of the story, all the strange inserts make a certain amount of sense, but some remain delightfully ambiguous. The ending is a wonderfully gory mess, but doesn’t have quite the impact it would have done if we had got to know more clearly what is going on and had a better understanding of the characters. My score is 6 out of 10.

This is a sci-fi/horror film with echoes of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’, which was released a year earlier. UK television name Ian McCulloch, sporting a lively hairpiece, is drafted into this Italian production to play Commander Hubbard. McCulloch is a good actor and plays rugged, no-nonsense types well. Here, his character has suffered a breakdown and succumbed to alcoholism.

There’s something extremely spooky about the rhythmical sighing emitted by the many alien eggs on display, and the gore effects are particularly grisly, but too much time spent without incident makes much of this a bit dull.

Things build nicely toward the end, where we meet a very impressive alien. The action sequences are very good, but they may have eaten into the budget which is why we are left wanting more. Luigi Cozzi directs the proceedings with a certain amount of flair. My score is 6 out of 10.

After an extraordinarily long list of production companies and their affiliates, we dive into a sometimes dull, sometimes very effective horror film that emerges as a kind of Nancy Drew mystery featuring some slightly bland teens and an increasingly frightening monster villain.

There’s also a very welcome turn from Robert Englund as Dr. Harding, who you are just waiting to reveal himself as the master villain. Well, he’s Freddy Krueger, isn’t he? (You’ll get no spoilers from me!)

The titular Midnight Man is an interesting creation. I loved his changing faces, signifying the horror current level of his nastiness. Apart from the occasional gore, though, I got the feeling I was watching a teen adventure rather than a horror film, despite Travis Zariwny’s suitably grim direction. My score is 6 out of 10.

Lilja Johnson, as young Catherine, acts most of the cast off the screen. The poor little lass gets no love, no affection, rarely so much as a kind word. Of the adults, Barbara Nedeljakova as Sasha pretty much steals the rest of the show.

You could say that the wonderful locations and nicely shot photography is sunk by the stilted acting, or you could say that the stilted acting is lifted by the wonderful locations and nicely shot photography (cinematography by Kirk Douglas)! Either way, there are some issues common with a lot of low budget and indie films: the lifelessness of most performances and some sound issues in some areas. Elsewhere, Gary Devon Dotson and Tim Worman's music is very effective.

The story is lengthened, if not strengthened, by a weird opening involving characters we never meet again, and features a dark haired girl who seems to have walked straight out of Japanese horror 'The Grudge (2004)'. Who these people are and what relevance they have on the unfolding tale, is a mystery.

The story is a decent one, with a touching twist at the end.

‘Cleavers: Killer Clowns’ is a Welsh production, with the cast putting on decent American accents. Director MJ Dixon’s cast also includes a couple of names often associated with fellow countryman Andrew Jones’s prolific North Bank Entertainment. The cinematography, either coincidentally or by design, reminds me of the style used on an early Jones’ project, 2014’s ‘Theatre of Fear’. Lots of tight close-us and a sickly colour palette don’t just obscure the limits of a low budget, but also give the film a feel all of its own, a claustrophobic atmosphere which is good for horror.

Dixon’s writing isn’t quite as successful, with some fairly repetitive dialogue. The storyline meanders a little too – but on the whole, I enjoyed this.

There seem to have been a lot of films recently similar to ‘Killer Clowns’; names like Jones, Louisa Warren and MJ Dixon can be found behind the growing list, and this is one of the better ones. Of course, it won’t impress those who are eager for fast-moving CGI and a few more bangs and whistles, but I’ve seen a lot worse.

Slow moving it may be, but it’s competently made and has a certain queasy atmosphere which is pretty unnerving at times. 7 out of 10.

This homage to HP Lovecraft begins promisingly. Sharply edited images of figures, glimpses of things, and an injured young man taken to an under-staffed hospital. Before long, staff and inmates seem to be transforming into extraordinary creatures.

A distinct lack of CGI lends the many grotesque effects on display here a similarity to films like ‘The Thing (1982)’ and others from that era. They work very well for the most part.

The story is at once fascinating and involving, but it’s possible it exhausts itself before the film is over – as time rolls on, things remain just as frantic, but become confusing and overtly, well, ‘cosmic’. This is fitting in a Lovecraftian kind of way, of course, but in a bid to top the wonderfully revolting creatures and situations we witness along the way, it loses its way a bit toward the end. My score is 6 out of 10.