Film Reviews by NP

You know how, in slasher movies, people get knifed/cut down/etc and then get up and carry on fighting? Well, to get it out of the way, it’s not really a spoiler to say there’s a fair bit of that during the second half of ‘Among the Living.’

That is the nearest I can come to any kind of criticism concerning a film that, from the pre-credits sequence until the final line, is terrific. Compelling. Weird. And violent! Three of the main players are 14 years of age, and their tender years gave me the feeling that things wouldn’t get too grim. Happily I was wrong.

Victor (Theo Fernandez), Tom (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and ‘nerdy’ Dan (Damien Ferdel) are three scamps skiving school. They visit an abandoned film lot – an excellent location for horror, and one I’m surprised isn’t featured more often. They are enjoyable company and very well played. They witness frightening brutality from Klarence (Fabien Jegoudez), who is a truly frightening individual.

No-one gets through this film without receiving some sort of bloody graphic punishment, and the audience is given no clue as to who will survive and who won’t. I had a great time with this subtitled French film and recommend it fully. My score is 8 out of 10.

A pleasingly gory pre-credits sequence gives way to a suburban street, bland rock music, and a functional American family. They’re about to embark on a holiday in Grandpa’s camper van. Also included in the family unit are the wholesome husband, the wayward, bad boy young Uncle Jake, the palm-slapping little daughter and the pumped up wife, sunlight gleaming off her shiny Botox.

A story about a possessed camper van that kills people sounds ludicrous, and it is. Possibly in order to counter this, there is a half-heartedness about the production, despite some good gore effects. For the first half, it seems that no-one’s heart is really in this. Therefore, the growing disagreements between the characters, ‘shock’ set-ups and the laughably relentless attempts by the adults – particularly ‘mommy’ - to convince little Olivia that every unexplainable horror cliché is perfectly normal and that everything’s great, is difficult to take seriously.

As is often the case though, it is worth sticking with this. Once it is clear what kind of story this is, then there is a growing temptation to see how things will play out. We have some family bonding moments that try to add to the characters’ development, which are partially successful and particularly well placed, for what follows is quite shocking.

‘The Toy Box’ threatens to be a plodding horror effort, but turns out to be rather more than that. There is much potential in a story of a haunted camper van in the middle of a desert region, and the location is used to good, isolated effect. It’s nicely photographed and, while the acting only occasionally reaches for greatness the characters are competently played. My score is 6 out of 10.

Three girls, all as daft as each other, invite the sardonic, permanently bored Nancy to accompany them on a camping trip. Nancy brings with her sensible Annie (Sharron Calvin) – who nevertheless manages to trip and injure herself - and off they go.

The performances occasionally lapse into wide-eyed, over gesturing drama-school gurning, but the characters they are playing are often ditzy – essential for horror films. They even remember to exclaim designer reactions like ‘eewww’ and ‘er, hello’ when they see something gross half covered by leaves. After a while of tramping through woods, they find, Blair Witch-style, that they appear to be travelling in circles. Other things happen, few of them terribly frightening – although some of them will make you wince - despite the effectively ominous rumblings of the soundtrack.

As they become further entrenched in the wilderness, seemingly at the behest of a vengeful spirit, it is difficult not to become concerned for them and their ever-worsening plight. The locations are terrific and the cinematography is beautiful, and for an independent project, the effects are decent and show a commendable restraint. Stick with it – ‘Dark Mountain’ turns out to be a decent horror experience.

17 year old Daniel (Keir Gilchrist) is under house arrest. Any attempt to deviate from the various rules quoted him and an ankle alarm informs lizard-like probation officer Stokes and further discipline will be gleefully administered. So creepy is Stokes (Peter Stormare) that you would expect top feel sorry for Daniel, but that doesn’t really happen. Well played by Gilchrist, he is nevertheless too odd to elicit much in the way of sympathy. The two main female characters – both young and attractive - have the hots for the young outcast, and this causes the thrust of the plot. At least, I think it does. Daniel’s pal Kevin (Maestro Harrell), who appears to be the most decent of the bunch, is still eager to come round (breaking one of the rules of the lad’s incarceration) and get drunk and stoned (that’s rules 2 and 3 out of the window as well) – so there aren’t really any decent characters in this gang.

There are some effective moments here, and some good effects, all filmed in creepily exploratory close-up, but sadly ‘Dark Summer’ as a whole is too thinly plotted, not particularly clear in its development and much of it is dull. Apart from the vindictive Stokes, the characters aren’t interesting and although the film has its moments – and a terrific ending – it just isn’t terribly engaging. 4 out of 10.

I’ve long since wanted to see ‘The Lighthouse’. A slow burning story, with elements of Lovecraft and David Lynch, featuring two powerful actors in an isolated, secluded location sounds exactly my kind of horror.

I’m glad I have seen it. It satisfied my curiosity about what the director of 2015’s terrific ‘The Witch’ would do next. Sadly, as a film, it failed to make any connection with me, or I with it. It isn’t a bad production – the images are stark and beautifully filmed in black and white. The acting, mainly from Robert Pattinson and William Defoe, is intense and convincing – but I couldn’t detect any real emotion, other than the rage that comes with being cooped up with another.

The direction clearly wants to provide us with weird and unsettling images, which it does, but that only goes so far when there isn’t any kind of story, or development, going on – other than bouts of madness, which manifests itself in moments of screaming violence.

Despite everything, all I could see were two men, neither of whom are particularly likeable, shouting at each other, fighting or indulging in grubby personal habits. There are some interesting moments, mostly toward the end, but ultimately, there was nothing here I found frightening in any way. Nor did I find anything funny, or witty or particularly satisfying.

I won’t slate the film because I can see it was well made and performed. It just didn’t have any resonance with me personally. As such, I just found it rather dull and noisy. My score is 3 out of 10.

There’s no messing about in this modestly-budgeted zombie extravaganza – only minutes in, and there’s enough blood and gore to keep everyone happy; apart, that is, from the victims of this unspecified outbreak.

This is a lot of fun. The characters are lively and likeable and although this certainly isn’t a comedy, there are moments of humour that engages throughout. As a result, we are never given the impression we are to take things too seriously, even during some pretty nasty, well realised set pieces.

The isolated town could have been plucked from ‘The Blair Witch Project’, which gives it an autumnal atmosphere. Adam Hose, Brynn Lucas, Phil Burke and Dennis Lemoine do well in the main roles, but the real star is the story which retains a tongue-in-cheek quality throughout and delivers some moments that are difficult to forget.

It would be very difficult not to have fun with this. My score is 6 out of 10.

Dezzy (Dora Madison) is a struggling artist. The muse seems to have deserted her. She spends her time high as a kite, having sex, listening to chunky grunge music and swearing. A lot. To have a good time, or to cope with a bad time, she meets up with others just like herself. Together, they get as high as a kite, have sex and listen to chunky grunge music. Oh, and they swear a lot. So much so that, at the beginning of the film, their stream of endless profanities and imaginatively arranged expletives are riotously funny – until you get used to it and it just becomes irritating. In between all these pastimes, they talk about themselves endlessly. Who would have thought being so ‘bad’ could be so boring?

That’s the characters, though, not this film. ‘Bliss’ moves along at a brisk pace. ‘Norm’ (George Wendt) turns up as ‘Pop’ for the briefest time. Even he is surrounded by thick cigarette smoke and a whirl of bad language. Director Joe Begos clearly wants us to become as immersed in this grindhouse lifestyle as possible. There are eccentric camera angles and fast edits to create for us a disorientating world. There’s even a warning for epileptics at the beginning.

I enjoyed the film. It’s a slow build-up. Yes, we understand – these characters are hardcore! But it is a convincing environment and the horror, when it comes, alongside some excellent gore effects, is effective and above all – does something different.

It isn’t possible to sympathise with someone who takes so many narcotics just so she can function enough to take *more* narcotics – and then complains, in the strongest possible terms of course, that she is not well. I get the impression, though, we’re not being asked to sympathise with her. Whether we care about her is up to us – she is presented as what she is: take it or leave it. In real life, I would definitely leave it, but in this film, it is interesting to see where her increasingly deadly trips – and her equally immersive art - are taking her.

‘Heartless’ contains a lot of great moments, features a terrific cast and is moodily directed. Timothy Spall, Noel Clarke, Ruth Sheen have brief roles, and Jim Sturgess is astonishingly good as Jamie, the shy young man living in an inner city, crushed by the large birthmark that covers half of his face and much of his upper body.

A keen photographer, he witnesses hooligan crimes committed by a group of hooded creatures, only vaguely seen. He meets up with demonic Papa B (Joseph Mawle) and his (very) young assistant Belle (Nikita Mistry), and strikes a deal that might prove his salvation – or damnation.

Things start off brilliantly, but the film gets a bit too carried away with itself. There are possibly too many ideas, becomes difficult to follow and the central emotional thrust is lost. There are moments of unexpected but effective humour, but most events chronicle the hopeless intensity of Jamie’s plight. Although he is wonderfully played, it becomes a bit too much. Whilst things move quickly, it might have been a good idea to slow things down a little, leave a few things out, and allow some of the interesting sub-plots to develop more naturally (Noel Clarke as AJ could have been explored more, possibly at the expense of the character She (John Macmillan) who is interesting, but ultimately superfluous.

Well worth a watch for its atmosphere is gruesomely effective set pieces. My score is 6 out of 10.

Originally released as ‘Delirium’, this was retitled ‘The Haunting of Emily’, presumably to kindle the interest of those who enjoy the current steady spew of films featuring the demonic taunting of young girls.

The actual haunting of Emily (Taylor Pigeon) is pretty peripheral to the story here. The girl goes missing, and when she returns, cannot speak, and has clearly brought ‘something’ back with her. Perhaps the word ‘clearly’ is ill-advised, because little about this story is clear.

I like films, especially horror films, which leave certain events unexplained. It makes me think the people making the film are keeping some secrets to themselves and I can only guess what those secrets are.

But this is largely incomprehensible. Lots of intense acting, screams and flashbacks, and then it ends. It’s nicely shot, features some moody lighting and music, but the plot is too muggy for me.

Having said that, I’ll be watching this again to see if I can make sense of it. There’s a chance it will all be clearer the second time around and make sense, in which case I’ll be editing this review. But I’m not putting money on it! Interesting. My score is 6 out of 10.

I was surprised to find Ulli Lommel, who wrote, directed and co-produced this reimagining of ‘The Raven’ had been a collaborator with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbender’s projects were so effective because of their startlingly intimate simplicity, whereas this film was clearly never meant to be straightforward.

From the very beginnings, it is fairly clear this is an experimental venture. The more you watch, the more you accept the growing probability that there isn’t going to be some grand finale that makes sense of the myriad of stark imagery and arty use of the low budget – and you wonder if, with no pay-off, it is worth carrying on.

I’m quite glad I did. I like that films like this are made. I had to look at Wikipedia to make sense of the storyline, and found their plot synopsis simply related what happened on screen, with no explanation or deeper meaning for it all.

Of the performers, Nicole Cooke impressed me the most. As ‘young’ Lenore, she relates various occurrences and acts as a narrator for some way into the film. The other players in the fairly large cast are smothered and somewhat swamped by the distortions and set-pieces that only loosely form a narrative. Their performances are good enough considering the unwieldy style of the project.

‘The Raven’ is something I might even return to, to see if I can make more sense of it, knowing how events turn out (or not!). This is clearly not a film for everyone. I’m not even sure it’s for me – but it is a curio. Like a fairly amateur art project, it has high ambitions, but it is difficult to know what those ambitions are – and I find that aspect of it interesting, if not traditionally satisfying. My score is 4 out of 10.

This is an entertaining home invasion film, in which a major plot revelation is given away by the title. What I enjoy about this is that it does something different with a familiar idea.

The plot involves a group of youngsters. Two couples and Becky, who has invited her friends to stay at her home on the anniversary of the death of her boyfriend, have their get together spoiled by two violent criminals who are intent to, in their own words, ‘get high and **** these b*****s’. These two antagonists are played in a genuinely entertaining way, and relish telling the youths (and the audience) exactly what villainy they intend to get up to. There’s also a surprising amount of topless nudity on display. The profanities are also worth mentioning, as their copious usage is guaranteed – guaranteed, I tell you – to have you laughing out loud.

There’s something else afoot too. Something worse. And that’s as far as I’ll reveal here, although once again, the title will give you a sizeable clue.

As ‘House of the Witch Doctor’ rolls on, there is a growing feeling that it isn’t meant to be taken entirely seriously. I’m not sure whether or not the final revelation tips things too far into absurdity, but the mood of the film has gradually become so extreme by this point that it is difficult to resist.

Great fun, with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. My score is 7 out of 10.

For an obviously low budget production, a great deal of care has been taken to give the visuals a richly period flavour. The main things that struck me about ‘Dracula: Bloodline’, however, is the wide range of phoney accents. This is no slight on the actors, who are mainly very good, but the relentless cod French, Southern American, German and cockney tends to grate. This isn’t helped by the fact that this is a very wordy film. There are many scenes of people standing around talking, relaying information.

There’s a murderer on the loose, and it seems he is a vampire. Top suspect – especially to himself – is Val Drakul (Chase Ryan Jeffery), who suffers blackouts whenever a murder is committed. American psychologist Dr Lesley Parker (Erica Leeresen) has an interest in Val that threatens to become more than professional.

In a bid to include as many horror situations as possible, the characters are all confined to a seemingly haunted house during a storm, and a séance is orchestrated.

Good music score, and a pretty satisfying ending. My score is 6 out of 10.

Mary Kaylee Bryant goes missing at her family’s lake house. When she returns, the 15 year old has been relieved of much of her soul. To mark the difference between the depressed Mary and the earlier, perkier model, we are treated, in flashback, to moments of family life that are so coated in sugar, things threaten to become hyperglycaemic.

Mum has the lion’s share of exposition and turns into a wise-crackin’ ass kicker at the end, dad keeps telling the police they either ‘need to send some people round’, and when they arrive, that they ‘need to leave.’

My favourite character is May’s younger sister Sophia, largely because of Anne Bex‘s unaffected performance.

A horror for youngsters or possibly teenage girls is no bad thing. I certainly wouldn’t be arrogant enough to decry this film for not catering for a beleaguered old horror git like myself. Roles are played broadly, which was probably deemed necessary to convey large amounts of often heavy-handed dialogue. If this was intended for youngsters, then I honestly think they would find the vast amount of the running time rather dull. My score is 5 out of 10.

A pinch of Del Torro, and a spot of David Lynch, some very competent actors, some nice stylish direction – and the result is inexplicably dull. The fault must lie with the script, which is inconsequential and uninvolving. This – like the occasional sound issues – could be an artistic decision, to elevate the weirdness of the piece, but either way the results are a bit of a chore to watch. In fact – and I don’t often use this sentence – the musical numbers are often highpoints.

A lot of effort seems to have gone into this, and budget doesn’t appear to be lacking, so I feel I should like it more than I do. Even so, I found it a challenge to stick around until the end. We don’t really get to know the characters, or learn what relationship they have with each other, and therefore don’t care what happens to most of them.

The plot is hard to fathom, frequently incomprehensible. Again, this could be deliberate, but either way, it alienates the viewer. I couldn’t get into this, and didn’t know what kind of film it wanted to be. My score is 4 out of 10, which an additional point for the frequently excellent musical score and a finale which goes some way to living up to the promise of the title.

This found footage offering was originally known as ‘Haunting at 1666’ before inexplicably being re-titled ‘Knock Knock 2’ – a sequel to a production it is completely unconnected with.

Four film-makers decide to video themselves visiting various allegedly haunted retreats, often where a notorious gruesome act has taken place. We are told the details by readings from Wikipedia pages whilst travelling to each destination (this information feeds into events later on, but there are so many readings, narrated by the girls Jordan and Zelda, that the attention tends to wander). Happily, these youngsters – whose characters are given the first names of the actors in order to convince us what is happening is actually real, bless them – are completely without the swagger or arrogance usually associated with ‘teen’ characters of this ilk. Instead, they are refreshingly natural performers with genuinely funny silliness and chemistry: you can really believe these are two couples who have become close friends over a period of time, and you enjoy spending time in the company of these people; up to a point. So fuelled by their own humour, these are exactly the kind of people who would make the poor decisions integral to horror films such as this.

The final visitation occurs at a time when their camaraderie is getting a little strained. When they break into an empty house currently on sale, and it seems to have a mind of its own, tempers become frayed and … one of them disappears.

This is The Blair Witch Project, with the woods replaced by a sentient building. It is good, but it isn’t great. Chris Sheng, who wrote, directed and produced this, has some nice ideas and his restraint is admirable but this results in events that could be scarier. We don’t even get to see a lot of the reactions due to Aleks’s camera being left static at times. With very little visually to frighten us other than boarded up doors and windows, this member of the audience was left wanting a little more.

Aiden Cardei, Jordan Elizabeth, Aleksandar Popovic and Zelda Roberts deserve kudos for their believable chemistry and likeability. Their appeal allows us to care about their fate even if we aren’t given a great deal to be actually frightened of. My score is 6 out of 10.