Film Reviews by NP

‘BreadCrumbs’ seems to be the baby of actor/producer/writer Mike Nichols. He plays big bad Eddie, who is in charge of a trip to an isolated building where he is shooting a porn film. He’s a boorish bully, and the ‘porn’ angle seems just a reason for some mild sex and nudity.

Conversely, Dom (Douglas Nyback) is quite funny, therefore it’s a shame – although not a huge surprise – that he is one of the first victims of Patti and Henry (Dan Shaked and Amy Crowdis). These two Hansel and Gretel wannabes have no back-story, and there is no explanation as to how they live out here in the remote woodlands and look so healthy and clean, or why they live the way they do, and why they enjoy killing people.

Veteran porn starlet Angie Hart (Marianne Hagan) mentions at one point she may like to have children, and this indicates somehow she has a kind of maternal instinct with the two ‘kidults’. I use this description because despite all the defensive cries of ‘she’s just a kid’, or ‘they’re just children’, the two are clearly approaching their twenties. Equally, the brother and sister sometimes refer to Hart as their mother, but nothing more is made of this. Hart is a good character and well-played, but her decision to sympathise with Patti against the will of her associates is exactly the kind of naivety (or stupidity) horror films have thrived on for years – and it always annoys!

This is clearly a low-budget venture, and some will attack it purely for that reason: the acting isn’t always entirely convincing and the effects are sparse. And yet, I really enjoyed ‘BreadCrumbs’. The story is silly if you examine it beyond superficially, but the deliberate avoidance of explanation leaves us to speculate how Patti and Henry came to be the way they are. Also, the question raised a few times is – why don’t the characters simply physically overpower the two killers at some point?

There is good use of location, and the character of ‘the Woodman’ is a good red herring. In the somewhat open-ending, it is possible he saves the day, but the fact that the film ends almost mid-scene leaves us guessing. My score is 7 out of 10.

A kind of cross between a 14th century ‘I Spit on your Grave (1978)’ and ‘Witchfinder General (1968)’, this story finds wayward teenager Alice (a great performance from Rebecca Aycock) spurning the advances of Priest Tom (Rhys Meredith). Humiliated, he does his best to convince the small village that the girl is a witch and as such, has to undergo gruesome torture to prove her innocence (or not). Right there we have another example of an alleged man of the cloth using his position to behave in a most ungodly way. But he is not a monster, just a weak, pathetic man whose spite takes things beyond his control.

Alice is an enigma, played with real gusto. That she does not speak for a sizeable portion of the story makes it hard for the audience to decide if she entirely innocent, which is a decent red herring. Not so successful is the arrival in the midst of events, of a stranger (Luke Bailey). He comes and goes without ever affecting the storyline.

Alice’s journey is a slow-burner, but by the third act, enters into satisfying horror territory. Never overtly graphic, the scenes of violence and gore are successfully employed, and the characters – even the minor ones – are interesting enough for us to be invested in their (often grisly) fate. The title character is a good, powerful-looking monster, and he proves himself to be far more than the brooding killer you might expect him to be.

Kudos to all concerned at High Fliers Films for this good-looking, well made and powerfully played folk-horror project. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My score is 8 out of 10.

I wonder just how difficult it is to make a juvenile character interesting without also making her the kind of brat you would like to throttle. I’m speaking hypothetically in case anyone is worried I’m encouraging child abuse. But after spending all morning telling her mother how bored she is in her company, little Alice (Lola Flanery) goes on to tell her, “I expect ice cream,” and mum Jane (Abbie Cornish) looks on adoringly. To cheer the child up, Jane will then confide little secrets to the girl about how daddy wets the bed when he’s drunk too much. So the pecking order is laid down. The brat makes the rules, and when mum gets frustrated, dad – who is well meaning but a bit thick – gets the brunt of it.

It’s such a shame, because these characters provide the heart of what is a fairly interesting psychological horror thriller – but if the audience is not allowed to like these people, they don’t care what befalls them. And really, little Alice takes every opportunity to test the patience constantly.

It all comes good in the end though (or does it? That would be telling) and through their frightening situations, the characters become seemingly improved. And this story does have some very good moments. How much more involving it would be, though, if the main players had been more likeable from the beginning? 6 out of 10.

In this sequel to 2008's 'The Haunting of Molly Hartley', here the unfortunate girl not only continues to be assailed by demonic power, but has had a face and body transplant too. Now she is played by Sarah Lind, who makes a valiant stab at all the unpleasant requirements a host body for dark forces demands.

The problem with any film with the word 'exorcism' in the title is that the audience can be fairly certain whet they're in for: green vomit, outbursts of blasphemy, a priest whose belief is tested and a young girl being manipulated by a gravelly voiced demon. This gives reviewers ample opportunity to enjoy spotting references to/from other such films, just in the way that a zombie film will obviously feature a host of the shambling dead being shot at whilst trying to devour handsome heroes. Problem is, you can do a lot within the zombie premise (I'm using this as an example - I could also have picked vampires and werewolves to illustrate the point), whereas the theme of exorcism is far more limited. Unless the filmmaker is willing to take huge risks and possibly disappointing viewers who have come to see traditional exorcism antics, we get films like this - and still the audience complains, because there is nothing new here. It is very difficult to get right.

While there is not much progression - one moment Molly is her normal, effortlessly perfect-looking self, the next she is a fully made-up demon - puke, words written under her skin, young female host body rising from her bed, and repeated 'spirit commands you' lines from the ex-priest, are all featured here, bringing back fond memories of 1973's pioneering 'The Exorcist'. Whilst none of these echo the raw shock value of that ground-breaker, there are a lot of new scares too. And a whole raft of false endings that make your head whirl.

I would say this is a good entry into the genre. It mixes old chills with new and provides something which has an identity of its own, rare for these kind of films. My score is 7 out of 10.

As a film, 'Cruel Passion/Justine' isn't easy to define. I went into it with no knowledge whatsoever, other than it starred Koo Stark, and was based on the story by the Marquis De Sade.

It is also impossible to review without spoilers, so beware - I knew nothing about what was to follow and found the ending truly shocking as a result.

It begins as a frightening type of 'nunsploitation' picture, which has become its selling point - rather misleadingly as it turns out. It then threatens to become a wild 'bodice-ripper', with a large segment set in an elegant brothel. This section features two extraordinary performances: that of Katherine Kath as exotic Madame Laronde, and also features the mainly dialogue-free, whooping Barry McGinn as George. What follows then is an excursion into low-life thievery and rape, featuring Louis Ife as Pastor John and Hope Jackman is Mrs Bonny. All of the performances are terrific, and the visuals have a look similar to Stanley Kubrick's 1975 period piece 'Barry Lyndon'.

Through this superficially elegant tangle drifts Justine, a virtuous innocent played beautifully by Koo Stark. In a kind of publicity ploy that mirrors the content of the film, Stark's brief nude shots and her infamy as one of Prince Andrew's girlfriends, have been used to bolster the production's reputation as an exploitation film - the truth is, it is a lot more than that (as a lot of films cynically placed under that banner have also proven to be). Justine's sister Juliette (Lydia Lisle), by contrast, accepts the fact that to survive outside of the convent from which they've both been jettisoned, she must whore herself. "It is the life I have chosen," she weeps as she is untied from the bed in the brothel, having been whipped by some particularly perverse client.

Whilst Juliette appears to otherwise survive her life with a degree of happiness, Justine's constant battle to retain her virtue throughout gets her into one scrape after another. Luckily she has handsome Lord Carlisle (Matin Potter) to aide her. Promised to Juliette, on whom she is depending, Carlisle nevertheless seems determined to help Justine survive the 71 run-time 'intactica'.

What we have to remember, of course, is that all men are b******s, and slaves to their desires. To that end, he bids the scarred and battered Justine to bathe in a lake, and then on seeing her nakedness, rapes her. This is a very bleak and unexpected development in a story in which the audience desperately wants her to triumph in her wish simply to survive. In further misery, underlining the 'cruel' in the film's title, she is then gang-raped by Bonny's menials, set upon by dogs (as is Carlisle) and hurled into the freezing river, where we see her floating away, lifeless.

It is one heck of a note on which to end the story, an unapologetically shocking development offering no hope whatsoever. Also, I get the impression the actors suffered here. Clearly filmed in the bowels of winter, the recording of these scenes cannot have been anything other than punishing.

All of this comes together to make a film that is so much more than its reputation suggests. True, there is flesh on display, but this is far from soft-core titillation. Nuns are held up to be just as hypocritical as everyone else with any degree of power, but this only forms a small part of the narrative. The real story is one of utter hopelessness, of a world controlled by the 'haves' who continually physically and mentally abuse the 'have-nots'. It is well worth seeing. My score is 9 out of 10.

This is a very effective horror film involving a sculptor who attempts to rebuild a relationship with her estranged daughter. While Jess (Katee Sackhoff) has become fairly successful in her field, Chloe (Lucy Boynton) is mischievous, occasionally bratty and appears to have attracted the attention of a demon.

Having got that plot detail out of the way, we are then treated to some scary set-pieces, some of which are familiar from other similar horror projects, and others which are more impressive on their own merits. While the plot itself isn’t advanced much during this time, other than to cast doubt on who exactly the true villain is, it is enormous fun to sit back and let Director Caradog James’s effectively orchestrated chills do their work.

The pay-off however, is that there isn’t one. We find out what the entity isn’t, but we don’t find out what it is. Not that films, horror in particular, need to have every plot detail tidied up by the close – sometimes only having suggestions as to the perpetrator of evil is enough. It is all down to individual opinion, and mine is that ‘Don’t Knock Twice’ is a very effective, well played and beautifully written horror venture. My score is 8 out of 10.

The involvement of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee was something of a coup for producer Bernard Gordon, and it is true to say their presence does lift ‘Horror Express’ somewhat. However, for my money, their stoical, mannered characters aren’t as much fun as Telly Savalas as Captain Kazan. Kazan has barely been onscreen for ten minutes before he has shot, stabbed and whipped others around him.

Using a (very realistic) miniature train from another film (possibly ‘Pancho Villa’ from the same year), Gordon, director Eugenio Martín and writer Arnaud d'Usseau have concocted a nicely claustrophobic horror chiller. On the Trans-Siberian Express, no-one can hear you scream.

Where things become a little dull is during the second half, when it has been established that the frozen creature captured by Saxton (Lee) is up something monstrous, and the audience has little to do but wait until it continues on its path. This leads to some nice creepy set-pieces, but not quite enough to sustain the interest and this leaves us waiting eagerly for the climactic moments to take place.

Cushing was unsure about making the film, but Lee gently talked him into it. The results are good, with some fine moments of stifled horror with something running (or moving languidly) amok in a confined area. Some nicely lit moments and eerie music courtesy of John Cacavas add greatly to this. My score is 6 out of 10.

Sometimes you wonder what is going on in the minds of film producers. Al Adamson, a director of low-budget projects whose personal life threatened to enter into the realms of the macabre fantasy, for example. It's a serious question: just what was he aiming for when he helmed 'Dracula vs Frankenstein?'

From the outset, we are bombarded with unconnected images - Zandor Vorkov's bearded Dracula unearthing the cauliflower-faced body of the Frankenstein Monster (John Bloom); a girl beheaded by an axe; Judith Fontaine (Adamson's wife Regina Carrol) performing a musical number in a seedy Los Angeles nightclub; diminutive ticket-tout Grazbo (Angelo Rossitto ) aggressively selling tickets to an exhibition owned by Doctor Durea/Frankenstein (J. Carrol Naish); a mindless, speechless brute (Lon Chaney) who goes by the name of Groton. All this filmed in footage so thick and grainy, it gives a genuinely unhealthy sheen to everything and makes everyone look as they could do with a bath. The scenes seem completely unconnected with each other, and the hope is that clever plotting will weave them all together.

The spectacular electrical equipment designed by Kenneth Strickfaden (from 1931's 'Frankenstein') is interspersed with less impressive fluorescent 1960's paraphernalia in a bid to return the Monster to life, and Dracula is promising 'Soon he will be born again.'

Vorkov's lines are delivered entirely deadpan, his voice filtered through a gadget that makes him sound like a disembodied robot. Whilst this is no-one's idea of what Dracula should be like, I think the character is partially successful - a true dead man walking who speaks in a distant echo, as if he is unused to communicating. When Frankenstein's creation is finally resurrected, the first victim is Dr Beaumant. Beaument is played by long-time horror fan and this film's technical advisor 'Forrest' J Ackerman. Ackerman's is the least convincing performance of all.

And yet just as it seems, often via the art of exposition from Dracula, certain elements of the story are beginning to go somewhere, Adamson insists on returning to Judith Fontaine and her interminable search for her missing sister. These dull walks along sandy beaches to a love song soundtrack seem to belong to another film. This is because Adamson has married two projects together; which explains why Durea/Frankenstein looks older when he finally meets Dracula - Carrol Naish returned to film these scenes a year later in a bid to tie the two plot strands together. The old line 'tonally, it's all over the place' fits particularly well here.

Anthony Eisley is Fontaine's ageing hippy boyfriend Mike, who suddenly has an uncanny insight into the mind of Frankenstein and his plans. This leads to a series of finales, where everyone bar Fontaine is dispatched. In a brave and unexpected move, even Mike doesn't make it.

The clash between the two 'titans of terror' is a fairly easy win for Dracula, who relieves the Monster of both arms and even his head! Sadly, these scenes are filmed with such a dark filter over the camera, it is impossible to see what is happening. The Count's own death is far more satisfying.

How to feel about stars wheelchair-bound Carrol Naish and silent, corpulent Chaney in their final films? Difficult to say. An actor's life is a very public one, of course, and seeing the ravages of their age and ill-health displayed in a cheap and tatty project such as this is hardly a blaze of glory. But they give it their all, and despite everything, I have a really soft spot for 'Dracula vs Frankenstein'. Badly made and edited it assuredly is, but it is enjoyable. In fact, it is great fun. My score is 7 out of 10.

A sequel to the successful ‘Stake Land’ (2010), this features more of what you might expect – an apocalyptic world infested with vampires and young Martin’s (Connor Paol) attempts to survive it. Also, he’s searching for the elusive vampire hunter Mister (Nick Damici, who also writes).

The action comprises of several enjoyable set-pieces scattered about this threadbare world. Although a low-budget offering (which helps sell the austerity of the surroundings) directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen are never over-ambitious in a way that would make things look cheap – but more concerned with telling Damici’s grounded, more intimate stories.

A downside to all this is that the episodic formula denies the film a huge sense of progression, and the project comes across as a television show. That said, this provides a solid sequel to the low-key ‘Stake Land’ story.

The people behind ‘The Mummy Rebirth’ have clearly put a lot of time and effort into making a tense, exciting horror-tinged film. That alone, for me, places their production ahead of the juvenile, stereotypical ‘romps’ headed by Bendan Fraser at the turn of the millennium, or the computer generated cartoon starring Tom Cruise in 2017.

However, there’s no getting away from it: ‘The Mummy Rebirth’ isn’t great. While the locations are often nicely claustrophobic, the acting is variable, the dialogue is pure exposition throughout, and many of the effects (mainly CGI) are flawed. Whilst directors (and producers) Khu and Justin Price (Price is also the writer) valiantly try to generate a commendable air of suspense, as does Maui Holcomb‘s bombastic music score, The Mummy is just an actor (Michal Aaron Wiede) in a mask that allows us to see the area around his eyes.

The other characters are over-earnest and played in the style of a daytime soap opera. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in a film like this, the audience is more interested in the monsters anyway. But there is clearly not the budget here to make them an exciting distraction.

That said, I still commend the makers for producing this: it is flawed, but at least the intention to make something worthwhile is there, and that gives it a good heart. Ultimately, while I enjoy low budget films, I would say this definitely suffers due to lack of adequate funding. My score is 5 out of 10.

As Disney films increase their grip on cinema, there have been a few horror movies that seem to have adopted a kind of Disney-esque style. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, the idea of a family-friendly horror film has its merits. It all depends on what the viewer is looking for.

Guillermo Del Toro has proven himself to be very talented in producing the kind of filmic stories that straddle audiences – fusing a child-like fairytale whimsy with truly dark scenarios and creatures. His involvement here is fairly evident regarding that style, and there are many moments that you can imagine a youngster being comforted by the presence of parents who are also enjoying the frights.

Among the talented actors here, Zoe Colletti as Sheila Nichols proves to be the star of the show. Funny, brave, mischievous but never bratty, she carries the weight of the various set-pieces very convincingly – when she is scared, you know there’s in trouble in store. Equally, the various monsters impress during their (too) brief screen time. There are some imaginative nightmare characters: possibly my favourite is ‘the Pale Lady’, a lackadaisical obese creature with long dank hair. Only on screen a few moments, she nevertheless makes an impression.

This might not thrill those who are after something more genuinely frightening, but as a chiller designed to appeal to most ages, I’d say this does its job. My score is 6 out of 10.

This succinctly titled chiller features the writing and directing work of Filip Maciejewicz. His story is a slow burner featuring a number of clever ideas and twists that award concentration from the audience. To appreciate them however, requires sitting through a fairly routinely directed production that sometimes borders on dullness.

As an independent film ‘The Asylum’ is to be applauded, but there needed to be a few more flourishes to keep the attention from wandering on occasions. A slow story directed in a slow manner does not make particularly riveting viewing, but the acting, which ranges from adequate to powerful, disinclines the audience to lose interest.

I have a great fondness for low budget films, but some, such as this, could really have benefitted from a little extra time to tighten up certain scenes and allow the occasional shocks and violence to work more effectively than they are allowed to here.

My advice would be, don’t go into this expecting anything particularly spectacular and, provided you stick around until the end, you will be suitably rewarded for 85 minutes. My score would be 6 out of 10.

Watching this prequel to the 2014 original puts me in mind of horror stories for the Disney generation. That is no criticism – the acting here is fine, and it is always a relief to find that the child performers are not at all like the petulant brats often found in these types of film. Perhaps children were better behaved in the 1960s, when this is set. Lulu Wilson is particularly good in her role of young Doris, youngest of the Zander family, a role for which she has rightly received much praise.

This is an entirely respectable production. There are a few creepy moments, but little that will thrill you beyond the few moments they are on screen. The period atmosphere is conveyed well, and although this leads directly into the following film, it is fairly enjoyable in its own right.

As with any family-friendly horror – and there is nothing here to unreasonably shock the viewer – it doesn’t go beyond superficial, which is fine. A couple of gory moments towards the end will make the younger viewers wince a little, but beyond that, it is undemanding stuff. My score is 6 out of 10.

A ‘neglected Eurotrash classic’ apparently, this beautifully filmed French film has been compared to the works of Director Jean Rollin. To be honest, that is my main reason for watching. There are certain similarities – beautiful, scantily clad girls, luscious countryside, an elegant, crumbling castle and various softcore lesbian scenes.

However, whereas Rollin was always able to inject a certain indefinable fairy-tale quality into many of his works, ‘Girl Slaves’ falls into a trap Rollin never did, in my view – this film is sadly rather dull. Not a great deal happens, and when it does, it happens very slowly.

Thankfully, there is a strong cast here, bolstered by Alfred Baillou as the diminutive Gurth (Baillou appeared in a number of films for Jess Franco, his best known probably being Malou in ‘Plaisir à trois’, or ‘How to Seduce a Virgin.’).

Dreamlike it is, but there is little beneath the surface except for a fairly gentle tale involving lesbian exploitation. Nicely directed by Bruno Gantillon, but with little meat on the bone. My score is 5 out of 10.

This is an English speaking Italian horror/slasher film that contains some good moments, but is strangely devoid of any tension whatsoever. There’s a good cast for the most part: Saverio Percudani impresses as the titular killer, albeit a little too groomed for an outcast.

There are elements of Leatherface to the character of Little Sister and his various depictions of lunacy that are so disturbing because of the serene way in which they are directed (by Maurizio del Piccolo, Roberto del Piccolo – Piccolo also wrote). It turns out – in a spoiler – that the killer is just one of a family of mentally unstable untouchables.

Quietly effective, it is true to say that only real jump scare is at the end, when without warning, the death metal end theme music kicks in as the credits roll. My score is 5 out of 10.