Film Reviews by NP

Wes Bentley plays an unnamed man who regains consciousness behind the steering wheel of a car after a crash. He has no memory of what has happened except for a few sporadic flashbacks of a teenage girl in the back seat, and the blurred figure of a woman – presumably his wife – approaching him through the haze.

Kate Bosworth plays the finely chiselled, perfectly poised wife (also unnamed). Her emotions are in constant check and she barely speaks above an unobtrusive whisper, which is somehow suggestive of both kindness and hidden mystery – she is surely too good to be true? And what of the girl in the back seat? When the man reawakens some time later, bathed in cool sunshine, recovering from his ordeal, the girl is suspiciously absent from the spacious family home?

There is a certain intrigue here, and it is thinly spread. The wife’s obsession with cats, and her habit of littering conversations with random facts to keep her husband’s brain alert, his realisation that there is nothing wrong with his ‘broken’ ankle … all these things pepper the story with an increasing strangeness.

As if the husband’s suffering is not enough, nice Dave the postman is soon dispatched, a sudden unveiling of the woman’s insanity. Shashawnee Hall as the detective only appears to take an interest once things have reached a critical stage. ‘The daughter’ AudreyOlivia Rose Keegan, has been a ‘bad girl’, and is revealed to be kept in a cage. She will be released when the woman is made pregnant, as is the wife’s insistent wish.

In a satisfying twist, both the man and the woman are guilty of kidnapping young Audrey in order to raise money to pay for the wife’s ‘treatment’ – she might even have caused the crash that caused her husband to lose his memory. As he escapes her clutches and ends up in the unsympathetic care of the hospital, a nurse walks in following this revelation, and switches off the life support system, ending his life. It is the wife, and last thing he hears are her words, ‘I put things to sleep for a living, and they don’t wake up.’

This is an enjoyable mystery/lightweight horror with the final twist handled skilfully enough to make sense. The story isn’t quite as gripping as it would like to be. The performances are uniformly good, especially from Hall – the characters remaining icy and detached throughout.

I was first alerted to this film by spotting it on the CV of musician, Wojciech Golczewski, whose incidentals had added so much to the evocative atmosphere of ‘We Are Still Here (2015)’. Here, his menacing strings accompany casually stunning jogger Johanna (Johanna Gustavsson), alerting us to the fact that, as she runs through sunny glades, she’s in imminent danger. As the film’s title suggests, it’s only brief moments before a masked man in industrial overalls holds her down and forces a drill into her head.

Despite dying, she is soon back at her father’s home. Breathing, but with no pulse, she is somnambulistic, only rousing to vomit black putridity over her father. Meanwhile, the driller killers (for there are several) claim more victims – discarding any males and concentrating on females.

This story concentrates on Johanna’s father Morten’s (Morten Rudå) attempts to look after his deteriorating daughter. Watching as he tries to persuade others that the blackened, vomiting creature will ‘soon be better’ is deeply harrowing. The bemused apathy of the police is similarly distressing.

Shot like a documentary in grainy images, the effects are probably the weakest link here. Whilst an abundance of black tar-like substances oozing from hair and bodies is pretty revolting, the execution of the illness belies this Norwegian film’s lack of budget. The tone is refreshing, however, and doesn’t always take itself too seriously, while certain moments recall the work of David Cronenberg and the rotting, limping, back-haired ghosts of ‘Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)’ and similar Asian films.

It is unconventional also that a middle aged man should emerge as the hero of the piece, his vigilante actions uncovering a dark governmental secret, and distinctively so. As a whole, though, ‘Zombie Driller Killer’ doesn’t really live up to either its title, or the promise shown in early scenes.

Possibly buoyed by the success of his grisly ‘Grapes of Death’ feature four years earlier, French director Jean Rollin eschews his dislike of gore to produce a film that, within the first few minutes, features a face being burnt off by radioactive acid, and two eyes being clawed out.

Whilst not quite as graphic as his earlier film, ‘The Living Dead Girl’ nevertheless piles on the blood effects – somewhat at the expense of Rollin’s usual poetic atmosphere, which proves slightly detrimental to the end result. Ever the experimentalist, it is nevertheless good to see Rollin approach his horrors with a variant in emphasis, and there are certainly a couple of scenes that blur the line between real and dreamlike.

This will be remembered (by me at least) as the Rollin film with the most enthusiastic deaths. From the wonderful demise of the rascals who bring about the resurrection of the titular female to the final inevitable death of the far more evil Helene, it seems that the actors have been directed to give it their all when it comes to expiring.

I enjoyed this, as I enjoy the vast majority of the Rollin films I have seen. The idea of a beautiful blond girl despising her need for blood and longing for death makes me wonder if this was inspirational to Chris Alexander’s wonderful ‘Blood for Irina (2012)’, which can be seen as a successful modern take on the theme.

Barefoot and wearing nothing but a raincoat, a woman strides across a deserted rail track. In the sunny streets of France, an elderly woman makes her way through the streets and alleyways. The chalky cliffs next to a rain-lashed beach are seen next. What can it mean? As the credits usher in this 1989 film by French Director Jean Rollin, already interest is piqued.

I’m not sure this is actually a horror film (at 52 minutes and made-for-television, I'm not even sure if it 'officially' a film). It is difficult to define Rollin’s work – but with only a couple more of his productions to include, I’m going to let the fact that a vampire features briefly here on a New York skyline count it – roughly – as a horror. Also, the image of one or two young women standing by a cold looking seafront wearing featureless theatre masks, is one of the best known of Rollin’s visuals. It is sinister, fascinating, sombre and strange – just like his pictures, in fact. The masks are everywhere; the woman in raincoat is wearing one, the two lead ‘charming young’ girls (Marie and Michelle) are wearing them on Rollin’s Beach. And then – pop! They are separated and running down the streets of New York, narrowly missing each other, and often accompanied by some tinny 1980’s music, which is very of its time. This is a travelogue, shot over a few days, book-ended by scenes of two elderly ladies (aged versions of the two girls in NY) at last finding each other once again.

There isn’t a huge amount to get engaged with throughout, but Rollin’s talent for poetic imagery on no budget (night-time neon adverts, scenes shot through the haze of steam rising from the street, a red rose on a rain-dulled pavilion) is evident throughout. The film was shot spontaneously, with just Rollin and two actresses in The Big Apple. The overall theme - that of searching for something - is a typical dreamlike scenario. The woman in the raincoat emerges as a moon-goddess, whose naked dance probably influences the climactic reuniting of the two leads.

Jean Rollin describes this as his best written film, but not his best screenplay. The reason for this is that a week before filming commenced, one of the producers decided not to be involved, and withdrew his funding. This meant that instead of four weeks filming allocation (already a pretty tight deadline), there was now only budget for three.

So it is a surprise that this is as good as it is – and it is very good! It isn’t flawless, of course. The vampires, although very effective, backlit in the distance, traces of blood on their lips, lose their effectiveness when close up due to the outsized fangs being a little too large (a common problem in Rollin’s films, but not his first, ‘Rape of the Vampire’, in which the fangs were more subtle and effective) causing the actresses to appear to smile to reveal them.

Also, at the end, when two vampires encase themselves in a wooden coffin that goes floating off to sea, it is worth remembering that running water is deadly to such creatures, so the hope is that the coffin is sealed. And yet I regret criticising that, because – as with all films by Rollin – the whole project is written and directed as a kind of dream-like fairy-tale, not bound by the limitation of rules, even vampire lore. Indeed, the scene at the end, typically filmed on ‘Rollin’s beach’ is one of his best known, and is poetic and effective even now, fusing perfectly ‘the beauty of obscenity’.

So too, is the death scene of the Castel twins (featured on much of the accompanying merchandise). Despite being well known to fans of Rollin, Marie-Pierre and Catherine only appeared in two horror films together. This isn’t quite as effective use of them as in the earlier ‘The Nude Vampire’, but they are still seductive and mesmerising and ethereal and sinister, all at once.

The central performance by (co-writer) Jean-Loup Philippe as Frederic is very strong. Indeed, ‘Lips of Blood’ features one of Rollin’s strongest casts. Frederic’s ultimate decision at the film’s close is a satisfying twist and once again successfully blurs the line between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, much as ‘Dracula’s Fiancee’ did 27 years later.

The locations are stunning and lovingly shot. The camera lingering over the enticingly-lit castle, or the ramshackle (and soon to be demolished) shopping arcade, with the (presumably dubbed) sound of whistling wind and thunder, accompanied by eerie flute music, is as atmospheric as anything from a big budget extravaganza. Kudos, also, for doing something very rare in vampire films (especially at this time) – actually using real bats. If this hugely impressive picture was done with a truncated budget, I truly wonder what could have been achieved were Rollin fully funded.

Alongside ‘The Iron Cross’, this was the French director’s least successful picture. Agonizingly, to bring it into profit, Rollin re-edited his work, adding scenes of a pornographic nature and renaming it ‘Suck me, Vampire.’ Yes, truly. Needless to say, the new version was a lot more profitable.

Told in flashback, a group of Nazi soldiers are killed and dumped into a lake which somehow reanimates them years later and brings them back to ‘zombie’ life. They then go on a very slow killing spree, either because they are now mindless murderers, or they are avenging themselves against the small French village that ‘killed’ them. Nothing here is elaborated upon, it just ‘is.’

Apparently French director Jean Rollin became involved in ‘Zombie Lake’ after original director Jess Franco walked out of the production. That Rollin was only given a few days notice might explain the unusually slapdash approach to the project. Here we have corpses that blink, clumsy day/night continuity problems, tatty horror make-up and a very obvious use of a swimming pool for the underwater shots (with little attempt to disguise the pool’s extremities). Franco favourite Howard Vernon plays the Mayor or the village who, in his desperation, turns to insistent journalist Katya Moore (Marcia Sharif) for help in ridding the community of the zombies. Her answer? Napalm! (At least, that is what the dubbed soundtrack tells us.)

There is a plotline concerning one of the Nazis and his past relationship with a village girl. This resulted in Helena, a (now) 10 year-old child who recognizes one of the zombies as her father (he realises this too – his wearing of his ex-partner’s necklace gives this away). He in turn protects her from the others. She is then coerced to lure the undead group into a barn with buckets of fresh blood to entice them, where they are set on fire and finally destroyed.

I found myself wondering why further bloodshed could not be spared merely by regularly feeding the zombies with blood (they appear quite docile when fed) – and then realised I was enjoying this sloppy, soft-core ‘quickie’ so much I had invested my own ‘logic’ into the storyline. It is refreshing to see zombie creatures staggering around on a killing spree in blazing sunlight, but as an overall production, ‘Zombie Lake’ possesses little of the poetry and atmosphere that defines more typical Rollin productions.

Anthology films are somewhat scarce recently, although ‘Little Deaths (2011)’ and ‘ABCs of Death (2012)’ have been the more notable exceptions. And so to ‘The Hotel’, which features three stories within a framing narrative concerning paranormal investigator Eddie Osbourne staking a hotel with his new videographer. It’s worth pointing out that this strand features the least effective moments in the film.

The first tale concerns newlyweds Michael and Lana (Carson Nicely and Miranda Parham) moving into a house that appears to possess them. Nothing new in that, but it is played in engaging fashion by the two leads, and contains a few sinister moments before a weak ending.

Retribution plays a part in the second piece, a Jason-like story about a bullied child dressing up as a clown and getting his own back on his childhood aggressors.

An astonishingly dim film crew of three decide to record a hoax documentary concerning ‘Bigfoot’, and actually record themselves creating fake footprints in the foliage! A real life cannibal, played by Rodney Osborne takes advantage of the three youngsters’ stupidity by eating them …

… so it’s no surprise to find that Eddie is himself a revealed to be a cannibal who has lured Will to the hotel in order to eat him – however, in a terrifically unexpected reveal, the killer clown from story two turns up for the finale. The message is that if you surround yourself with negative energy, it will soon consume you.

This is good fun, obviously filmed on a micro-budget, and contains a vein of dark humour that makes up for any acting/production short-falls. The camera turns away from any gore, but there are some frightening moments – the shadow man from story one, the physically intimidating clown from story two, for example. There is an abundance of atmospheric from Director/writer Derrick Granado.

Starring Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee (with support from Barbara Steele and Michael Gough amongst others), and written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, who introduced The Yeti to television’s Doctor Who – this has all the hallmarks of being a classic. The results, however, are average.

‘Curse…’ opens with a brave and bizarre fetishist torture scene, which recurs throughout in various dream sequences (with some unnerving sound effects – a kind of backward tape loop used as disorientating background noise). The hero of the piece is Richard Manning (Mark Eden) who is sadly less interesting than most of the other characters. He’s searching for his missing brother, but succeeds only in revisiting nightmares and tales of witchcraft whilst staying in a sprawling mansion at the generous behest of Lee’s Morley. It is revealed that Manning is the direct descendent of the judge who condemned a witch to death many years earlier.

Despite labelling the film ‘dreadful’, Christopher Lee puts in what I think is one of his best performances. Understated and absolutely convincing as a man unable to help Manning locate his brother, whilst concealing darker motives. It’s just possible he is the living reincarnation of witch Lavinia Morley (otherwise played by Steele in a green-faced make-up) although this is not explained.

Despite a fiery climax, ‘Curse…’ never escapes from the dullness of its direction. Vernon Sewell also directed Tigon’s ‘The Blood Beast Terror’ the same year with an equally staid lack of ambition.

We’ve hardly got to know American documentary makers Matt (Nick Blood) and Georgia (Melia Kreiling) before they are set upon by two shady looking characters late one night, as they are driving down a rainy road in North Devon. They are responding to an award of 25k to capture proof of wild big cats that have been roaming the area, and a petrol bombed car is presumably some local deterrent.

As is often the case in Irish films like this, the location is wonderful. Bleak and rainy farmhouses filmed in gritty imagery, and endless roiling, grassy landscapes never fail to impress, and events become very interesting when tracker Fox (played by the excellent Mark Bonnar) is introduced and acts as a guide for the two across the moorland, immediately dismissing the ‘big cats’ theory. As Fox’s impetuous nature increases along with the rising body count, the reactions from Matt and Georgia are hilariously real – although this is far from a comedy. The bodies have had their hands tied, and they realise that the true serial killer is human. Could it actually be Fox?

The negatives of Xmoor: Firstly, some of the night-time scenes are simply too dark. Rather than conveying a feeling of panic and disorientation, it is just annoying that we cannot always make out what is going on. Secondly, why do the two leads have to be American? I ask this purely because the actors are not and, whilst both do a fairly good job, it is still noticeably feigned.

Sadly, despite a promising start, things deteriorate as the finale draws closer. The second half of the film attempts to pile twist upon twist in a bid to constantly pull the carpet from under the audience’s expectations. A couple of these are fine, but it becomes too much, a muddy series of shrieking and mild gore (getting rid of Fox, the most interesting character, so early on, is questionable).

Opening with Daniel White’s immediately inappropriate romantic music, the beautifully bodied Lina Romay sweeps out of the mist toward the camera – and then into it (after Director Jess Franco and his lens have lingered over her inguen). Clearly an exploitation film from the offset, these opening moments are nonetheless extremely evocative and mysterious. Romay’s unblinking stare alone is more than enough to entice and her Irina Karlstein is a true siren; within seconds she has seduced and claimed her first victim.

There are many different versions of this film. The storyline, such as it is, involves Countess Irina, last in the line of a family of vampires. After a series of conquests both male and female, she finally finds someone she cares about, only to drain him of his life fluid just as she did with her other victims.

An atmosphere of horror is difficult to sustain in blazing Spanish sunshine, the awkward dialogue issued through a fog of unconvincing dubbing. And yet, with scene after scene featuring softcore scenes of near naked Lina Romay indulging in sexual acts, I am shallow enough to ask, who cares?

Even that wears thin after a short while. Of course there is an erotic charge here, but very little else. There were plenty of ‘exploitation’ pictures released during this period – even Hammer films weren’t immune to such titillation – but most at least fed the explicit sexuality with an equal measure of horror, complimenting both styles and pushing the vampiric genre into a convincingly explicit arena. ‘Female Vampire’ appears mostly to be softcore purely for the sake of it, often ineptly shot – and always accompanied by the same music. The few moments of Irina drifting through foggy woodlands, sometimes accompanied by an equally naked conquest, comes close to the kind of dreamlike mystery mastered so regularly by Jean Rollin – but you have to endure a great deal of monotony to find them. Largely unwatchable, I am sorry to say.

Possibly the least welcoming landlord ever, Jim (Don Scribner), shows a likeable newlywed couple Lauren (Andrea Nelson) and Ted (Justin Arnold), around his spacious house. They are renting a room from him, he tells them they look like good kids and that his family is dead. To him. In the way of such things, the couple are not tempted to take back their deposit and find somewhere - anywhere - else, and Ted’s studies into ‘orbs’ necessitate he decks the area out with cameras, Paranormal Activity-style.

When the inevitable strange sounds keep the couple awake at night, Ted has a word with Jim, who is sitting in silence in the kitchen, cleaning a shotgun. Still the newlyweds are disinclined to leave, even after Jim’s later suicide attempt.

The acting here is exemplary. Nelson (who bears a marked resemblance to Elsa Lanchester in certain scenes) and Arnold display a believable chemistry, with Ted’s usually placid personality stretched to the limit. Lauren is more pragmatic. She suggests a séance, which appears merely to exacerbate the hauntings.

Only when both of them have been marked with the same sign that afflicted the departed Jim does Ted look up the residence on the internet to find strange things have long since been happening – cattle stripped of their reproductive organs, tongues etc. We then appear to come full circle, with Lauren waking up in darkness, in a field, in a scene which opened the film (the rest happening in flashback).

A weird dislocated scene in which shadowed aliens appear to be delivering Lauren’s child aside, there are no special effects here. Illogical events like their decision not to leave, and the impossibility of some climactic scenes being filmed (when until that point, the film is very much of the found-footage school) never fail to rankle, yet much else about ‘Encounter’ is extremely good – the claustrophobic setting, the performances, the gentle ramping up of strange happenings. The ending, which is open-ended in the extreme, is either exasperating, or highly powerful, depending on your point of view. In a reversal of ‘The Blair Witch Project (1999)’, interviews with residents, shedding possible light on events, appear at the close, rather than at the beginning, providing a retrospective assessment of Lovecraftian possibilities. Very enjoyable.

One of the things I like about the found footage genre is evidenced at the beginning of ‘The Devil Within’, when the camera remains locked onto a character as he conveys all kinds of emotion to the viewer without the help of moody lightning, artistic cutting or indeed anything to enhance the performance. The actor therefore has no choice but to play everything completely naturally because the unforgiving nature of an unedited shot would betray any lapse.

That’s the first impression I got from the opening moments as Professor Popescu (Adrian Carlugeo) warns us how terrible are the events we are about to see. He is wrong, unfortunately, for what follows is three actors with very little chemistry traipsing around the tremendous snowy Hoia Bacui Forest in a shockingly dull, blatant recreation of events in ‘The Blair Witch Project (1999)’ – inferior in every way, sadly. They get lost, argue and nothing happens. The discovery of the dead body of their erstwhile companion, the ferociously bearded Mr Dogaru (Bill Hutchins) fails to invest any scares into these uneventful wanderings: ‘What happened to him?’ ‘He’s f****** dead, that’s what happened to him,’ – all lines delivered with all the conviction of characters not remotely bothered.

Rumour has it that for ‘Blair Witch’, the director left his cast alone for most of the time in the unforgiving location, only to creep up on them at night and scare them – this produced a very real, wearied, raw set of performances. Here, the terrain is even less hospitable, but there are no scares, no tension whatsoever – any energy is drained from the young cast producing beleaguered dramatics in a disappointingly uneventful picture.

Cold Rock is an aptly named town. Jobs have evaporated, and the people live an isolated existence where they take the law into their own hands. It is a town that has died – everywhere is streaked with rain and oil, the townsfolk are permanently bedraggled, their faces bleached of colour. Sometimes children are born in Cold Rock that are not wanted; often, these youngsters simply disappear. Someone is taking them.

In young David, we have a genuinely appealing child. With a head full of crayons and castles, he is ripe for kidnap by the fabled Tall Man. Julia (Jessica Biel), who looks after him, has a bloodied confrontation with the indistinguishable figure – despite my initial thoughts, The Tall Man is not a spectral, superhuman figure, but a real, physical threat. And yet when Julia is brought to the café which seems to be a meeting point for the locals, their hostilities are directed towards her.

Rather than a full-blooded horror, this film is about a handful of people who make the most extraordinary sacrifices to remove the many children from their stultifying life in Cold Rock – or presumably any other similarly perverse and hopeless community – in order to place them in surroundings with a better future, or any future at all. I would have preferred it if the writing had not been quite so oblique concerning this fairly important revelation. In view of the extraordinary sacrifice this handful of people make in delivering children with no future into the hands of The Tall Man, the reality of what they are doing might have been more clearly defined. As it is, the brow-beaten, teary-eyed staring into space from characters like Julia could have been better explained.

Do money and respectability necessarily ensure a child has a better life? That seems to be the message here. Social commentary given the trappings of a potential horror film – beautifully told and acted, incredibly well directed. At its core, the story itself seems judgemental.

A troupe of highly argumentative film-makers travel to the Somme to record a documentary. Their internal disagreements are interrupted by figures in the distance that suddenly disappear. Similar events occur within and around ‘Devil’s Wood’, scene of one of the most central WW1 Somme battles.

Professor Brian Lock’s (Robert Bladon) facts are subject to ‘artistic embellishment’ by a clearly underwhelmed Marcus (Ray Panthaki), who is trying to spice up his documentary. Although his arrogance is legendary among his fellows, it’s easy to sympathise with Marcus’ point of view. Very little actually happens for a long time, but he decayed cadaver of a Rhodesian soldier dragged from a misty river threatens to liven things up, especially as he appears to have swallowed a black magic amulet – it’s apparent power involves bringing the dead back to life.

For a found footage film, there aren’t many attempts to keep it strictly realistic; too many camera angles for the available equipment to actually record, and the addition of evocative ambient incidental music at crucial moments (music that isn’t interrupted by the constant – and annoying – times when the camera breaks up and crackles in the way of this style of film-making). That’s not a particular problem for me: we know this isn’t an actual documentary; the days when an audience wondered if a found footage film was a drama or real life ended with ‘The Blair Witch Project’ sixteen years earlier.

Of the characters, Marcus is perhaps the best defined. He does his best to be irritating, but is very well played and emerges being strangely likeable long before his elevation to apologetic hero towards the end.

This isn’t the greatest film of its kind, but it features a good cast and an excellent location. The fusion of World War and zombies continues apace, with once again bunkers and trenches and murky fields providing an excellent backdrop for the activities of the living dead.

One of the first things to strike me about this latest (possibly last?) ‘Wrong Turn’ sequel, apart from the astonishing 11 years that have passed since the original, is that the sex quota has been pushed to the fore. Whereas the original had suggestions of love-making as a pre-cursor for the characters’ inevitable destruction, now the flawless (and charmless) young cast only climb off each other long enough to exchange worried pouts at the sound of distant hillbilly giggling before a great deal of blood accompanies delightfully grisly absurdities. What has made the fairly modest original endure for so long?

A young couple are dispatched pre-credits, but don’t worry: equally characterless cyphers are right behind them. This bunch are making their way to Hobb Springs Resort - a huge mansion inherited by Danny (Anthony Ilott), the one member of the hapless crew to possess any modicum of personality - where immediately the brother and sister caretakers (Chris Jarvis and an impressive Sadie Katz) are involved in minor jealousies concerning flirting with members of the decorative clique. But this is just power for the course; it is window dressing that wastes time before The Inbreeds attack. I’m not sure it is possible to make these people any less appealing – the males are the kind of hugely arrogant, meaningless beefcakes it is best to avoid in real life, and their girls are achingly sensible and concerned and impossible to tell apart, but at least have the advantage of feeling horny most of the time.

The acting is strictly of the over-intense daytime soap variety. The caretakers Jackson and Sally are in league (indeed vaguely related) with the cannibals, the deformity the cannibals have is the ‘price of purity’ – it is when Danny is told he is part of their bloodline that things become interesting. As his friends are tortured in a brutal initiation process, it is quite satisfying that Danny appears to turn away from his former drab coterie. However filthy his ‘new’ family is, they are massively less irritating.

There’s no doubt that this film picks up greatly once the cast stop posturing and begin dying, and events take on an ethereal, savagely erotic tone as the cannibals attempt to continue their bloodline at whatever cost, but up until this point, ‘Wrong Turn 6’ is straight-to-DVD in its ambition.