Fraudzilla Reviews

The Guardian (1990)

Guard your time - skip it

[4/10 · 27 May 2024]

17 years after making one of the most famous horror movies ever with The Exorcist, William Friedkin decided it was time to revisit the horror genre in 1990 with The Guardian. Quite amazingly it was originally slated for direction by Sam Raimi, who while equally revered in the horror genre, is a man with a very different style.

The movie wastes no time in introducing us to its premise - a young couple leaving for a night out leave their infant in the hands of a nanny (Jenny Seagrove) they have recruited. However the mother has forgotten her glasses and returns to find babysitter and newborn missing, we get to see this is because she is sacrificing him to a tree.

I mean, there's actually text beforehand that explicitly states that there are nymphs who make sacrifices to trees, just in case you were in any doubt, but this is a hilarious way to open a movie like this. I mean the plot is ridiculous but I think it could be pulled off if you build suspense, knowing she's up to something nefarious but not exactly what. Here we've got it all laid out.

Anyway, she reappears in California under the name of Camilla when newly relocated couple Phil (Dwier Brown) and Kate Sterling (Carey Lowell) find themselves in need of a babysitter for their newborn. Things start smoothly until, well, Camilla decides to try kidnap him and sacrifice him to a tree.

I mean, it's hard to class this as a spoiler when it's made abundantly clear where this plot is going from the off, and it never really makes any deviations from it. There's no surprise here, no suspense, no stakes. The story is silly, but it's not the worst I've ever seen. I mean it probably makes more sense than John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, but that's a much better movie because it sucks you in before revealing its more ludicrous aspects. Here it's just - yep there's a witch who wants to sacrifice your kid to a tree.

Come to think of it, this isn't the first 'scary tree' movie, I mean both Evil Dead and Poltergeist feature them, and while the plant itself isn't the cause of evil, Ernest Scared Stupid has one that serves a similar purpose and all of those are better (yes, even Ernest)

The worst thing is, the production values are solid, the cast are workable (cameos from genre favourites Miguel Ferrer and Xander Berkeley) and when the effects do kick in I've no complaints with them. A good movie could quite easily have come out of this.

As it is, with this being entirely telegraphed in the opening act, it commits the cardinal sin for a horror movie of being boring. The climactic showdown is pretty well done and atmospheric, but it's too little, too late. Friedkin wouldn't wait so long to come back to the genre, he'd get involved with HBO's Tales from the Crypt, which fared better. Incidentally, cut the intro and some of the padding and this might have wound up better as an episode of that.

Totem (1999 Video)

Tot-al Cack

[2/10 · 27 May 2024]

I'm not entirely sure what happened to Full Moon Pictures in the late 90s. While I don't think you could ever accuse Charles Band & Co of highbrow, professional pictures, there was a genuine love for the craft there, and movies like Puppet Master & Subspecies would grow into moderately successful little franchises. By the end of the decade these projects had been replaced by rubbish Roger Corman would have raised an eyebrow at, such as today's topic, Totem.

Indeed, director David DeCoteau actually started life as a protege of Corman. He's actually got a fairly solid resume of B-Movies under his belt. Ok he's not Spielberg but I'd unknowingly seen a few of his movies and found them various stages of passable to good fun. This was apparently something he made as part of a contractual obligation and shot it in 4 days. It shows.

We open with 6 good looking young strangers who have mysteriously found themselves transported to a dilapidated cabin in the woods. They can only move so far outside before an invisible barrier stops them. We meet them through the eyes of Alma (Marissa Tait) who is first introduced to talkative Paul (Jason Faunt) who presents jock Len (Eric W. Edwards), brooding Native American Robert (Tyler Anderson), schoolgirl Tina (Alicia Lagano) and the mysterious Roz (Sacha Spencer) they argue a bit, before finding a mysterious totem pole style structure carved out of granite depicting 3 monstrous figures.

It isn't long before they find themselves embroiled in an ancient ritual designed to sacrifice them to bring the creatures on the totem back to life to destroy the world. Or something.

You see, there isn't an awful lot of plot here, not that makes any great sense anyway. It's an incredibly short movie, with under an hour of actual footage if you don't include the 2 minutes of The Vikings hilariously presented out of context. I genuinely wouldn't be entirely surprised if they had been set a remit of "Charles Band likes monsters under 3 feet tall, here's 3 puppets, make up the rest as you go"

The puppets aren't even good, and in a lot of scenes are clearly just the actor holding onto them and thrashing around. Incredibly they choose to focus up close on their faces in the (overly long) introduction, letting as know that the monsters aren't even worth waiting for.

I'm not gonna pretend the acting is good, but given that I'm not sure they weren't making lines up on the spot, I'm not sure I can hold that much of it against the young cast. I've seen Jason Faunt do quite well in the role in Power Rangers he'd go onto (seriously, it's one of the most watchable series of that) and Tait has a fairly solid resume (even if it includes the equally crap Witchhouse) and I was sure I was familiar with Edwards, but given this is his only credit, apparently not. Curiously, despite portraying a Native American, Tyler Anderson has an interesting accent that sounds more European to me. Sadly there's not enough written about him online to suss his actual heritage.

Totem does a lot of bad things, but at least it doesn't overstay its welcome, so I won't overdo it either. This is a pretty bad movie. It's rushed, cheap, doesn't make a lot of sense and generally has nothing you want to see. By all accounts the director himself acknowledges this.

Carny (2009 TV Movie)

Devilish Diamond

[5/10 · 26 May 2024]

Lou Diamond Phillips must have one of the strangest CVs in Hollywood. From Courage Under Fire to La Bamba and Young Guns via Metal Tornado and Bats, the man is nothing if not diverse.

Here we find him in his SyFy originals phase. Now, these get a lot of stuck, and I'm not saying some, maybe even most, of it isn't warranted, but I think they served a purpose. As video rental stores were starting to die out, these almost took over as where you could see a cheap and cheerful little B horrors. They'd follow a pretty set template, usually with no excessive sex or violence, if nothing else they were a good entry level way to get younger viewers into the genre.

This 2009 effort is actually one of the more interesting examples. I'm not saying it's good, because it's not, but it's got something.

Things open with Cap (AC Peterson) and Quinn (Dominic Cuzzocrea) striking a mysterious deal to purchase an unseen creature. Cap murders the seller and takes the beast, which we soon find out is designed to be the latest attraction in his travelling Carneval.

This show has rolled into the small American town under the stewardship of Sheriff Atlas (Phillips) he is looking forward to the show, which can't be said for the town preacher Owen (Vlasta Vrana) who believes the entire Carneval to be the embodiment of evil - exacerbated by this new 'Jersey Devil' attraction.

On the opening night his fears are somewhat justified as the creature escapes and runs riot on the town. Can Atlas juggle stopping it, Cap's underhanded schemes to recapture it and the furore being whipped up by the priest?

Yeah this is pretty standard fare, but I did enjoy the dynamic of not one, but two sets of human antagonists at odds with each other as well as the heroes to compliment the monster. Unfortunately it does actually come at the expense of us learning anything about the monster, which is unfortunate given that 99% of your audience are here for that.

Speaking of him, he's actually pretty neat. While SyFy originals are renowned for just spamming awful CGI, here they do a bit more practical work which has the knock on effect that the CGI that is used is a bit better. We're not talking great stuff, but solid enough to not take me out of it.

The acting generally isn't too bad either. I mean Phillips is phoning it in but he's still got enough about him to work at this level. The remaining cast are workable in the circumstances. Cuzzocrea is a great character actor that I wish they'd done more with here.

Overall, I think most people know what to expect from the second you hear 'SyFy Original'. This isn't anyone's favourite movie, but it's a workable way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The name is stupid though.

Underwater (2020)

Wet works

[6/10 · 26 May 2024]

I have no recollection of this movie being released. Its generic name, bland poster and incredibly vague plot summary mean this isn't overly surprising, but I've seen it referenced repeatedly as underrated and worth seeking out, so I gave it a go.

The movie opens with Norah (Kristen Stewart) working on an experimental deep sea drilling platform in the Mariana Trench. Within minutes of her introduction, her world is thrown to turmoil as what appears to be some form of freakish earthquake rocks the facility leading to flooding. Finding a handful of survivors including the captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel) they come to the realisation that their only hope of survival is to don diving suits and try to talk along the ocean floor to a nearby base. However it soon becomes clear that it may not have been an earthquake that damaged the base, and they most certainly aren't alone out there...

There's nothing overly big or clever here. I mean the plot is almost beat for best lifted from fun 80s B-Movie Deepstar Six, with one exception. Now I'd normally try and avoid something so overtly spoiler-y as this but it's impossible not to mention as it's arguably the movie's potential biggest draw and also its biggest talking point - the disaster is caused by the awakening of Cthulhu and the Deep Ones.

It's actually kind of cool they didn't go all out to make this clear in promo work, therefore it's a big surprise, however the way the movie does it also undercooks it. It's made clear that the company behind the drilling, or at least one member of the team, was aware of the existence of these creatures but said character dies before this revelation so we don't really get to know any more - was this the classic trope of someone trying to awaken them? Or was he trying to study or even kill them? The Lovecraftian reveal, while kinda cool, could have benefitted the movie further by being examined more.

It's well made. It might actually be the first time I've ever seen a movie with the much maligned Kristin Stewart but I thought she was fine. Due to the nature of the story, where the disaster happens within the first 5 minutes, we never really get to see her, or any other character, in a 'normal' state which doesn't make things easy, either for the actors or for us, as viewers to relate to them as we never actually see their default state to gauge how they react. One of the survivors, Emily, as played by Jessica Henwick, does actually make some inroads into being an actual character - she's some form of researcher not used to the more physical aspects of underwater life and intimidated by the concept of the undersea walk - this could very easily come across annoying but it's to Henwick's credit I found her easy to empathise with.

Underwater is a somewhat strange film for me. I think it was underrated on release, and deserved a bit more success than it got...but now the somewhat retroactive push it gets online makes it sound better than it is. It's a well made, very polished modern blockbuster that doesn't have a great deal of substance to it. Worth a watch but don't expect any lasting impression from it.

With that said, I now know what that Gods of the Deep thing I watched a while back was ripping off.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Freeze Dried

[6/10 · 24 May 2024]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrived with much fanfare to not a lot of success with critics. I didn't think it was bad, but the lack of originality really hurt it. As much as the current trend of 'legacy sequels' need to rely on nostalgia to a degree, I felt it was literally ALL it had despite a promising cast. As such I watched it, moderately enjoyed it and almost instantly forgot about it.

When a sequel, Frozen Empire, was announced I was intrigued though. The name alone was enough to tip me off we were moving away from Gozer (finally) and with the new descendants of the Spengler clan introduced I was actually quite optimistic.

As such we find single mother Callie (Carrie Coon), 18 year old son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and teenage daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace) have relocated to the firehouse in New York. Their former science teacher/possible stepdad Gary (Paul Rudd) is along for the ride too. Bringing the Ghostbusters back draws the ire of city Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton) and it isn't long before Phoebe's involvement sees questions raised and her benched, ceiling her teenage angst. Her one outlet is a teenage ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Ind) that she has befriended.

Meanwhile, a layabout named Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) arrives in Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) occult bookshop trying to pawn some mysterious goods that belonged to his grandmother. Amongst them a mysterious orb that seems to trigger all sorts of mysterious supernatural phenomena. As it becomes clear it contains a demonic entity more fearsome than the average ghost, will the Busters Old & New be able to stop it before the Big Apple becomes the Big Icicle?

Frozen Empire has left me with a somewhat strange feeling. Similar to Afterlife I enjoyed it enough, but didn't love it. It just kind of exists.

It's predictable, but not entirely in a bad way. It hits all the regular beats for a family friendly blockbuster, which means you shouldn't expect to be challenged mentally, but can easily have a fun time. I think it's biggest problem is that it actually has potential to be better, and the tantalising glimpses of a better story it gives end up proving frustrating.

For example, the focus is very much on Phoebe's child prodigy who thinks the adults don't understand when they do. It's a tired trope, and I don't actually think the movie's use of it is even bad. Yet, when you've got Finn Wolfhard seeming to be finally showing signs of playing something other than 'the Stranger Things kid' and his would be girlfriend Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) also having moved to NY, both being criminally underused, it's hard not to think they maybe focused on the wrong kid.

We also get 2 new characters who are memorable yet under used. Patton Oswalt's small role as a researcher condemned to the basement of New York library is striking, could be argued to be perfectly timed but Kumail Nanjiani's Nadeem is definitely under utilised. There's an air of the original movies' Lewis Tulley about him, and I don't mean that in a bad way. They aren't similar in terms of characterisation, but as unlikely allies. If there are any further sequels I'd love to see him hang around.

The nostalgia cameos aren't quite as gratuitous as Afterlife, but that was just silly. Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson's Winston and Annie Potts' Janine actually feel quite natural. Bill Murray's Venkman less so, but the chemistry between them at the end feels more natural than the preceding movie, so I can permit it. William Atherton was one of my favourite parts of the original movie, but here he feels a bit tired in what's basically a less funny retread.

The antagonist, a Persian Demon God, is a similarly mixed bag of good and bad. I actually quite liked the story and setup. Truth be told I wouldn't have argued with more of it being present. The marketing made it look like NYC under ice was going to be a big part of the movie which didn't really come to pass either. The thing I find most disappointing is the design. It's well realised, but just looks so early 2000's. Like the villain from a B-List videogame or like that time McFarlane Toys tried to imagine what the Blair Witch looked like. It's probably my biggest issue with the movie.

Everything is well made, you can't knock the production values, and as I've said, I enjoyed it enough at the time...I just feel there was potential for MORE. I remember in the buildup there was a quote doing the rounds about how the they were drawing inspiration from The Real Ghostbusters cartoon. While I'm not sure about the tone, it is a fairly apt description of how I feel about it. It's like an episode of a procedural, entertaining for the duration but don't pretend you'll be thinking about it tomorrow.

Witchouse II: Blood Coven (2000 Video)

This House is not a Home

[2/10 · 17 February 2024]

I'm being generous when I say that the original Witchouse was not one of Full Moon's finer hours, yet somehow it seemed to have a sequel in the works before it was even released. I call it a sequel, but if we're being honest it's not really a sequel, it's just got actress Ariauna Albright playing an evil witch called Lilith in a completely unrelated plot that's almost the same.

Albright is introduced as a Professor leading a team of annoying students headed up by mouthy cameraman Norman (Nicholas Lanier) and blonde beauty Stephanie (Elizabeth Hobgood) to Massachusetts where 4 unmarked graves have been found. They are met with (supposed, we never really see it) hostility from the townsfolk regarding this, though Sherriff Harmon (Andrew Prine) feigns hospitality. As Norman and Stephanie search the town records for clues, a bone fragment getting into a cut on the professor's hand leads to her acting very strangely, and this all comes to a crescendo with the town's dark history of witch trials coming back to haunt them, and the students.

I take back every bad word I said about the original. It was bad but at least it felt like a Full Moon level production - this is the absolute pits. There's some Blair Witch style camcorder footage to roll eyes at, but truth be told the whole movie looks like it was shot with a potato.

I actually wasn't aware that this, and the first movie it turns out, were shot in Romania. We see that little exteriors that it can pass as small town America, but I do find myself bemused as to why you'd film a gothic themed horror in Romania and not just set it there?

The characters are nonexistent, the plot sparse at best (given and no scares so to speak of. This whole affair seems to be purely designed with the purpose of trying to make Lilith into a 'horror icon'

I'd be doing it a favour calling it disposable, this is actually really bad. I might rag on Full Moon, but they usually have something of a standard watchable level. This is so far below it, I honestly think they should be ashamed.

Prime Evil (1988)

Prime Zzzvil

[3/10 · 17 February 2024]

I feel like I should probably have been more aware of Prime Evil than I was going into it. A sleazy 80s horror about a satanic cult masquerading as the Catholic Church sounds like something I should at least have heard of when I stumbled across it but no.

The movie's core is the aforementioned satanic cult led by 'Father' Thomas Seton (William Beckwith) who operate out of church in New York. By day they masquerade as the church, but by night they are planning a ceremony where they sacrifice women to the devil. His endgame is Alexandra (Christine Moore), granddaughter of cult member George Parkman (Max Jacobs) but can Christine's suspicious boyfriend, the police and Undercover Nun sister Spencer (Angela Harris) come together to stop the evil forces?

That's genuinely about as much plot as there is to the movie, which takes a basic premise, cocks and fires into the 'satanic panic' of the 80s without any fine tuning. The setup is sound, but given that it's never properly expanded upon, and doesn't even really have a set protagonist it leaves a lot to be desired. There are huge pacing issues, and despite a few slasher-esque murders, the movie commits the worst crime of all for a horror picture - it's boring.

The ending does attempt to remedy this, and does descent into a hilariously silly ceremony that I can't bring myself to spoil, but it's too little, too late to salvage this.

The acting is largely forgettable, though not often bad. The exception being Beckwith, who positively chews the scenery, especially when he's not pretending and getting to be EVIL. In all honesty the movie would have been a better watch had he got to let rip with this character more.

As it stands, sub-Ghoulies Satan puppet aside, he's the only highlight of this, unless you're 15 and several pairs of exposed breasts are your main selling point. The synth and drum machine soundtrack is hilariously ill-fitting, the plot drab and the film generally lacking any real draw. It's not terrible as such, it's just...not very good.

Gods of the Deep (2023)

Deep End of the Bargain Bin

[4/10 · 12 February 2024]

As much as they formed a disproportionately frequent part of my movie consumption in my teens and 20s, I've long given up on B-Movies. While I think movies made away from the mass produced media machine do offer a rare opportunity to try something different, in this day and age the ease of access to cheap CGI not only means that special effects are bereft of any character or originality, but it also means the filmmakers don't even have to get creative.

With that said something about Gods of the Deep caught my eye. I've got a soft spot for Leviathon & Deepstar Six, and the cover was reminiscent of these. I knew it wouldn't be in their, already far from elite, league, but surely worth a watch.

Despite being a fully British cast and crew, the opening scenes feel distinctly like they were shot in Eastern Europe. Don't expect recognise any of the cast, I'm British and I don't.

We find ourselves in the World of the Pickman Corporation, who have uncovered what looks like a man made doorway at the bottom of the ocean between South America and Antarctica. They approach Jim (Derek Nelson) our vaguely Gary Barlow-lookimg twenty something protagonist who's got some sort of beef with Pickman involving his dad going missing while working on...something. This mission intrigues him though and he joins our ragtag group of cliched crew members to search new depths.

After setting sail from somewhere that looks nothing like South America, they take their experimental deep see sub and head off towards the dark unknown. Amongst the party is Jed Pickman (Chris Lines) himself. Somewhere between John Hammond, Carter Bourke, a drunken Uncle and the 'you're all going to die" guy from Friday the 13th movie, he is easily the highlight.

After no time and no suspense, they reach the hole and descend, only to find themselves confronted by what appears to be the corpse of a giant, hitherto unknown creature. As Jim sets out in a minisub to retrieve a DNA sample, it becomes clear that the being is anything but dead. In the ensuing panic the sub starts taking on water, people fall and bang their heads, a low budget Bryan Blessed/John Rhys Davies looking guy somehow gets locked in a room and drowns, and despite a potential lack of oxygen people decide to smoke.

As they make their ascent, the tissue sample Jim took starts to do strange things. Despite Pickman's insistence of studying it, amongst rambling like a lunatic, it is locked away. Needless to say there are double crosses, unexplained phenomena with equipment, the sample doesn't stay locked up, lots of bad decisions, even more slime and a 'shock' ending anyone who has ever seen a movie, ever can see coming from around the 20 minute mark.

So yes, this is a largely predictable, by the numbers affair, but actually isn't without some merit. The Lovecraftian nature of the creatures certainly gives it an edge to what could otherwise be a fairly standard Alien clone. In fact, if anything I was rather left wanting more of them. What did Pickman know? And was he a dribbling lunatic before he got into proximity of them or was that their influence?

Indeed there's actually the backbone of a decent story here, it just isn't fleshed out very well. There's also some laugh out loud silly moments, particularly when people fall. There's one where our strapping hero takes a fall of about a 3 foot drop and knocks himself out at a crucial moment,

It's also not helped by a cast that leave a lot to be desired. Nelson and female lead Makenna Guyler are passable enough, probably pretty good tv level actors. Chris Lines is hilarious, possibly intentionally on his part, if not the asinine script he's got to work with. The rest of the cast...eh not so good. There's lots of shouting, no subtlety and a lot of cringing on the part of the viewer.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of practical effects on show. No they weren't amazing, but they were more than workable for what we were dealing with. Even the CGI wasn't overdone, though the repeated use of the one scene of the Cthulhu-style monster grated by the end, but overall I can't chalk the effects up as a pleasant surprise.

All in, Gods of the Deep isn't a great movie. It's not even a good one, and I'd be generous in calling it 'alright' but what I will say is that it's far from the worst movie I've ever seen, and I suppose I was actually pleasantly surprised by it in a way. This doesn't mean I recommend it, but I don't totally hate it either.

DarkWolf (2003 Video)

Dorkwolf

[2/10 · 2 February 2024]

As much as I'm about to talk about it at length, I'll preface my review of Darkwolf with an entirely honest tl;dr abridged version: I saw this on DVD shortly after it was released in 2003 and it failed to register on me to the point that I genuinely forgot it existed.

In its defence, I was watching a LOT of cheap horror movies at this point, with the boom in budget DVDs meaning cheap horror flicks were very easy to come by, even for a teenager on part time wages. Still, it's impressive in an odd way to not register with me at all. I vaguely recognised the cover and title when I came across it again.

The movie very much wears its heart on its sleeve opening in a strip club where a crazy biker, as played by Kane 'Jason Voorhees' Hodder bursts in and grabs a girl. The police, led by Steven 'Once fought Jason Voorhees' Williams and bust him, but things take a turn for the worse when, in the back of the meat wagon, he turns into a werewolf, bursts free and kills Williams character before escaping into the night.

We then follow Williams, apparent, partner Turley (Ryan Alosio) who is being shadowed by apparent lesser cop, who wears her police shirt open to expose her white tank top, McGowan (Jaime Bergman) whom he has to give a crash course on werewolves and hybrid werewolves. He then takes her to meet the mysterious Mary (Tippi Hedren) who reveals she has been protecting the bloodline for centuries and that the force they are dealing with is the Darkwolf, the most powerful of the werewolves. His mission is to mate with a chosen woman, who anyone who has seen a movie, ever, will instantly recognise as Josie (Samaire Armstrong) a waitress we've just met who blurts out that Mary has "always looked out for her"

This absolute tour de force of cruise-missile-subtle plot development all actually takes place within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Literally. The actual mythology the movie is setting up actually isn't terrible, but the way it is sledgehammered into your face like this is somewhat disarming. You pretty much just wrap your head around this when Darkwolf, who clearly doesn't really know what he's doing, kills Mary (despite Josie being a matter of feet away) Turley, who also doesn't know what he's doing, runs with Josie, leaving the book Mary instructed him to give her and McGowan gets slashed. In its defence, one thing Darkwolf cannot be accused of being is slow off the mark

The problem is that after that, things do take a turn for the boring and/or nonsensical. There's an overly long sequence where Josie's idiot friends, who took the...nameless werewolf book, do weird makeup, get gratuitously topless and dance about to a terrible song, the inexplicably pointless death of McGowan, who was probably the most likable protagonist, only to prove a fakeout, and lots of scenes of Josie crying/moaning/wolfing out/eyes glowing.

As such, what on paper is set up to be a vaguely Terminator-y story about an unassuming young woman stalked by a monstrous antagonist, with only a single, slightly out of his depth hero for assistance...actually just turns out to be a whole lot of genuinely aimless scenes, several of which involve nudity from the female cast. Now, I enjoy the female form, but part of the reason B-Movies featuring gratuitous nudity has done such a beloved trope is the wink and nod nature of how they try incorporate it in the plot. Darkwolf doesn't try. There's no wit, no humour, just 2 naked girls in full body paint dancing and engaging in softcore antics...because we've got 15 minutes to fill.

As such the titular Darkwolf doesn't actually do a great deal, and when he does it's largely offscreen. They try and introduce an utterly superfluous addition to werewolf lore by introducing the fact that anyone Josie touches is 'imprinted' and Darkwolf is drawn to them (hilariously this is explained to her by Turley...while holding her wrists. I told you, not the sharpest.

This sets up a climax where Josie volunteers as bait (something McGowan suggested they do and got scoffed at an hour ago...) to draw the beast to the police station. Will the forces of good be able to halt his evil quest or will he succeed?

Darkwolf exists in that very 90s/early 2000s movie-verse where everyone is good looking, but nobody can act. Ok that's maybe a little bit harsh, Armstrong could at least say have made for a sound final girl with a less terrible script and I'm still not sure what Tippi Hedren is doing here. The rest of the cast are soap opera level at best, and in some cases even that is generous. I'll cut Hodder some slack, in that he is actually a very talented guy, he's installed character in a lot of monsters over the years simply through body language, but in a rare speaking part he doesn't shine.

Indeed, let's be honest, he's here as Darkwolf, which would be awesome except for the facts that 1. Darkwolf is hardly in it and 2. When he is he looks awful. Accomplished via a puppet/suit that looks like it was lifted from one of the lesser Howling sequels and absolute toilet level CGI. This hit at that unholy point in time where CGI became affordable on a low budget, and movies used it for the sake of it, regardless of how bad it looked. As bad as the rubber wolf is, at least it has charm, the CGI is just rubbish. What's stranger, is when we get a look at the she-wolf, she transforms via abhorrent CGI...but her makeup job is actually pretty damn decent!

As I recount my thoughts on a second viewing 20 years later, I feel like Darkwolf will meet the exact same fate as it did on the first viewing; by this time next week I'll have completely forgotten it even exists. It's the kind of movie that had it saw release in the 80s or 90s would have found a way to be a whole lot more fun, but as it stands it simply exists. Not bad enough to be good fun, but not good enough to be able to recommend to anyone. If you want to see Kane Hodder as a lycanthrope Project Metalbeast is better. Despite fun start it quickly degenerates into a slow moving dirge, where even an ending that sounds good on paper manages to be uninspiring.

Witchouse (1999 Video)

Which House?

[2/10 · 15 November 2023]

Witchouse is one of those movies that seemed to straddle that period between the death of video rental stores and the advent of budget DVD you'd find in places like supermarkets and convenience stores. I remember the cover vividly, admittedly more as on the DVD side. Truth be told, despite the affinity for horror I have, and my penchant for watching ANYTHING at the time, it never really appealed to me. The cover looked like early photoshop fan art for a Witchboard or Night of the Demons spin-off.

However, we find ourselves, in an era of streaming, and I'm bored. So here we are.

The movie centres on Elizabeth (Ashley McKinney) a slightly spooky girl who invites several schoolmates over for a 'May Day Party'. They're an unusual bunch, physics boffin Jack (Matt Rafferty) and his senior equivalent Brad (Ryan Scott Green), jock Scott (Dane Northcutt) and his cheerleader Maria (Marissa Tait), pothead Tony (Dave Oren Ward), his rockstar girlfriend Janet (Brooke Mueller) and random Jennifer (Monica Snow) who it transpires are all descendants of old townspeople who burned a witch at the stake hundreds of years ago, who is, of course, an ancestor of Elizabeth. Which they find out at a seance. Naturally.

In a completely unpredictable turn of events, this is all a scheme to summon Elizabeth's evil ancestor Lilith (Ariauna Albright) who wants to exact her supernatural revenge on the descendants of her killers. But where does Jennifer fit in?

I'll admit I didn't start Witchouse (god that is annoying to type) with high expectations, but they went positively subterranean when Charles Band's name appeared in the credits. Now don't get me wrong, Band has actually played a part in more than one movie I've genuinely enjoyed. Probably more than I want to admit to be honest. But by 1999 he was rather in autopilot, and truth be told I was surprised he managed a movie without killer toys.

Now the film has a lot of the hallmarks of the worst Full Moon movies, bad acting, worse scripts, a soundtrack that's rather overblown, but it's not without its positives. The spooky old mansion it's filmed in is actually very cool and atmospheric, and as much as I hate the demonic design the effects are largely passable to good, particularly for a movie on this budget. There's one laughably silly part where we see a shot of Lillith's feet hovering that's quite clearly just a pair of empty boots being suspended from above, but I can deal with that.

There are problems though. I can live with the plot that I think can be guessed from start to finish from reading the synopsis, but even within the confines of the genre, there's disappointment here. The deaths/possessions are neither scary nor gory, so that's your 2 key horror demographics disappointed, and the big 'twist' doesn't end up making a lick of sense.

To cap it off, this is painfully late 90s. Nobody gets into a movie like this expecting anything but cardboard cutout character tropes, and to be honest the jock and cheerleader don't bother me. The 90s stoner archetype and his mouthy rock chick girlfriend, who carries a guitar everywhere, are cinematic torture though. The geeky protagonist saving the day and having hilariously awkward interaction with his first love interest is something Full Moon would become briefly obsessed with around this point, which, given this is always the protagonist, says a lot about what they viewed as their target audience.

These characters aren't really helped by the actors, but in all honesty the script doesn't give them much room to succeed. Mueller, who would go on to more notoriety as a wife of Charlie Sheen and friend of Paris Hilton, is probably the worst, but her dialog is so awful I'm not sure who is really to blame. I was disappointed we didn't get more of McKinney, not just because she's beautiful, but because the character is so undercooked. We're told she's been a nice girl, just weird, but from the first minute we know she's up to no good so there's no character development. Mainly because she's beautiful though.

When it comes down to it, I imagine Full Moon fans still with the company by 1999 will probably lap it up, but for everyone else this is one you can avoid. I might still watch the sequels, because I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Amityville Dollhouse (1996 Video)

A Very Big House In The Country

[6/10 · 15 November 2023]

Now, part of the reason Amityville became a 'thing' was the supposed true nature of the story, or at least that's how it was presented. As such I find it funny that the undeniably true horror story in this is how the series got to 8 entries. With that said, there's also something supernatural about a movie series that gets to 8 installments and the best of the predecessors are parts 4, 6 and seven...none of which take place even on the same side of the USA as Amityville, utilising unintentionally amusing plots surrounding items coming from the house and bringing the curse with them.

Given that this loose plot thread has formed the basis for the most watchable parts of this series, it does make sense that the saga would face its Waterloo utilising a similar tale.

As such we've got Bill (Robin Thomas) a divorcee raising his teenage son Todd (Allen Cutler) and young daughter Jessica (Rachel Duncan) alongside his new wife Claire (Starr Andreeff) who lost her previous husband, a solider, who fathered her son Jimmy (Jarrett Lennon) Bill is a contractor and has built a luxury home in the Californian desert for his new family, as they try to adjust to being just that.

While investigating a mysterious shed behind the property, Bill unearths an antique dollhouse, Dutch Colonial era design. Deciding to clean it up and give it to Jess, it isn't long before strange things start to happen in the real home. Initially blaming the kids and their problems with one another, Bill and Claire themselves start to experience strange phenomena that becomes increasingly dangerous.

Now, this one diverts slightly from the now well worn path of 'item lifted from the Amityville House carries haunting with it' in that while the dollhouse is clearly based on the infamous Amityville property, it's never actually even alluded to having been near it, so where the spookiness comes from is never really explained, I imagine they theorised that by part 8 of the Amityville saga nobody was actually gonna ask.

Truth be told though, once you get past this detail which is equal parts minor and integral, the movie actually moves quite nicely. There's nothing fresh or inventive going on here, but it's solid, fast paced, competently made and relatively entertaining. I'll admit it really feels more like a House sequel than Amityville, particularly with the undead soldier, but I'll admit I like House more than I do Amityville Horror anyway. With that said, it loosely leans into the series occasional favourite subplot of ghosts making people incesty, Claire starting to feel impure thoughts about her stepson, which gets dropped in a somewhat impromptu fashion. Possibly for the best.

We do have other issues, Jimmy is a character that's very of the 1990s. By that I mean, he's a geeky science enthusiast trope, but is written very unsympathetically. Released 10 years later and he might actually be something of an affable, underdog style character. Here he's annoying to the point you kind of understand why Todd hates the condescending little goon.

There's also the underwritten occult expert Aunt Marla (Lenore Kasdorf) and her biker partner Tobias (Franc Ross) who appear briefly then emerge to play a fairly major part in the film's climax. I actually wish we'd maybe seen or at least learned a bit more on them.

These threads do all combine to form one of the movie's most frustrating aspects; we never really get a main character. Ostensibly it's Bill, but we arguably spend most time split between them all, with none a truly likably rounded protagonist.

This is a shame because the cast aren't bad by any stretch. Thomas is affable enough with what he has to do. Andreef sexy and capable as his spouse. Cutler is fine as the teenage son, I feel the script is his biggest problem, if there is a weak link it's Jarrett Lennon but once again, I'm willing to put a lot of that down to how he's written.

Overall, I actually quite enjoyed this. It's not big, it's not clever, but it's light years better than the 8th movie in the Amityville series really has any right to be. If you've any taste for 90s Direct-To-Video horror you might be pleasantly surprised here.

Despite being one of the best entries into the series, this would actually wind up being the final entry into the original line of movies. Not too long after the series would be subject to a big budget remake and a slew of straight to DVD nonsense when producers cottoned on to the fact the word 'Amityville' isn't subject to copyright.

Amityville: A New Generation (1993 Video)

Looks, Sounds & Feels like Hellraiser 3...just not that bad

[5/10 · 11 October 2023]

Given the complete shock to the system that was Amityville 1992: It's About Time, actually delivering a well made and fairly entertaining movie in this largely lamentable series, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that it didn't take long for another sequel to emerge that doesn't really have much to do with the original, following the tried and, uh, 'tested' method of a haunted item from the Amityville House somehow takes the haunting travelling.

I don't think it's ever stated exactly where it's set, although it was filmed in LA. It's that generic, run down US cityscape that early 90s movies love. This comes complete with the protagonist's abode, some sort of converted warehouse apartment block. Needless to say, they're all artists. Our main man a photographer by the name of Keyes Terry (Ross Partridge) who stays with his girlfriend Llanie (Lala Sloatman) next door to painter Suki (Julia Nickson) under the landlords Dick (David Naughton) and Jane Cutler (Barbara Howard) as they struggle to draw attention to their art.

One day Keyes is drawn to a homeless man (Jack Orend) who he photographs. In return, the man insists he takes his one possession, a family heirloom of a large gothic mirror. When those left alone with the mirror start to come to grisly ends, Keyes starts to suspect and dig into the history of the homeless man - but how does he fit into the puzzle himself?

Following my slightly raised expectations on the back of a watchable previous movie, and a cast with quite a few pleasantly familiar faces, not even touching on Richard Roundtree's short role as a fellow artist and Terry O'Quinn's more significant stint as a cop investigating matters, my hopes took a nosedive in the first few minutes when the music, setting and cast instantly developed a recognisable sense of dread, an unmistakable atmosphere of horror. No, I don't mean the movie has a vibe, I mean it made me think of Hellraiser 3. Honestly I swear this has been made after hours during the production of that turkey.

As proceedings went on, it's got its issues but it is at least slightly better than that. Which is some sort of bizarre paradox when an Amityville sequel is better than anything. It makes a interesting attempt at actually connecting proceedings to Amityville, albeit this is completely half-cooked which is one of the movie's more annoying factors. We've now seen more than one 'possessed artefact' movies, and a good few 'house possessing people' ones, but this actually tries to at least tease merging the two, even if the house itself never appears beyond visions in the mirror.

It's quite something when an Amityville movie's most frustrating trait is things it almost does, as opposed to a plethora of stupid things, but this really is the case here. There's characters like those of Nickson and O'Quinn who I'd have been up for seeing much more of, and the ending just seems very...abrupt. Like they start off down the path of Keyes' history but ultimately have to cut that short so we can attempt to wrap things up.

Reminding me of the atrocious Hellraiser sequel (well ok I'm saying that as though 3 is the only bad Hellraiser, but it's the MEMORABLY bad one) actually has one positive, production values aren't bad at all. Partridge was possibly an unusual choice for lead given some of the players, and his hair has a life of its own, but I found him quite workable at this level. Certainly he isn't bad in the scenes a bit more actual acting are required, and he's possibly the biggest victim of his character's potentially interesting arc being underdone. O'Quinn is also very good in a rare good guy role. It's like Ronny Cox in the 1990 Captain America; I'm constantly awaiting a heel turn that never arrives. Naughton is a tad disappointing though, I'd have preferred they swapped more of his time for Julia Nickson.

This is a really hard film to try and call. It's not good by any stretch, but realistically it is any better than it has any real right to be. Considering the majority of films with 'Amityville' in the title are, well, awful, this is a fairly generic 90s horror movie, even down to the lame subtitle...but that's honestly a solid landing for a series that's missed far more than it hit. It's not something I'd recommend to anyone, but if you are going to subject yourself to an Amityville movie you could do much, much worse.

Amityville 1992: It's About Time (1992 Video)

About Time There Was A Watchable Amityville

[6/10 · 10 October 2023]

Amityville is quite easily the strangest of all the 80/90s horror movie franchises, for a number of reasons. It lacked a defined boogeyman, which meant the plots flew all over the place, but it also had a very unique route of delivery with 3 cinematic movies, a tv movie, a direct to video effort that looked like it was a home movie then today's subject; another DTV effort but one that actually appears to have been made with much better production values than the previous sequels put together.

Further confusing me is the bigger question of who was actually watching these? Freddy & Jason have hordes of fans. Halloween and Hellraiser have their followers too. Hell, even Puppet Master had its supporters. I've never heard a single person enthuse over any Amityville movie, yet they simply refused to stop making them. I can only theorise nobody actually cared enough and the rights to the name kept lapsing and every new set of film makes thought they could draw success from the name.

Latest in the ring is director Tony Randel. Wait a minute, Tony Randel has made some movies I've heard of? Some of them are even quite good...what's he doing near an Amityville movie?!

He's brought backup with genre credentials too! Monster Squad's Stephen Macht leads proceedings as Jacob Sterling, an architect who returns from Amityville to his California home with an antique clock. His family include Ghoulies 2's Damon Martin as teenage tear away son Rusty and shy daughter Lisa, as played by Megan Ward, who is probably better known for Encino Man and Joe's Apartment, but if we're running with genre credits she was in Full Moon's Arcade. While he's been away his sometime girlfriend Andrea (Shadowzone's Shawn Weatherley) has been looking after the kids, and wants a serious talk about their relationship.

However, almost as soon as the clock is in the house strange things start happening. Rusty has visions of a medieval torture chamber and seeks guidance from local spooky lady Mrs Wheeler (Nita Talbot), who has a bit of an insight into the clock's history, Lisa starts acting abnormally seductively and a local dog attacks Jacob, leaving him frenzied and rambling. Andrea's psychologist friend Leonard (Jonathan Penner) stops by to try and help out, but will Rusty be able to convince anyone what is going on in time to save his family?

Given the, uh, 'hit and miss' nature of the Amityville movies - by that I mean the first couple were box office hits, all of them having been missing the ability to call themselves actual good movies, It's About Time might actually be a cinematic first where the 6th movie in a series is actually the best. I'm not saying it's great, or even very good, but it's largely coherent, well made and actually relatively entertaining despite being ridiculously silly. I mean a couple of the deaths, well one in particular, is ludicrous, verging on parody, but this has a very 80/90s feel to it, when comedy and horror had a habit of blending in so it works.

I'll admit, I do miss the gothic atmosphere that a haunted house brings, and in all honesty this reminds me more of Randel's Waxwork in terms of tone and small town setting than any other Amityville, or how I feel like an Amityville should feel, but it's a relatively fun and silly romp. It's not remotely scary, and while there are some neat effects it's not quite gory enough to hook that crowd.

An artefact from the house making the haunting mobile would become a fairly silly trope of the series, and I'm not really sure why the clock needed additional evil backstory about a sadistic owner in ancient France, but it's also possibly the most believable in terms of an item somebody might actually have in their house, so there is that.

I did quite enjoy the ensemble cast of genre players. Macht is the second Monster Squad alumni to appear in this series, following Leonardo Cimino's short role in The Possession, and I enjoyed his descent into madness. It's certainly a better villainous turn than he shows in Graveyard Shift. It can't seem to decide if Weatherley or Martin is the protagonist, which leaves both underdeveloped, and Megan Ward isn't utilised at all apart from as eye candy. Jonathan Penner's Leonard is the weak spot, completely over chewing every scene.

If you're reading up comments on the 6th Amityville I feel like you've already half made your mind up if you're gonna watch this. What I will say is that while it's not what I'd call a 'good' movie, it's certainly a pleasant surprise, a solid way to pass a couple of hours and inexplicably well done for this series. When you consider how awful the previous entry was, it really is a turn up for the books that this even got made, especially with the budget it did, let alone turned out watchable.

The Amityville Curse (1990 Video)

Cursed Is Putting It Lightly

[2/10 · 9 October 2023]

As much as the 4th Amityville took the series into the wastelands of tv movie territory, completely bypassing direct-to-video territory, it upset the odds by actually presenting a fairly solid and entertaining little movie, despite a ridiculous premise. It clearly has some success because this follow up did at least get video status.

Truth be told, I'm not actually sure how much of a sequel this really is. I came across it in the early 2000s as one of those movies you'd find on DVD in pound shops, but no legit retailer would ever stock. The impression I got, especially given the switch from 'Horror' to 'Curse' in the title, was that this wasn't even really part of the series, but you can't copyright 'Amityville' given it is an actual place, so just someone looking to cash in on whatever value the series name held.

The 'not really connected' feeling is heightened by the fact it's not the Amityville house, just another house, in Amityville. Everything in that town is haunted apparently.

It opens 12 years prior as a Priest is murdered by an unseen assailant during confession. His house sits empty until it's stumbled upon by Marvin (David Stein) and his wife Debbie (Dawna Wightman), who has psychic undertones, who purchase it to fix up and sell on. They rope in friends Bill (Anthony Dean Rubes) and couple Frank (Kim Coates) and Abigail (Cassandra Gava) to help, but as they begin to work on the house, Debbie is haunted by visions and mysterious events start to plague the project, making them curious as the history of the property...

As I say, I had actually seen this movie before, but genuinely did not recall a single thing about it as I subjected myself to it again. Subjected is the key word because this is a tough watch. What I'll say in its defence is that it does have a fairly coherent plot for the most part (you can't take that for granted with these series) but that doesn't make it any less boring. Honestly, this is a complete chore to sit through, when it does decide to attempt to pick up it tries to pull a twist that everyone has to see coming, it's when coherence goes out a bit - is the killer affected by something supernatural? It certainly appears so but up until this point the only truly spooky things are Debbie's visions.

It's funny, because I actually assumed this was also a tv movie, because this looks even cheaper than it's predecessor. It's also very tame, which made me think it was for broadcast. I don't even mean in terms of scares - there's a scene in which Frank and Abigail start to undress which should be sexy, but is shot in such an awkward manner it's anything but.

On that note, I was quietly surprised I recognised Coates and Gava from proper productions! Admittedly the latter from a fairly minimal role in Conan The Barbarian, but still, got to take your victories where you get them. Despite a sound pedigree, I found Coates underwhelming, though I can grant him some respite given how underwritten his character is. Gava looks stunning, but again her character is little more than a placeholder. Stein isn't terrible, but feels like a poundshop version of Otho from Beetlejuice but a lot of it hinges on Wightman who I don't think is awful, but her performance not quite strong enough to carry proceedings, especially when it's such a boring affair to begin with.

This is a movie that really doesn't have a whole lot going for it. A drab plot devoid of scares, a cast that isn't quite strong enough to carry a poor script and production values that seem nonexistent. I'm honestly not sure there are such a thing as Amityville series diehards, but if there are I feel even they might struggle with this one.

Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (1989 TV Movie)

A Light In The Darkness

[5/10 · 9 October 2023]

After the third Amityville bombed at the box office, somehow the name was still apparently valued somewhat enough to be used for this tv movie. Sandro Stern, who helped pen the original movie, was drafted in to the director's chair, with the hope of bringing some chills to the small screen.

We open with a series of priests launching a team exorcism on the Amityville house. In the conflict, young Father Kibbler (Fredric Lehne) sees a demonic face in an antique standing lamp, however he is knocked out in the fracas, and is unconscious in hospital as the home's contents, including the lamp, are sold in a yard sale.

The lamp is shipped off to California as a present for Alice (Jane Wyatt) a wealthy pensioner who has recently had to take in her daughter Nancy (Patty Duke) and her 3 kids; teenager Amanda (Zoe Trilling), preteen Brian (Aron Eisenberg) and youngster Jessica (Brandy Gold) who are reeling from the death of their father. Jessica in particular is struggling, and starts to see the ghost of her father in the house, particularly around the lamp. As devastating accidents befall all who come close to the lamp, will Father Kibbler be able to make it to California in time to save the family?

Now, let's be blunt, the concept of film is complete nonsense, and the tv movie nature of it means it's rather tame in terms of scares, but you know what? This was probably the best Amityville movie to date. While the other 3 have much better production values, this actually has a much tighter, more focused script...even if it is about a haunted standing lamp. The biggest issue it has it when comes to the films climax it's just hard to make a lamp scary. Like I'm not sure how far the budget went, but surely the demon actually manifesting might have been better? For all I'm slagging the plot, the 'Haunted Artifact from the Amityville House goes elsewhere and causes bother' would become a series staple, so clearly someone liked it.

The cast isn't amazing, but they are solid. Duke is a good steady hand, albeit her character is probably the most underused of the whole family. It's unusual seeing the young Lehne NOT play some sort of criminal, and while he's a bit wet around the ears here he's passable.

While it's not by any means great, I actually find this one of the more watchable entries into this, to be honest, largely quite bad, series. If you'd caught it as a tv movie back in the day I actually think this would have hit the spot quite well, but you might have felt short changed if you'd paid for it.

Amityville 3-D (1983)

Probably Not High on Meg Ryan's CV

[4/10 · 9 October 2023]

After the somewhat controversial second Amityville movie, it was perhaps a surprise another sequel followed so quickly, but there was a 3D trend to jump on, so off we go!

It's actually quite a novel setup, following reporter John Baxter (Tony Roberts) who, along with a team including Parapsychologist Dr West (Robert Joy) specialises in uncovering paranormal hoaxes. The movie opens with him exposing a fake in the Amityville house, leading to the tenants being evicted and the house empty. As such the realtor (John Harkins) offers him the place for peanuts, and being a professional sceptic the house's nasty reputation doesn't phase him. As spooky incidents in and around the property pile up, will he maintain his defiance? And what is with that spooky well in the basement?

I liked the setup, it certainly makes a slight change from the previous two entries protagonist families. One thing I find interesting about the Amityville series is how no 2 movies feel the same, but unfortunately the one unifying factor between the first 3 is how disjointed they feel. This starts off better, but quickly falls into the familiar trap, with Baxter's teenage daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) and her friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) briefly seeming to take centre stage. Even the deaths in the movie have no real 'theme' or logic - the car death is 1. Nonsensical 2. Nowhere near the house. We briefly lurch into Poltergeist-esque territory at one stage before an ending that makes no real sense, but does feature a pretty cool looking demon.

In terms of acting, it's a step up from part 2, I mean I've seen a lot of the cast in other movies, and most of them are at least workable. I doubt Meg Ryan talks about this one much.

In the pantheon of Amityville movies, I actually find this one of the more enjoyable entries. That's a liberal use of 'enjoyable' though as a lot of these movies are dreadful. This one is watchable, though I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending it.

Black River (2001 TV Movie)

River Runs Away

[4/10 · 5 October 2023]

Normally I've got some investment or interest in a movie before sticking it on, but Black River I went into completely blind. It was simply an algorithm recommendation to me and the synopsis, while not exactly original, sounded vaguely appealing.

I'll admit my heart sunk fairly early on when I was greeted with Dean Koontz name in the credits. Now, I actually quite enjoy Koontz work, but very rarely does it translate well to movie form. Indeed movies based on his works make his rival Stephen King look prolifically successful movie wise.

The movie follows Bo Aitkens (Jay Mohr) a moderately successful Hollywood author leaving LA behind in search of a quieter life following his divorce. While passing through the small town of Black River he is pulled over by the police and sent to the cells. Local Chief Salks (Ron Canada) lets him our and apologises for his erroneous arrest, but informs him his car has been impounded.

Stuck in the town, he encounters its eccentric Mayor Tomas (Stephen Tobolowsky), diner worker Mandy (Ann Cusack) and her recently discovered sister Laura (Lisa Edelstein) but starts receiving menacing phonecalls from someone calling himself Pericles instructing him what he can and cannot do. While menaced by a black SUV and thwarted at every attempt to leave the town by various fantastic means. He sets out to try and find out the town's mysterious secret and put an end to his imprisonment in the town.

Black River is a very strange movie to try and convey my feelings on. It becomes clear we are dealing with a TV movie within seconds, and I always feel like these deserve a bit of a break. These aren't made with huge budgets or great resources, and in all honesty most involved probably never really imagined it would be getting viewed after the initial broadcast, let alone over 20 years later.

Mohr is an actor I know I've seen in several movies, and while I can't name any of them, I feel like he's usually cast as the protagonist's rival for the affections of the female lead, or a jock. Here as a lead...he's a mixed bag. I mean he is working with less than spectacular material, but I'm not convinced we missed out on a great star here. Interestingly, his best moments are the couple of comedy spots which he's a lot more natural at, and even impressive with the timing and facial expressions on.

The rest of the cast? Well, they're tv actors. I don't mean that inherently as an insult, but don't expect anything memorable. Passable, but don't expect to come out looking these guys up for further viewing.

The plot is...I mean if you've watched any sci fi, horror or fantasy tv show in the last 30 years, you've seen an episode with this premise, give or take the antagonist. This doesn't reinvent the wheel, and is silly in places - when Bo tries to leave on foot where do those things that stop him come from? But it's all a rather tired trope. I found it passable, but nothing gripped me, and I feel like in a week's time I'll have forgotten almost all of it.

Still, it's not bad. Had I came across it on tv at original broadcast date I daresay I'd have enjoyed it a bit more. I couldn't honestly recommend seeking it out, but as far as tv movies go? It's a passable waste of time.

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Second Story

[4/10 · 5 October 2023]

I never really loved the first Amityville movie, despite a solid cast and production values, it had no clear direction. It was a fairly solid hit at the box office though, so a sequel naturally followed, albeit with a 3 year delay.

The Possession follows the Montelli family; gruff father Anthony (Burt Young), religious mother Delores (Rutanya Alda), teenagers Sonny (Jack Magner) and Patricia (Diane Franklin) and youths Jan and Mark (Erika & Brent Katz) as they move into the famous Amityville house.

It isn't long before strange occurrences begin, prompting Delores to call in local priest Father Adamsky (James Olson) to bless the house. Typically this doesn't go too well, and leads to him begging the church to perform an exorcism. Rebuked, he finds himself vindicated when Sonny, consumed by a demonic presence, takes a shotgun to his family.

With the demon taking hold of the boy, held by the police, will the resourceful priest be able to save his soul?

Clearly based on the very real DeFeo murders that took place in the Amityville house, this creates a fairly interesting paradox where fans debate if this is a sequel or an anachronistic prequel to the original, which clearly referenced the DeFeo murders as happening, but it's unclear if this is meant to be the DeFeo story or just 'inspired by' it.

Given this has an actual physically violent payoff, this certainly feels a lot more horrific than its predecessor. Given the possession angle, complete with prosthetics and makeup, it also leaves us in no doubt as to the genuine nature of Sonny's possession. Throw in some heavy handed parenting by Anthony and possession inspired incest between the teens, this certainly feels a lot nastier than the previous outing too.

While the plot does seem to have a more driven purpose, this still suffers from some fairly jarring changes in tone. Given its prominent place as subtitle, I actually thought the movie was going to be a slow burn descent into demonic possession. Instead the possession angle and shooting is established and done with fairly early on and we then switch to an odd cross between a courtroom drama and Exorcist movie where the house vaguely features at all.

This brings with it a complete change in main character too. Magner, who would only ever star in one other movie - fellow genre outing Firestarter, isn't quite assured enough to carry a lead role. On the contrary, when the movie starts, he's completely wooden and I was fearing for a long night. As his character succumbs to the forces of darkness, his acting does actually pick up however. I don't think we missed out on a huge star or anything but I do think he needs praise for somehow excelling in what should be the hard part of the role.

What's slightly off putting is that halfway through Father Adamsky comes in from being a supporting player to take over as protagonist. This isn't inherently a bad thing as Olson is a more assured player, but given that his character goes from 'obligatory priest in the background' to our main character with little to no exposition doesn't sit too well.

In terms of production values, this actually isn't too bad. The makeup effects for Sonny's demonic form are solid enough, albeit the climax shows it up a bit, but overall no complaints on this front.

By the time the credits rolled, I'm unsure where I actually sit on The Possession. I did actually enjoy it more than the original, but that's not to say it's GOOD as such. The change in tone and transition into an Exorcist ripoff doesn't sit well with me, and while I definitely don't regret watching it, I can't really see me ever being compelled to view it again.

Solarbabies (1986)

Solarbad

[3/10 · 17 September 2023]

You ever remember part of a movie or tv show, a small, indescript part of a scene, not enough to ever be able to search what it is? Well these can be found, and the fact I'm here is proof.

I'm of an age where I remember the days of the U. K. having 4 tv channels. Thankfully they frequently showed movies, and with so few options everyone watched that movie, whatever it was. While this lead to me being part of the hilarious/worrying generation that had seen Robocop, Terminator and Aliens multiple times before our age was in double figures, it also meant we all blindly watched Solarbabies, as the movie is originally titled, enthusiastically.

My only memories were the youthful protagonists, and the scene where a villain, intimidating his underling, puts his hand on some kind of device that melts his skin off. Well, as it turns out the device shows someone their worst fear, and the previous recipient had been someone scared of insects, in my head it merged to being insects eating his skin, but you get what I mean. This scene really disturbed me, and I really wanted to find context. While searching it out the youthful protagonists led me to to Prayer of the Rollerboys, as the roller skates also triggered a memory. I watched that, terrible, and it was close but not the one, although it does have a Lost Boys cast member in it too.

I did eventually come to this though, and a quick scan of the cast filled me with hope. Jason Patric and Jami Gertz were great in Lost Boys and we've got James Le Gros, Lukas Haas, Adrian Pasdar, Terrence Mann, Sarah Douglas, Charles Durning and even Alexei Sayle and Bruce Payne too...this cast is awesome.

Patric is the inventively named Jason, Gertz is Terra who are part of a prison-come-orphanage run by 'The Protectorate' in a post apocalyptic future where water is scarce. They are part of the Solarbabies, a team who play some sort of rollerblade based hockey derivative within the prison. The team is rounded off by Metron (Le Gros), Rabbit (Claude Brooks), Tug (Peter DeLuise) and mascot Daniel (Haas). While engaging in an illegal game against the prison guards, led by Gavial (Peter Kowanko) that is broken up by the fascist E-Police, Daniel finds himself in a cavern where he discovered a glowing orb that telepathically tells him is called Bodhi. It cures his deafness, and he takes it back to their dwellings.

When Daniel reveals it to his friends, it displays some incredible abilities, such as being able to summon a rainstorm indoors. This is witnessed by Darstar (Adrian Pasdar) a mysterious fellow inmate of Native descent. As they sleep he steals Bodhi and escapes the walls of their complex into the desert, where he seeks to find his people.

Daniel takes off in pursuit, and the rest of the Solarbabies follow suit. It isn't long before the E-Police, led by the menacing Grock (Richard Jordan) is on their tail. He knows of Bodhi, and the protectorate fear its power. With the help of some mercenaries (Sayle & Payne) he'll stop at nothing to kill the Solarbabies and destroy it. Will they be able to harness its power to save the future?

Solarbabies is quite interesting. Not good, but interesting. Firstly, even though the aforementioned Rollerboys came out several years later, this somehow feels like a Cannon rip-off of it. It's terribly written, there are plot holes the size of planets, another review makes the fair point of us seeing Darstar steal Bodhi, but never anyone discover this, or Daniel disappear, we just jump straight to "Daniel must have went after Bodhi" and there's a very strange line which makes it sound like the Eco Warriors, an underground society who feud with the Protectorate, gave Bodhi to them. I don't think it's meant to? But that's what it sounds like. Darstar's miraculous reappearance has no explanation either. What's hilarious though is that the film is so bereft of originality that you actually are able to completely fill in the blanks without thinking.

The worst thing is, as mentioned...the cast is great. Patric & Gertz are good, and their chemistry would be put to better use a few years later. The film is so hell bent on adhering to tropes they both style and play James Le Gros, a handsome and charismatic guy at that point, as a caricature nerd which is a waste. The rest of the cast are actually fine, it's their roles that are the problem. Darstar is the most symptomatic. I actually think further explanation of his tribe, and specifically their relation to Bodhi, could have fleshed things out a whole lot and given the film a real bit of mythology.

But alas what we have is a good cast, solid production values - I've no issue with the effects and Smokey Robinson (Terrence Mann was RIGHT there...) does the theme tune, and a toilet quality script. I mean it's not completely contemptible, there ARE worse things you could stick on to pass a rainy afternoon, but it's not good. Literally everyone in that cast has at least 2 better movies you could be watching.

Beyond Loch Ness (2008 TV Movie)

This Family Ness Reboot Is Off

[4/10 · 31 July 2023]

Being Scottish, and with a bit of a weakness for B Movies, this instantly caught my eye when I saw it on budget DVD not long after it's release thanks to name dropping Loch Ness in the title.

The lake, to the north of Scotland, has had a few movies and even an episode of the Japanese Superhero show Ultraman based around its supposed monstrous inhabitant. Most are complete rubbish, and not even in a good way. This is especially egregious given that we almost got a Toho/Hammer co-production back in the day.

This one opens in the 70s, when a group of scientists discover a giant egg in the Loch. It isn't long before the dinosaurian creature that dropped this egg makes it's appearance and kills all but James, the young son of one of the scientists.

With any form of suspense completely out the window now we've seen the monster, we jump to present day Canada where...hold on a minute, Canada?! You're telling me a film that names Loch Ness IN THE TITLE sets no more than it's prologue in Scotland. I'm not hyper patriotic or anything but this seems like a n bit of an oversight.

Anyway, now adult James (Brian Krause) is a cryptozoologies, or at least that's what he says he is, I thought they would be enthusiastic about finding supposedly extinct creatures alive, but he just wants to kill them all, arrives in this small lakeside town because he's heard they've got a dinosaur in the lake. He's heard from village idiot Sean (Donelly Rhodes) who posted on his message board.

Sean may be seen as half daft, but his sister Karen (Carrie Genzel) isn't, she's the town sheriff, and her teenage son Josh (Niall Matter) is our de-facto protagonist hired as James' guide and boat captain for his studies. Needless to say he's also got an ex-girlfriend he still pines for called Zoe (Amber Borycki) with an idiot new boyfriend with equally idiot friends to get caught up in the chaos as it turns out the place is, in fact, swimming with killer dinosaurs and out motley crew of locals need to stop them.

Once you get past the fact we've got a movie where the antagonist is the Loch Ness Monster and the film isn't set in Loch Ness. Or Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Scotland, the U. K. or even the continent of Europe, you'll find a pretty by-the-numbers current Millenium creature feature. I'm pretty certain this was a SyFy original, I mean 90% of the plot and characters are the same as those, albeit this does feel a bit better.

I'm not saying it's good as such, but it's definitely before they stretched resources too thin. There's no originality, there's some old fashioned bad science (plesiosaurs don't have legs, this is more like a carnivorous brachiosaurus) and it's generally the type of movie you forget the second the credits roll. However, while I hated it at the time, upon a rewatch it really isn't too bad. Probably because of the 3 million similar-but-worse movies that came out subsequently making this actually feel quite entertaining in comparison.

While this film does make use of exclusively CGI monsters, which I don't like, it actually isn't unbearable for a movie with no budget. As mentioned we see the monster in full literally under 5 minutes into the movie, so there's no tension, but you almost wonder if that's because they were overly proud.

The cast helps out too. Krause isn't an amazing actor, but he has a degree of charisma, and probably deserved better than the type of movie he found himself in. He's playing a ridiculous character here, an awful B movie trope in a trenchcoat and fedora, but to his credit he can make you suspend belief a bit. Don S Davis, another familiar genre face, is a welcome addition as the Sherriff's deputy. Genzel has literally nothing to work with, despite being set up as a potential lead. Probably the most memorable aspect of her character is how laughably too young to be the father of Josh. On the subject of him, Niall Matter takes the unenviable task of the teenage lead, that worst trope of all, and to be fair to him isn't awful. I mean, I don't shed a tear if I never see him again, but I also wouldn't be averse to it.

Incidentally, pretty much everyone mentioned would find themselves at odds with prehistoric monsters later in their career, and in pretty much all of these cases this was at least a better endeavour than those.

In short, this isn't very good, but it also isn't THAT bad either. Like I can't see any context anyone would want to seek this out, but if people do actually still watch tv and you got this late at night or on a Sunday afternoon it's a fairly inoffensive little B-Movie. Once you get past the whole not actually set in Loch Ness thing.

Spiders II: Breeding Ground (2001)

Spidumb

[2/10 · 24 July 2023]

I relatively enjoyed Spiders. It wasn't a good movie as such, but it did find that perfect B-Movie tone that a lot of this type of film take a swing and a miss for. I'm genuinely not sure how they would manage the success of a Straight-To-DVD movie that would drop just as the rental market was beginning to die, but evidently it, or Nu Image's slew of 2000 creature features on the whole, dud enough business for them to warrant sequels.

This one follows Alex (Stephanie Niznik) and Jason (Greg Cromer) a young couple out sailing who encounter the burned out husk of a boat before being shipwrecked themselves due to a storm. They find salvation in the form of 'Mystery of the Seas' a giant cargo ship that stumbles upon them.

Led by the shifty Captain Bigelow (Daniel Quinn) the ship's crew includes the mysterious Dr Grbec (Richard Moll) and a skeleton crew of seamen. While treating a wound Jason has picked up, the good doctor insists on providing him with an antibiotic to avoid infection. While the crew are initially very helpful, they seem reluctant to let them attempt contact with the outside World. What are they shipping and what exactly is Dr Grbec upto?

Let's just clarify this right off the bat - this isn't any good. I mean the first one wasn't good, but it was fun and had the perfect tone to pull off its nonsense. This plays itself deadly straight and is miserable for it. It dwells far too much on the drama with very little actual spiders for a movie with Spiders in the title. There's a whole lot of 'suspense' surrounding the Logan, the shipwreck from the opening that anyone with half a brain can work out is the work of this crew within half a second. It does raise the bigger issue of how laughably bad the actual plan is. Are they genuinely just relying on randomly coming across ships to attack and kidnap the crew on? Come to think of it, who even are the company behind this nonsense? Where did they get the first giant spider? Wasn't there a way of somehow at least attempting to tie this to the original?

While characters in these movies aren't renowned for great intelligence, our heroine is hard to get behind due to her complete lack of any common sense. No matter how much Jason tries to convince her something is afoot, she's happy to go along with everything the Captain, whom she just met, has told her while dismissing her husband as going crazy. And this is while he's actually presenting her with entirely grounded questions like why are they going in circles? Carrying no cargo? Lying about the radio? He doesn't even touch on his recurring nightmare about a giant spider, though does question the mysterious, fresh, wound on his chest that she dismisses.

There isn't much acting to speak of. The leading pair aren't the worst I've ever seen but they aren't good enough to try carry this gutter level script to watchable status. Moll, who really should know better, is normally a great fun character actor but even he seems despondent to be part of this. Probably the pick of the bunch is Quinn, who isn't exactly a superstar but is capable of emoting and I think might be a lot better when armed with a solid script .

The effects...well the practical effects are cheesy but fun, the green screen and CGI abhorrent. This is very much at the cusp of cheap movies throwing themselves too headlong into bad CGI. While some of the bad CGI, of the giant spiders crawling over the boat, is quite hilarious, it's largely just eye rolling stuff.

Director Sam Firstenberg has actually made entertaining movies in the past, so I was really surprised to learn this tripe was shot by his hand. It really isn't any good, and as much as I knew going in that 'Spiders 2' wasn't going to be good, it could at least have had the grace to be good fun, which it doesn't. It's not the absolute worst Nu Image creature feature, it's probably better than either of the first 2 Shark Attacks, but it's a disappointing follow up to a fun original.

Robot Jox (1989)

A Joxxy Good Time

[6/10 · 20 July 2023]

I've seen quite a few Stuart Gordon movies in my time, and I quite enjoy his output, but Robot Jox definitely stands out on his CV. In amongst his numerous Lovecraftian horrors there sits this family friendly (mostly) science fiction romp.

The movie is set in the far flung future where America and 'The Confederation' have agreed to put war behind them, settling disputes in 'the games' where pilots operate giant robots in gladiatorial combat.

The American star is Achilles (Gary Graham) who is scheduled to face off against his Russian nemesis Alexander (Paul Koslo) over ownership of Alaska. This will be Achilles last fight before retirement, when he will be replaced by a 'tubie' - warriors genetically engineered in a laboratory specifically for combat. When the fight is declared a no contest following an incident that leaves 300 spectators dead, Achillies blames himself and refuses to participate in the re-arranged fight. When Athena (Anne-Marie Johnson) is selected in his place, his feelings for her lead him to end his short retirement to face off against 'the Confed Killer' in a final showdown. However Athena isn't prepared to take this lying down, but they'll need to learn to work together to overcome both the Russians and a mole in the camp.

There is nothing big, nor clever about Robot Jox. It's silly predictable and cheesy. If you go unit I it with the right mindset though it also happens to be good, clean fun. A few risqué jokes that will probably go over their heads, aside it's also perfect for younger viewers. Proper goodies and baddies stuff.

The author who originally penned it apparently hates what Gordon did to his story, but assuming his remit was to make a fun family friendly action movie I actually think he did pretty well.

Acting is...well it is what it is. The highlight is probably Koslo who appears to be having a whale of a time playing a cartoon villain. Graham is uneven in the lead role, at times he can be woeful, yet in other scenes he's perfectly capable and even fairly charismatic to a point. Johnson looks great, even with a brick and rat tail haircut, and she gets a bit of a pass given her character is meant to be somewhat unnatural and awkward.

For a low budget movie, thou know what? I actually really like the effects work. The robots are an obvious highlight. Given that this movie basically adopts the Godzilla Vs. 'insert monster here' formula, the whole thing hinges on the on the robot battles and these stop motion showcases are actually pretty damn well done. Indeed my only complaint is that we should have seen more of them, a fight for Achilles to win to show us his skills wouldn't have went amiss. The sets and costumes, well we're taking Buck Rogers or Battlestar Galactica from 10 years prior level, but again, I enjoy them. They've got that outlandish quality helps banish any semblance of 'realism' and let you know to check your brain.

Realistically that's the key to enjoying this movie. It's not 'good' as such, but it's also not really one for the 'so bad it's funny' tag. It's a cheesy, fun B Movie that to be honest I wish I'd found as a kid. There's elements of this you'll find in bigger budget pictures like Starship Troopers (it gets a lot of credit for the mixed gender military showers, but this beats it to that by about 8 years) and Pacific Rim. You're not gonna remember a thing about Robot Jox once the credits roll, but you know what? While it lasts it's fun, and that's all it really ever sets out to be.

Spiders (2000)

Swinging

[4/10 · 19 July 2023]

Nu Image pictures and Hollywood DVD was a combination that would send a shudder down the spine of any British movie fan old enough to remember the turn of the century and advent of DVDs. This isn't because of suspenseful horror movies, on the contrary because of awful ones.

One of their more admirable, a term I'm perhaps using loosely, cooperations was in unleashing Nu Image's game attempt at bringing back the Creature Feature. Spiders was the one I was immediately drawn to, being something of an arachnophobiac.

The movie follows college reporter Marci (Lana Parilla) who is treated as the joke of her paper due to her obsession with aliens and conspiracy theories. Following an encounter with 2 people who claim to be aliens, she drags her sidekicks Slick (Oliver Macready) and Jake (Nick Swarts) to 'Area 21' to try and find out some secrets. This coincides with a space shuttle crashing there following a freak meteor shower interrupting their experiments splicing alien dna into a funnel web spider.

As the wannabe news team look on, shadowy FBI agents led by Agent Grey (Mark Phelan) load the astronaut bodies into a wagon and destroy the shuttle, inadvertently stowing away, they find themselves in a secret underground lab where it transpires the experiments certainly weren't without end result - giant mutant spiders hell bend on breeding and getting bigger by the minute! Can Marci, joining forces with rogue Agent Murphy (Josh Green) stop the spiders before they escape the facility and reach humanity?

Making a B-Movie in the 2000s was a treacherous endeavour. You can play it completely straight and run the risk of being no fun, or wind up being too wink wink nudge nudge 'Aware' and just be eye-rolling (see: Sharknado) but Spiders actually manages to find that sweet spot where it knows it's a silly B movie, but instead of trying to show how smart and 'knowing' it is leans into all the tropes of that. It's not good by any metric, I mean the plot is littered with holes, characters act ridiculously and generally this could have been written in the 50s, but, in a weird way it's all the better for it. It starts off a dark warehouse B movie, it morphs into a giant monster movie, and never even contemplated trying to rationalise the change.

The acting is...well it is what it is. 15 year old me had the biggest crush on Lana Parilla in this. So forgive my weakness on her here. She's not pushing the boundaries but a perfectly capable lead for this time of picture. I was pleased to see she went on to a solid career. Green is workable as a supporting player, and the villainous Mark Phelan is...well he's the double of Willem Dafoe and basically playing a low budget version of him. I couldn't call it 'good' but it's certainly entertaining.

Being made in 2000, the movie landed right as the cusp of a big change in special effects. While it does use some terrible CGI, it's more for smaller, supporting things like explosions. There's some obligatory bad green screen, but most effects are practical, and while I'm not gonna attempt to call them very good, they are better than any cheap CGI spiders that would have been used had this been made even 5 years later. The model spiders are actually quite well done for rubber monsters on a budget, though their use isn't always great - one of the things that freaks me out about spiders is the way their legs move, and this makes the often made mistake of not remotely capturing this, when these walk they sort of animatronically 'March' instead of sinisterly crawling. There's also a scene when the smaller spider is jumping up at a window, and it's clearly swinging on a string.

End of the day, Spiders is what it is. It's not a good movie by any conventional metric, but it knows what it is, takes that ball and runs with it. It's silly, it's cheesy but it's all in good fun. It finishes with a 50s rock n roll song, just to add to its Drive-In feel.

The Omega Code (1999)

Code Red

[3/10 · 17 July 2023]

It's hard to believe, but once upon a time Casper Van Dien was tipped to be the next big Hollywood star. Truth be told I actually don't think he's terrible with the right material, but he got into a really bad habit fairly early into his career of showing absolutely no discretion when choosing roles and ended to with a CV padded with tripe.

As the new Millennium dawned, movies with prophetic doomsday themes were all the rage so I can't totally hold this one against him. That and it reunites him with Starship Troopers Co-star and always welcome presence Michael Ironside.

He's cast as Dr. Gillen Lane, a somewhat annoying motivational speaker who also happens to be something of an authority on the Bible Code, a series of prophetic statements hidden within the the words of the bible. He's not quite as adept at being a husband to Jennifer (Devon Odessa) and father to Maddie (Ayla Kell) as his family life is on the rocks.

He pushes this even further when he accepts a role working for Stone Alexander (Michael York) a billionaire philanthropist who has risen to the top of the EU and UN. Stone, alongside his trigger happy sidekick Dominic (Ironside) seem to have all the answers to the World's problems, curing hunger and causing peace in the Middle East.

When Lane finds out the secret behind their success - they are using the prophecies foretold in the bible as guidelines to take power, he finds himself framed for an assassination attempt on Alexander and on the run. Aided by reporter Cassandra (Catherine Oxenberg) and an underground resistance devoted to stopping Alexander, who they believe is possessed by Satan.

As much he false idol grows in power, becoming Chairman of the 'World Nation' Lane must find a way to covertly stop the evil leader before he conquers the world.

I'll admit, going into this I didn't entirely know what I was getting into. On synopsis it actually seemed like a low budget Da Vinci code years before the blockbuster, but the clear biblical themes made me think of a less violent End Of Days. As the film went on it became clear that this was made with a particular...point of view. Upon looking it up my suspicions were confirmed and this is very much a Christian backed movie.

Now, in itself this isn't a bad thing. I've no issue with Christianity or those who follow it, and it's perfectly possible to craft a good story within parameters Christian's could accept. This is just heavy handed, and frankly eye rolling stuff though. It's predictable, at times cringey nonsense that I can't really imagine anyone getting behind.

Acting, well, it's odd. Why a bold and unabashed Christian movie decides to lead with Van Dien & Ironside, both of whom's last prominent role at the time was in a Paul Verhoeven move is unintentional comedy gold, but the film is probably better for it. Ironside is playing the character he always does, so he's fine, but this isn't one of Van Dien's finer hours. He's at his wide eyed, unconvincing worst here. Towards the climax when he gets to be a more traditional action hero he gets a bit more in his comfort zone but by this point it's too late. York is technically terrible, chewing scenery all over, but truth be told he's probably the most genuinely fun thing about the movie. I can't say anything nice about the rest of the cast, so I'll say nothing at all.

The film looks and feels like it was shot for tv, both in terms of how it's been shot and also the effects. This isn't terrible in itself but it doesn't help you take the film seriously.

When all is said and done, I think this film has a very selective audience, and not being part of it maybe I'm not the best judge of it. Taken as a movie completely objectively...it's not very good. I mean it's not totally disgraceful, but I can't see why anyone that falls out of its target demographic would want to watch it. It's basically a feature length Carman music video with no music.

Also not the worst Casper Van Dien movie I've seen, so there is that.

Predator: The Quietus (1988)

If only the Masons arranged a better script

[3/10 · 17 July 2023]

Ok, this is a weird one. On paper an 80s horror movie about an American journalist and a British big game Hunter sent to rural England to get to the bottom of what is suspected werewolf attacks sounds pretty by the numbers. However, this is that tried and tired trope delivered through the lens of Cliff Twemlow.

A bouncer-turned-stuntman by trade, Twemlow is one of the most unique characters to emerge in that most unique of cinematic decades. When not performing stunts our Cliff was penning paperback horror movies and his bouncing memoirs, all the while writing, producing and starring in his own brand of utterly bizarre, quintessentially British exploitation movies. These don't tend to be very good, but given that they are basically the work of Twemlow and his mates, they do have an undeniable gung ho charm about them.

Despite the fact his career as a novelist was rooted in the horror genre, Twemlow only ventured into it on film twice, with this being the first strike. Here he stars as Daniel Kane, an internationally renowned, Fiat Panda driving big game Hunter called in by a New York newspaper to aid reporter Kelly O'Neill (Cordelia Roche) with her upcoming big story. A series of grizzly murders have rocked a small English village, with locals murmuring that it may be the work of a werewolf.

Needless to say headstrong reporter Kelly immediately clashes with the stoic, macho Kane (in all honesty she seems determined to hate him for no reason other than it being an 80s movie trope) but the pair must come together to overcome unhelpful locals and get to the bottom of who, or what, is terrorising the locals.

Despite the distinct lack of plot, you may be surprised to learn that this is a movie that's biggest drawback is how incredibly talky it is. A lot is said but not a lot of it has much purpose. There's a pair of comic relief Irish drunks who pad time trying to hunt the werewolf for a reward. Their addition, along with a few comical bits of exposition where it's revealed the Masons have arranged for Kane to be allowed to run about with a machine gun (?!) and the police ponder if O'Neill's surname and New York origins means she's investigating IRA involvement in the murders do add some decidedly British flavour for better or worse.

I've skipped over 2 'major' characters, who don't have a huge bearing on proceedings but are there. Firstly we've got Badger (Brian Sterling) leader of a local gang of rapey punks who all gave animal nicknames (!?) he exists almost entirely to allow an action sequence to take place where Kane batters his gang. Then there is Wilbur Sledge, as immortalised by Darryl Marchant.

Now Wilbur is probably this movie's greatest triumph. An utterly bizarre hermit who talks to trees, he looks like the bassist from a New Wave band dressed as a farmer, there is nothing straightforward about Wilbur and he's all the better for it. This movie's biggest flaw is how dull it can be but any time he's on screen things come to life as you've no idea where things are going to go.

The film tries to set him up to make you think he could be the werewolf, but truth be told he's far more captivating than the monster, and things might have been better had he been.

That's the movie's biggest crime; we have a monster who does very little, and when it does we don't get to see it. If I'm being generous I could say it's because they were trying to add an air of mystery over if it was a monster or a man, but given that this is never explored properly Im not sure that's the case.

What glimpses we do get of the monster reveal that it's not great, but also not the worst I've ever seen, and maybe that also played a part on its inactivity.

The acting on show is, well, not great. Twemlow, while not oozing in natural charisma, is actually fairly affable as a protagonist. He's reminiscent of Dennis Waterman from minder. Roche is forgettable as our female lead, and one can't help but think Marchant would have been a much better Co-lead.

The movie went unreleased for years, and curiously when MGM remastered and unleashed it upon streaming its original, and more sensible, title of Moonbeast had been jettisoned in favour of the comically nonsensical Predator: The Quietus. It does mean you'll stand more chance of stumbling upon it by accident. As another reviewer says, it has more in common with Rawhead Rex (but duller) than Predator. It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but that doesn't mean it's any good, and I couldn't honestly recommend it.