Welcome to the darker side of AICN! Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. And it’s actually on time on Friday this week! Imagine that! But first…
Last week I reviewed DON’T FUCK IN THE WOODS which is seeking distribution and about to start touring festivals. Well the folks behind that film are not resting on their laurels. They’re putting together another film, this time a werewolf movie called BETSY and they have an IndieGoGo campaign going on right now. If you like the pitch video below, head on over to their page and give these indie filmmakers some support!
On with the horror reviews!
(Click title to go directly to the feature)
MAD MAX HIGH-OCTANE Collection: FURY ROAD (2015)
Retro-review: DOOMWATCH (1972)
Retro-review: HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)
IT WATCHES (2016)
HOTEL OF THE DAMNED (2016)
NEVER OPEN THE DOOR (2014)
THE UNSPOKEN (2016)
THE DEVIL’S DOLLS (2016)
THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT (2016)
ABATTOIR (2016)
And finally…Derek Franson’s RUE Short Film!
New this week as part of the MAD MAX: HIGH-OCTANE BluRay Collection from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment!MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)
Directed by George MillerWritten by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter, Iota, Angus Sampson, Jennifer Hagan, Megan Gale, Melissa Jaffer, Quentin Kenihan, Chris Patton, Coco Jack Gillies, Stephen Dunlevy, Richard Norton
Find out more about the film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
To celebrate the release of the MAD MAX: HIGH-OCTANE Collection, I am reposting my review from last year about FURY ROAD. I gushed quite a bit over it and still feel it is one of the best films to be released in many, many moons. I’ll ring in about the other features of the collection further on down.
People talk too much: in comic books, in movies, on TV, and in real life. Most people these days will choose to use one hundred one words when five will suffice and often carry more resonance. To prove this point I give you George Miller’s MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, a film that had I not had my breath knocked out of me by the intensity and power of the action in the first five minutes, I might have thought to try to count the words used in this film. Sure, there are soliloquies later in the film, but for the first few minutes of the movie (after a very brief narration at the start) there’s hardly a word spoken--and if there’s one thing everyone knows, it’s that it’s the quiet ones that are the most dangerous. While this is bombastic in style and epic in scope, dialog-wise, this is a downright quiet film, and that’s what impressed me most about MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.
The only reason I am covering MAD MAX: FURY ROAD here in AICN HORROR is because I kind of lambasted the original MAD MAX a few weeks back after watching the re-release of the film on Bluray from Shout Factory (you can find that review here). I found the original, aside from a pretty balls-out opening and a few other moments, to be somewhat of a snoozer compared to the inspired ROAD WARRIOR and the Hollywood-glitzed BEYOND THUNDERDOME. While the film felt necessary in that it established the world and the origin story of Max, it definitely isn’t indicative of the films that followed.That said, all of the films that preceded feel like a running start for the full-on madness that is FURY ROAD. By now you’ve probably read one jizzing review after another filled with zeal about this film, and I can’t say I disagree with them. The film does set a new standard in filmmaking that I believe will resonate in the way future action films will be made. All I plan to do in this review is articulate why I feel this way as clearly as possible, as most of you have already seen it and formed your own opinions by now.
I do think George Miller, at 70 years old, created a film with more vitality and life than films made by directors three times his younger. The opening of this film alone lets you know this is no ordinary action film. With a tiny bit of dialog from Max, we know everything there is to know: the world is broken, Max is broken, and while there are attempts to fix both in this film, the most important thing in this new world and for Max is survival by any means necessary. It’s a mad, mad world and Max is just there to bear witness to it. Max is us in this film. Not surprisingly from the title of the film, he is our central focus, but really, Max is nothing but a participant here in the action. Like us, if we follow moviegoer protocol, he is mostly silent through this film. It almost feels unnatural when Max has dialog, and I think if there are weak moments in this film, it’s when Max actually speaks. This isn’t meant as a jibe against Tom Hardy, as he gives a fantastic performance with just a cold stare, a grunt or a nod, wide eyes or a slightly agape mouth at the insanity in front of him. In many ways, this could be a silent film of old as Hardy is forced to show us his frustrations, his confusion, his emotion rather than just tell us in a writer room-evident discourse.
Charlize Theron’s Furiosa makes Max feel like a chatterbox. She barely utters a word until about the twenty minute mark, though again, her presence is commanding and unforgettable. While much of this goes to some amazing costume design with her Native American-esque greasepaint, short hair, and mechanical arm, Theron emotes so much with those big blue eyes showing that there’s a lot going on in that shaved head of hers that she’s processing and working out. Even before her plot is revealed it’s evident she carries a heavy burden, and while she does get some time to explain things, much of what is necessary to be communicated comes in one word phrases as this is a story that simply drives forward and doesn’t have time to sit and talk.And that’s what I love most about the performances and the film itself. I love David Mamet. I love Tarantino. I even can appreciate Kevin Smith occasionally. But somewhere along the Hollywood path, it feels like instead of dazzling the audience with sights and sounds, it became more hip and trendy to screech the action to a halt and talk a bit. The most blatant example of this is Tarantino’s DEATHPROOF, which has the leading ladies stop, get out of their car, and squat in the middle of a road to chat for fifteen minutes. It’s gratuitous. It makes it crystal clear that this isn’t a character, but a writer at a computer too in love with his words. It’s not real. FURY ROAD spits on all of that, and as outlandish as it looks and feels at times, never do the characters act (or more accurately, react) as if it wasn’t real and absolutely dangerous. That’s why FURY ROAD is so effective.
It’s not just the pace of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD that is so nuts. The way the film is edited and laced together revs you up to an intensity that few films are capable of. There’s a specific series of actions towards the end of the film as Furiosa, Max, the brides, and Nux are all battling their own adversaries that is spliced together in such a nuanced and masterful way—never losing me as the viewer, but conveying the absolute chaos orchestra of mayhem going on that made my jaw drop. I couldn’t believe how well this final sequence played out.Much has been said about the insanity of the world Mad Max travels through and yes there are some absolutely insane moments in the film. The costumes are original and outstanding. The machinery is a gearhead’s wet dream. There are tiny details a plenty here that defy logic; like the people walking through the swamps on stilts, the line of obese wet nurses, the smiley faces painted onto Nux’s goiters, and the fact that there’s a random bucket of breast milk hanging from the truck. But instead of insanity, I feel that this is a lived in world George Miller has formulated. Yes, there’s a lot of crazy shit going on, but much of it is a culmination of what was established before in the three films before it. Everything from the designs of the war boys, which is reminiscent of one of the characters from THUNDERDOME to the inclusion of Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe who also played Toecutter in the original Mad Max. I was half expecting Bruce Spence to show up as the lanky pilot from ROAD WARRIOR and THUNDERDOME to show up, but no dice. This is a thoroughly thought out world and with FURY ROAD, we are just seeing the edges of it.
I have to mention my absolute favorite aspect of the film, and most likely it was many others as well, as it was lead off the talk in my group who went to see it. Immortan Joe’s travel theme music truck blew my mind in ways I never thought possible. The spastic guitarist pulling along the drum section is so outrageous that I laughed until I cried every time I saw it. This little crazy detail is proof that Miller is a genius and possessor of a mind I am both fascinated with and a little afraid of. I mean it; I want a whole movie on the origin and further adventures of that single truck rocking it’s noggin off through the wasteland! Junkie XL provided the score of the film which included all of the drum whallops and screeching guitar riffs. As much as the editing amped up the fervor at play in the film, this composer’s music provided the necessary fuel to push it over the edge. 
And here’s hoping Miller is capable and gets the funding to make another film as there are so many places in the Wasteland I want to see through Max’s eyes. There will be those who bask the film for not beating out PITCH PERFECT 2 in the box office, but that fact only cements what I already knew; that box office numbers rarely mean quality. There certainly are no box office scores in Miller’s post apocalyptic world. It doesn’t need them. It simply is a place where action starts but never stops. It’s a place where my heart started beating fast in the first seconds and kept it going long after the film. It’s a place that kept me up the night after I saw it, still reeling from all of the amazing and fun imagery I witnessed.I could probably write a thousand more words about this film. I absolutely loved it and honestly, I think I could miss all of the rest of the films of this summer and be completely happy having seen MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. I’ll be heading to my theater to see MAD MAX: FURY ROAD again soon. And I hope others will too, as this is the type of cinema we simply need more of.
This High Octane Collection contains more bells and whistles than a factory called Toot and Jingle with the black and white version of FURY ROAD, which makes the whole thing feel like a brand new movie, an new introductory piece by George Miller describing his vision for the film itself, a new feature entitled “Road War” featuring a blow by blow retelling of the making of THE ROAD WARRIOR by George Miller, Terry Hayes and star Mel Gibson, and finally, there’s “Madness of Max” a MAD MAX a feature-length documentary on the making of arguably the most influential movie of the past thirty years with over forty cast-and-crew interviews, hundreds of behind-the-scenes photographs and never-before-seen film footage of the shoot, this is, without a doubt, the last word on Mad Max (1979). Interviews include: George Miller, Byron Kennedy, Mel Gibson, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Roger Ward, Joanne Samuel, David Eggby, Jon Dowding and many more. From the Producers to the Bike Designers to the Traffic Stoppers, this is the story of how MAD MAX was made. You can never have too much MAD MAX, but this comes close and this features everything and anything you’d want to know about this groundbreaking series.
You can find my review of the original MAD MAX (1979) here!
Retro-review: New this week on BluRay from Kino Lorber!DOOMWATCH (1972)
aka ISLAND OF THE GHOULSDirected by Peter Sasdy
Written by Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis, Clive Exton
Starring Ian Bannen, Judy Geeson, John Paul, Simon Oates, Jean Trend, Joby Blanshard, George Sanders, Percy Herbert, Shelagh Fraser, Geoffrey Keen, Joseph O'Conor, Norman Bird, Constance Chapman, Michael Brennan, James Cosmo, Cyril Cross, Geoff L'Cise, George Woodbridge, Jerome Willis, Jeremy Child, Brian Anthony, Rita Davies, Walter Turner, Paddy Ryan, Reg Lever,
Retro-reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
Though I had no idea this series existed, apparently DOOMWATCH was a pretty big thing back in the day—sort of like an environmental X-FILES series that ran for about two seasons. The series even spawned a movie under the same name which is what we are taking a look at today.
The DOOMWATCH film brings in Ian Bannen as Dr. Del Shaw who wasn’t a part of the TV show, but seen here as a “special agent” sent in to investigate possible polluted waters off the coast of a UK island. As soon as Shaw arrives he is met with adversity and shunned by most of the townsfolk. Taking up in an inn and noticing some fishy stuff going on around the village such as people mysteriously going off into the forest into the night and noted deformities in the townsfolk as well as highly aggressive acts on the rise, Shaw begins to suspect offshore dumping might be the cause. But the townsfolk aren’t listening and would rather keep on keepin’ on that listen to the eco-agent with his fancy suitcase full of lab equipment.
Reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and the film DAGON (reviewed here) and even THE WICKER MAN (both the original and the laughable remake), DOOMWATCH is an absolutely fun and reserved little extended X-FILES episode where the investigator finds himself in a town that sees him as an outsider and is in danger because of it. There’s a whole lot of quaint “science” going on in this film as Shaw twiddles with test tubes and looks at water samples with determination, meanwhile, he reports back to the actual DoomWatch team from the TV show who are doing equally quaint science back at the lab. It’s like if they did an X-FILES show and you only showed Mulder and Scully chatting in Mulder’s office while Bruce Willis goes out and fights the Were-Lizard. I loved the science being tossed about in this one, especially the argument that toxic dumpage in water “may” effect animals and the water itself in the next county. It’s also fun to see folks refer to radioactive waste as “only radioactive waste” as if it were something minor to find in the water supply.
Head-slap science aside, seeing Shaw try to uncover the mystery of the island is also fun because while the whole island is shunning him, they are doing it in such a polite and dignified manner that, if you weren’t listening to the words themselves, one might think everything was hunky dorey. This sort of interaction is scare these days and only seen on DOWNTON ABBEY and the like these days, it feel antiquated in this era of in your face conflict and thus, it’s downright refreshing to see without a sense of mockery.
The effects are pretty low fi for most of the film. Some cool prominent brows and warts make monsters of the afflicted townies and there are some pretty large fish swimming about the harbor for these guys to eat, which is the source of the problem. While this is adding variables that seem rudimentary in today’s X-FILES like investigations into the unknown, there’s a quaint elegance seeing these guys get to the bottom of the “mystery”. Bannen is great as is the gorgeous Judy Geeson even though the mystery isn’t really much of one. And even though they are relegated to the sidelines and deemed not fit for a feature film, I’m interested in trying to dig up more episodes of DOOMWATCH and see what other kind of TV science they uncover. As is, this is a pretty fun little non-mystery that concludes that pollution is bad. Not a mind-blower, but there are fun monster men and kooky lab scenes to make this one worth sitting through.
Retro-review: New this week on a 30th Anniversary BluRay from Dark Sky Films!HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)
Directed by John McNaughtonWritten by John McNaughton & Richard Fire
Starring Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold
Retro-reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER came at a time when American cinema seemed to be in love with the idea of the mass onscreen murder. FRIDAY THE 13TH and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET were breaking box office records and showing up as everything from children’s costumes and toys to TV shows. But while the audience were used to making these serial killers cool, they were unprepared for the smack back to grimy reality that HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER possessed.
The film follows real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas (Michael Rooker), who committed multiple murders along the Midwest. The story focuses mainly on Henry’s time in Chicago, living with his former prison cell-mate Otis (Tom Towles), and continuing his random killing spree. After a night of partying, Henry and Otis end up killing a pair of protitutes and Otis becomes fascinated with Henry’s killer instinct. Henry takes Otis under his wing, teaching his philosophies of how to kill and not get caught. Meanwhile, Otis’ sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) leaves her abusive husband and moves in with Henry and Otis. Henry immediately takes notice of her and her to him, which can’t mean good things for fragile relationship between the serial killer and his protégé.
There would be no DEXTER if not for this film, as many of the themes explored in that series are perfectly truncated in this little hour and a half film. Henry’s code of never killing with the same weapon, never staying in one place too often, and always killing strangers, is one that shows up in crime and murder fiction later on, but here it is orchestrated in such a perfect way. As much as Henry is the perfect serial killer here, Otis is his counter point and most likely, the worst. McNaughton offers up a fantastic moral tale of chaos versus order here and just happens to set it to the template of the serial killer genre.
McNaughton’s film is not about glorifying the serial killer, as often found in popular culture of the 80’s. His was a story that didn’t hold back, but went against the grain. He doesn’t show Henry’s murders in the chilling opening segment; instead focusing on the carnage left in his wake as the camera slowly pans across disheveled rooms and finally stopping on a lifeless and ravaged corpse. It’s not until later in the film that we see Henry kill, but by juxtaposing Henry going about his day in a trance-like, emotionless state with the bodies he has left behind makes the murders more uncomfortably resonant than “cool” as they were often depicted in the Jason and Freddy films of this era. Later, Henry’s techniques come to light only when his moral code is compromised, such as when he is set against the wildly uncontrollable nature of Otis or the way Henry contradicts himself by becoming close to Becky.
And this is what makes this such a compelling story. Henry is a zombie, movie through life with no emotion. As soon as that emotion comes to the surface, this controlled life he has made for himself is in danger, which brings out the humanity in Henry that he has worked very hard to bury. Rooker plays this character with a haunting blankness. Sure, Dexter attempted to do so, but then every show began with him smirking at the camera and showing more emotion than he ever said he possessed. In HENRY, Rooker never breaks this stoic and emotionless state. His face is an actual mask, as AMERICAN PSYCHO’s Patrick Bateman was prone to say. It’s this statue like demeanor that makes the horrific things Henry does all the more powerful. Even in the end, as Becky proclaims her love her him, Henry knows what he is and that makes the final moments of this film all the more chilling.
Tom Towles also gives a performance that is utterly chilling because, unlike Henry who seemingly kills because he has to, Otis kills because he takes sadistic pleasure in it. While he may have been pigeon-holed into a sleazy character role in later films (such as his fantastic turn as Harry Cooper in Savini’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake), he does sleaze well. I just discovered writing this review that he died this year in April of a stroke. It’s a shame the actor never really got out of this kind of role as he really is a freight train in human form in this movie.
While there is quite a bit of gore at play all throughout HENRY, it’s the underlying sense of danger every time Rooker and Towles are on screen that really makes this film unnerving. Seeing these monsters doing everyday things like normal humans is what gets under your skin. Day to day shopping, playing cards, having drinks, and such are actions one does not attribute to those capable of the carnage depicted on screen. And that’s what makes HENRY so effective. It highlights those quiet moments of humanity that Henry struggles with in between murders and unsettles us knowing that there might be even a shred of the same genetic material shared between this killer and ourselves. Filmed with an unblinking eye and subtle yet expert use of sounds of murder over pictures of the mundane, McNaughton crafted one of the most chilling serial killer films ever made.
This new BluRay presentation is tops with special features including; "In Defense of Henry: An Appreciation" in which fans, filmmakers, and critics talk about how influential and powerful the film was, "Henry vs MPAA: A Visual History" focusing on the tedious battle between this film and the dreaded MPAA, "It's Either You or Them” an interview with artist Joe Coleman, "In The Round” a conversion with John McNaughton, "Portrait: The Making of Henry" making of featurette, deleted scenes & outtakes, commentary with John McNaughton, a 1998 interview with John McNaughton, trailers, stills, and storyboards.
New this week On Demand from Uncork’d Entertainment!IT WATCHES (2016)
aka COLDWATERDirected by Dave Parker
Written by Ivan Djurovic, Dave Parker
Starring Ivan Djurovic, Rick Irwin, Sanny van Heteren, James Duval
Find out more about this film on Facebook here
Retro-reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
While this film is all over the place in terms of being an actual found footager (since parts of it are filmed cinematically), I’m still going to apply my found footage questionnaire on it to it to see how it stacks up. Still, while most found footage films should work hard to make sure it feels like we are finding this footage and seeing it ourselves, it should be noted that this one is different as it uses found footage in the way CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST did and captures the finding of the footage within the story.
What’s the premise?
Andre (Ivan Djurovic) is recovering from a recent concussion he got in a car accident. He agrees to house sit for a friend while he is on the mend, but soon suspects that there might be someone or something roaming around outside of the house and eventually in the house. Using the camera on his phone, Andre tries to capture the weird happenings and prove something is not right with the house he is in.
Are the actors believably acting like they aren’t acting?
For the most part, the acting is decent. Djurovic is convincing enough in the lead and is both charismatic and believable in the role. He’s front and center for the entire film and carries that responsibility decently. The presence of DONNIE DARKO’s James Duval is unsettling for two reasons; 1.) any presence of a recognizable face in a found footager immediately shatters the attempt to make the viewer believe this footage is real, and 2.) Duval hasn’t seemed to age at all in the last twenty years.
Does is seem like this footage was actually found and not untouched by additional production (which means there is no omniscient editor making multiple edits or an invisible orchestra providing music)?
Since this is a film which flips between cinematically filmed and found footage, I wasn’t pulled out of the story since the music is added mostly to the cinematically filmed bits. The edits are another story as not only do we see things through Andre’s camera, we also get other security cam shots, drone arial shots, and hand held shots which suggest someone else is filming the events going on in the scene. This meads to a kind of visual mess of edits found footage-like hand held are used to film the cinematic actions. It is confusing enough to write about, let alone sit and watch. Had the filmmaker stuck to a more traditional style of filming in everything but the handheld shots, the distinction would be there between the two shots, but since both the found footage and the cinematic footage are hand held, it just makes things confusing for the viewer. I think I had a stroke trying to write this paragraph.
Is there a valid reason the camera isn’t dropped and they just get the hell out of there?
I guess Andre is recording to prove something weird is going on and later, when the lights go out, the camera is used as a light source.
Is the lead in too long and the payoff too short?
No, weird things start happening immediately and it manages to keep things moving and amping up until the very end.
Is there an up-nose BLAIR WITCH confessional?
No. Thank god. Which immediately gives this film a leg up on most found footagers. There is a lot of Andre talking to himself on camera, but this is mainly to try to keep his wits rather than to confess something and snot into the camera lens.
Does someone get REC-dragged away from the camera?
Ditto.
Does anything actually happen?
Yeah, though it doesn’t tip its hat until late in the game and tell you what the hell is going on (which I won’t reveal here), weird things happen but there is a resolution and a few red herrings tossed in for good measure.
Does the film add anything to the subgenre and is this one worth watching?
This is a decent attempt to do something different with a genre that is way too repetitious. I don’t know if the story and payoff is strong enough to call good, but it is different. For the most part, this film follows one dude around a creepy house with weird shit happening all around him. While the resolution is ok, there are plenty of plot holes (such as why would his friend let him house sit for him when he just had a concussion, how long has the house been vacant for the stuff that was happening to have occurred, and if the cops suspected what was going on, why did they wait so long to intervene) that are basically left unaddressed. But while IT WATCHES is a flawed attempt at telling a well structured story and the visuals were a jumbled mess of different styles of cameras, I do applaud the attempt to do something different with the subgenre.
New this week On Demand from Uncork’d Entertainment!HOTEL OF THE DAMNED (2016)
aka HOTEL KILLDirected by Bobby Barbacioru
Written by Luca Bercovici, Paul Petcu
Starring Louis Mandylor, Peter Dobson, Manuela Harabor, Oltin Hurezeanu, Florin Kevorkian, Roxana Luca, Bogdan Marhodin, Dimitrina Zhivkova
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
Shot in Romania, except this time it actually admits that it is taking place in Romania, is HOTEL OF THE DAMNED, an action horror film that shouldn’t be as awesome as it is, but it still is.
Louis Mandylor (brother of Costas) plays Nicky a conman and thug just released from prison and picked up by his partner in crime Jimmy (THE FRIGHTENERS’ Peter Dobson). Wanting to find out about his estranged daughter Eliza (Roxana Luca), Nicky tracks her down to find her strung out on drugs and dating a dealer. But as Nicky swipes her up to forcibly take her home, he gets into a car wreck in the middle of a Romanian forest and finds himself, along with Jimmy, Eliza, and her douchebag boyfriend which Nicky locked in his truck to rough up later, the targets of feral Romanian cannibals who are seeking delicious people to grill over an open fire in an abandoned hotel. Now Nicky and his crew must try to find a way out of the hotel and survive the attacks of the cannibals.
There’s an electricity and intensity to HOTEL OF THE DAMNED that really works. A lot of this has to do with the right role/right actor/right movie. Mandylor is convincing as the overly macho thug and does his best DeNiro impression by frowning, breathing through his nose, and nodding just before he takes off his hat and proceeds to kick everyone’s ass around him. While this isn’t revolutionary acting, it’s convincing here and works given the odd backdrop of the Romanian wilderness. Seeing that type of tough guy, whose machismo works on the mean streets, take on cannibals in an abandoned hotel simply worked for me. It’s the type of horror mishmash, with Nicky playing an ex boxer and thug, going toe to toe with snarling, blood covered Romanian man-monsters and trying to save his drug addicted daughter that carries the right amount of weight to matter. The action is quick and brutal. The story is a simple one. And many clichéd movie roles are used. But given this setting and this hodge-podge of ingredients, it works.
Mandylor is great here. He’s no Oscar winner, but he’s good as doing what he does here, which is punch and threaten his way through any given situation. Dobson is fun as well and it makes me wonder where this guy has been since THE FRIGHTENERS as he plays a great noble sidekick scumbag. The monsters are formidable and all around, this film (scripted by the same guy who directed GHOULIES—Luca Bercovici) is a fast paced and reckless little horror film with fun performances and dire stakes. I went in expecting very little and came out of this film thoroughly entertained. I don’t want to oversell, but the performances were convincing (especially from Mandylor and Dobson) and I found myself invested and entertained all the way through.
New this week on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital download from Maltauro Entertainment!NEVER OPEN THE DOOR (2014)
Directed by Vito TrabuccoWritten by Christopher Maltauro, Vito Trabucco
Starring Jessica Sonneborn, Deborah Venegas, Kristina Page, Matt Aidan, Mike Wood, George Troester, Steven Richards
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
This odd film feels like an extended TWILIGHT ZONE episode. But while there is very little by way of explanation given for all the weird shit going on, NEVER OPEN THE DOOR still has weird shit going on in spades.
A group of young twentysomethings sit down for Thanksgiving dinner when a knock at the door interrupts their meal Opening the door, a man falls in, spits blood on one of the women, and mutters “Never open the door!” before dying in front of them. This sets off a series of events where no one is as they seem and everything these six friends thought they knew about each other is completely wrong.
While I love the oddity of this film, those who don’t like weird for weird’s sake are going to be annoyed with it. Strange things happen such as people turning into sharp toothed and clawed monsters, a row of strange men in suits line up outside the house, and people who never were violent before suddenly become violent and it all seems to go back to their decision to open the door and let this stranger in. I found this film to be unpredictable fun. I didn’t need to know the why these horrors are taking place. I simply enjoyed seeing them happen and really was invested in finding out what new weirdness is going to pop up. I also loved the sort of lack of resolution that occurs. While there is an ending, it’s more poetic than anything else, resolving nothing and only perpetuating the cycle of violence that is going on. Again, if you need some kind of lengthy discourse explaining what’s happening or some kind of reason for the evil unleashed, this isn’t a movie for you.
Filmed in black and white, which also makes it feel like a TWILIGHT SONE episode since only the best episodes of that series were the black and white ones, NEVER OPEN THE DOOR would be a great companion piece watched with THE SIMILARS (another TWILIGHT ZONE-esque film recently released and reviewed here). There are definitely scenes that are disturbing and work really well in the black and white format. The TWIN PEAKS like acting is another factor in why this film works for me, but most likely will annoy the more concrete of viewers.
NEVER OPEN THE DOOR is a film that takes place with people that act odd and inhuman and then to make matters worse, they are thrown in an even more odd and inhuman situation making them even more odd and inhuman. If that last sentence intrigues, then this unconventional and disturbing little horror film is going to be for you.
New this week on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment!THE UNSPOKEN (2016)
aka THE HAUNTING OF BRIAR HOUSEDirected by Sheldon Wilson
Written by Sheldon Wilson
Starring Jodelle Ferland, Sunny Suljic, Pascale Hutton, Anthony Konechny, Jonathan Whitesell, Jake Croker, Chanelle Peloso, Rukiya Bernard, Lochlyn Munro, Michael Rogers, Neal McDonough, Cole Vigue, Jessie Fraser, Chilton Crane, Matt Bellefleur
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
And the award for most jump scare/Don Music head butts to the piano keys moments in a modern horror film goes to…
THE UNSPOKEN the movie! Proof positive that you don’t need anything like plot, actual scary things going on, and actual characters worth caring about to make a horror film. All you need is a keyboard to bang your head onto and you too can make a movie.
This bland little pill of a movie stars SILENT HILL little girl Jodelle Ferland as an all grown up outcast named Angela. Angela takes a gig babysitting the new boy in town Adrian (Sunny Suljic) as her mom is very busy doing…oh I don’t know, other shit. Any excuse to get Angela alone in a dark spooky house (it’s spooky because everyone in the film goes out of their way to tell us and retell us about the spooky history behind the house, as if we didn’t see the first five minutes of the film where the spooky shit occurred) and have her jump over and over to false jump scares for the duration of the film. Seems this house has a spooky history (there I am doing what this movie does over and over and explaining again that the house is supposed to be spooky, this movie must have rubbed off on me) and no one but the new tenants who don’t know about the history wants to set foot in there. But Angela is an outcast and takes a liking to the silent autistic Adrian, so she bucks convention and goes inside the spooky mansion.
After losing count of the piano bangs going on in this film, I tried a little experiment and closed my eyes and looked away, only to look back at the film when the bangs occurred. It was as if I were watching a tennis match as a minute didn’t go by in this film without said bangs. It was truly astounding how this attempt to scare was overused and anyone made aware of it will find the movie utterly ruined for them.
But if the bangs don’t ruin it, the resolution surely will. There’s a revelation at the end that is so far out of left field that if you weren’t already angry with the obnoxious amount of jump scares, you will be by the end at the sheer stupidity of how this one wraps up. Ferdland is decent in the film and I hope she has a long career ahead of her, but looking back on her career when she is older, THE UNSPOKEN is going to be an embarrassment for her. The lack of genuine scares, the clichéd false scares, the redundancy of retelling the house’s origin, and the simply lack of sense gone into wrapping this film up makes THE UNSPOKEN a stinker of head-slapping proportions.
New this week on BluRay/DVD from The Shout Factory and IFC Midnight!THE DEVIL’S DOLLS (2016)
aka WORRY DOLLSDirected by Padraig Reynolds
Written by Danny Kolker, Christopher Wiehl
Starring Christopher Wiehl, Kym Jackson, Tina Lifford, Samantha Smith, Yohance Myles, Kennedy Brice, Brea Grant, R. Brandon Johnson, Ashlynn Ross, Matty Ferraro, Melissa Nearman, Jo-Ann Robinson, Naomi Kyle, Daniel James, Emerson Rhinewalt, Jaclyn Bethany, Donna Duplantier, Danny Kolker, Graham Skipper, Alan Altschuler, Mara Hernandez
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
A solid amount of blood and equally solid acting from some familiar genre faces make THE DEVIL’S DOLLS aka WORRY DOLLS something a cut above your usual voodoo horror.
Sure the story follows some well tread voodoo pathways. There’s the chanting killer cursing little dolls which end up in the hands of those uneducated in the dark arts. Sure there are pagan symbols and spiritual rituals followed. There is even a voodoo priestess with all the answers who is approached in the final act in order to fix this mess. But what makes THE DEVIL’S DOLLS different is that it doesn’t forget to get gory and visceral along the way. More like SERPENT & THE RAINBOW than anything else, the gory scenes where a set of dolls possess their wearers are intense, well put together action horror scenes that thrill as much as they chill. The opening scene where a victim escapes and the killer pursues her with a large mechanical drill (not unlike the murderer in SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE) is exciting and extremely gory. Later scenes don’t forget the red stuff as well, so while most films start strong and then peter out by the end, this one maintains its dark and action-filled tone throughout.
Young actress Kennedy Brice (best known as Molly on THE WALKING DEAD) is strong here as the possessed child giving enough heart to sympathize with and enough cold blank stares to cause chills. Genre actress Brea Grant of HALLOWEEN II and HEROES fame as well as her own directorial debut BEST FRIENDS FOREVER – reviewed here has a nicely sized role and a strong performance when her hubbie becomes possessed by one of the dolls and she must hide throughout the house to escape. The lead Christopher Wiehl is someone I am less familiar with and while there isn’t a lot for the actor to do outside of the lead action/concerned dad role, he gives a solid enough performance.But the best parts of THE DEVIL’S DOLLS occur in its bloody and exciting action scenes. The film does kind of fizzle out in the final moments, relying on some pretty conventional means to wrap the whole thing up, but the ride to the end is a whole lot of fun and worth a look see.
New this week On Demand and on iTunes from Momentum Pictures!THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT (2016)
Directed by Scott B. HansenWritten by Scott B. Hansen & Mary J. Dixon
Starring Chris Minor, Jake Brinn, Nicky Jasper, Kt Fanelli, Bill Moseley, Mark Joy, Rachel Faulkner, Greg Travis, Dallas T. Taylor, Ron Dressel, Scott Mielock, Ricky D'Alonzo, Terry Jernigan, Sheri Gill Dixon, Ryan Ware, Angelo Reyes, Chris Miller, Pamela Myers, Mike Zeigler, Joel Nathan King, Erman Baradi, Mary Tran, Malia Diaz, Mandy Carpenter, Efrain Quinones, Patricia Avila, Goriola Olufon, Andrew Gibbons, Wes Lee Nedig
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
While not the most original of concepts—the concept of someone inviting a possession in order to prove that the existence of possession is real is the same premise as THE POSSESSION OF MICHAEL KING (reviewed here), it is a concept that is intriguing enough to have two movies about it, I guess. But of the two, THE POSSESSION OF MICHAEL KING definitely works better as THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT is a wildly uneven film that tries to throw everything but the kitchen sink at you, but just doesn’t have the cinematic heft to chuck it with much force.
THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT is another one of those “college kid is doing a paper in school, so he/she/it plunges themselves into the darkness fi a good grade” style films. I get that a lot of up and coming filmmakers are just out of school and it was an arduous journey to get through it (I did it myself), but in most of these styles of films, the lengths the student will go to get an A really makes for a flimsy concept. Sure there are over-achievers out there, but in reality, once shit starts moving on its own or dogs and cats start getting along together, most would just head back to the dorm and get high. Still, I guess there are those Type A personalities driven enough to continue the search into the dark corners and whether or not the star convinces me of this determines whether or not the film works as a whole.
Unfortunately, Chris Minor’s portrayal of Brandon in this film is not really the problem. He’s an outcast and feels compelled towards this video he sees on the internet which is played out for us in the first few minutes of the film (this is when genre vet Bill Moseley shows up and the only time he does so, so if you’re looking for a Moseley movie, this ain’t it). For the bulk of the film, I thought this compulsion towards the product was just going to be left unexplained, but his motivation is there and is somewhat understandable given the circumstances that I won’t spoil here. Needless to say, I was relieved that this plot hole was resolved by the end. Minor’s acting is ok here, though he is a bit of a milquetoast sop for most of the movie. And while his little dope smoking buddy has cliché written all over every line that farts out of his mouth, Minor brings some heft to the film and seems to be trying his best.
The real problem with THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT is that it just doesn’t know when to say when. The first few minutes of the film are the best minutes to see here. It’s almost as if the pre-credits sequence and the rest of the film are two separate movies with everything from the lighting to the acting to the production values being miles apart from one another. The rest of the film feels rather amateur when the youngsters start showing their interest in the site where a possession went wrong and the lead (Brandon) decides to invite himself to be possessed by a demon and broadcast it live on the interweb. Brandon decides to set up a funding campaign to get money to broadcast the event and gets funded within a week (something anyone who has done a funding campaign knows is impossible to put together in that short of a time), and then a movie about someone inviting themselves to be possessed turns into a ghost hunting style “summon the demons” flick. Then later on, it becomes a story about a person actually possessed and running rampant through the college grounds. The film simply tries to be too much, maybe knowing that similar films using one or two of the concepts exist, so mashing different concepts together and continuing to take it one step further seems to be the only way they know to distinguish it. But alas, this film doesn’t have the budget or the talent behind it to convincingly pull it all off so it resorts to THE CONJURING 2 cross twirling on the walls and the lead taping Exacto knives to his fingers for scares.
I won’t fault THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT for trying to do something new, but this film falls apart by the hour mark, despite a promising beginning. By the time Brandon is possessed, I was checked out because of the bland way the film sort of segues from one type of film to another. Is it a ghost hunting investigative piece? A Ouija movie? An exorcist film? A possessed kid on the rampage flick? Turns out it’s all of the above, but by not committing to one section, it all breezes by so flittingly and ends up not being worth the time spent. There are a few moments that shine here (the opener is fun), but the rest of THE POSSESSION EXPERIMENT needed to commit to one aspect and simply never does.
New this week on select theaters, On Demand, and digital download from Momentum Pictures!ABATTOIR (2016)
Directed by Darren Lynn BousmanWritten by Christopher Monfette
Starring Jessica Lowndes, Joe Anderson, Dayton Callie, Lin Shaye, John McConnell, Bryan Batt, Michael Paré, J. LaRose, Jackie Tuttle, Jay Huguley, Aiden Flowers, Carol Sutton, Josh Berger
Find out more about this film on Facebook here
Reviewed by Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug
I get what writer Christopher Monfette and director Darren Lynn Bousman are trying to do with ABATTOIR. I just don’t know if they were 100% successful at it.
When the family of investigative reporter Julia Talben (Jessica Lowndes) is murdered and then the room in which they were murdered in is simply taken from the house, she teams with Declan Grady, a former flame and police officer (THE GREY/THE CRAZIES’ Joe Anderson) to track down a twisted man who collects murder scenes as a means to atone for sins of the past. How the hell to you steal a murder scene? This film shows you how as the walls, floor, and ceiling are stripped from these homes and transplanted to a peculiar town called New English to make up the M. C. Escher-esque abode of Jebediah Crone (DEADWOOD’s Dayton Callie). But once in New English, the couple find it hard to get out in one piece.
I really like the concept of a mystery where the room itself goes missing. There’s a dream-like fun to this that works for me and I think the look of the forest where all of these rooms are set up and later the twisted house of Crone’s are the highlights of ABATTOIR. Seeing this structure made up of rooms pasted on top and beside one another is a sight to behold. The final half hour are discourse heavy as Crone simply explains what he is doing and offering not once but twice to Julia and Declan, but the premise itself is fun and makes for some memorable visuals.
The problem is that there are a few stylistic decisions that I don’t think completely work. The world in which Julia and Declan live in seems ripped straight from the film noir era where every man wore a hat and a sneer and every woman was a fast-talkin’ potato that was too hot to handle. The costuming and tone of the lead characters seem stripped straight from the 40’s. The problem is that everything else in this film seems to be happening in the here and now and no one really bats an eye to the way these two are dressed and how they act. Modern technology is all around them (at least before they enter New English), but Julia and Declan don’t seem to know it and it makes for a weird movie as the world around them just doesn’t match the era of the two leads. Had this film gone the full DARK CITY route and made everyone and everything fit the era, ABATTOIR would have been an easier pill to digest. Most likely because of budget, this was impossible, so the next best thing is to have these two characters seem to be from an era that doesn’t exist anymore. Unfortunately, that juxtaposition of the past and present just doesn’t work here and these two leads don’t feel right in the world they are trying to get back to.
More twisted than most, ABATTOIR is just a few pinches shy of perfection. There are some impressive effects and some jarring moments in ABATTOIR. Bousman is great for setting up a tense scene and going through with the intensity all the way to a delightfully devious payoff as exemplified in his SAW movies and MOTHER’S DAY (still his finest film), but the film is tonally off despite its winner of a premise and the flowery DEADWOOD-speak the actors toss back and forth to one another feel less natural—as if you can almost hear the writer tapping them out on the keyboard rather than them coming from the lips of the actors, which is never a good thing.
And finally…here’s an awesome short film from Derek Franson, the director of a film I thought was rather effective called COMFORTING SKIN ( reviewed here). This proof of concept is called RUE and it’s a dark modern fairy tale. Not only are the effects downright astounding, but the pacing and story itself is wonderfully tense as well. A feature centering on this creature Franson has come up with would be downright awesome and I hope it gets made. Check RUE out for yourself and see what I mean!
rue - a short film from derek franson on Vimeo.
See ya next week, folks!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/writer of wrongs/reviewer/interviewer/editor of AICN COMICS for over 15 years & AICN HORROR for 5. Follow Mark on the Twitters @Mark_L_Miller and on his new website collecting posts for AICN HORROR as well as all of the most recent updates on his various comic book projects on MLMillerWrites.com.
Look for our bi-weekly rambling about random horror films on Poptards and Ain’t It Cool on AICN HORROR’s CANNIBAL HORRORCAST Podcast every other Thursday!
