The Devil Complex - aka The Devil Within. A found footage film which is about Rachel, a student who wants to unravel the mysteries of a forest in Romania, so she hires a guide and a filmcrew to pay a visit to the forest. Before entering it, she interviews several locals about the forest, and they mostly tell stories about people dying in there, or people gone missing, or some narrow escapes. One guy tells a story of him and his friends getting drunk and not seeing anything in particular. While they are in the forest, the guide starts mumbling to some trees after a while, then runs off suddenly. Rachel and the filmcrew are baffled, but also have a problem: they don't know which way it is to go out of the forest. So they startw alking, and after a while they see the dead body of their guide. They search him but find nothing and they continue: after a while they pass the corpse again, this time it is strung up into a tree. Getting dark now, they are getting scared, in the end the inevitable happens. BWP rip-off if you ask me, nothing special about it. Acting was a bit overdone in places, location is boring (trees, trees nothing but trees) and story is shallow.

Freshwater - another croc movie and man, this one was bad! The crodocile (actually a giant alligator) was superbad cgi, the story is cliche and the acting was below par most of the time. Some were overacting (the deputy) and some were doing a bad job (Zoe Bell did some real wooden acting in the first half of the movie, later it gets a bit better). The sfx were bad too, the bodyparts looked superfake and the alligator I already mentioned. The plot was a pretty big letdown

Spoiler:

because it turns out that it is not the alligator doing the killings, but a man. Uugh.

I'd say if you wanna check out a croc movie then please pick another one.

Cell - didn't know anything about this movie beforehand, but I checked it out because it said "based on the book by Stephen King" on the cover. And that means two things to me: 1. the story will be good, and 2. I like King movies, because they have a special kind of atmosphere and often very desperate endings, like in Lovecraft stories/films. Five minutes into this movie I new that 1. was true indeed: the entire film felt good to me, from cast and story to setting and effects. Sound was also good, useful and not too annoyingly present. Story in short: Clay (John Cusack), a guy travelling home after he has been on the road for years, arrives on the airport when all hell breaks loose. Everyone who was using a cellphone (or a related device) turns insane very rapidly and starts runnig around like headless chickens, attacking other people like zombies. Clay finds his way out when he arrives in an underground train where the driver (Samuel L. Jackson) advises everyone to run out through the tunnels. Together they escape and while on the run they meet up with several other people. Clay wants to go home to see if his wife and son are OK, and there are these rumours about a safe haven for people without phones, so they don't go crazy, and Clay of course wants to check it out, even though some people say it is a huge trap. Like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, as almost everything about it was good. Therefore this one gets highly recommended by me.

Zoombies - erhm, well, this was, ehm, bad. Story is stupid: woman wants to run some sort of private zoo with endangered species. She has a crew of nine (!!) people for this job, and a bus full of just arrived interns. In the vet lab a monkey turns out to be infected with some sort of virus which makes him come back from the dead and wanna kill stuff (hence the title). Of course the monkey infects the other monkeys and together they escape so we get to see zombified giraffes, lions, warthogs, etc. They all look extremely ugly due to bad cgi, and especially the shots with real people being filmed on, say, cgi elephants are painful to the eyes. While most of the staff seems to be incometent to deal with this situation, one of the interns (the one sporting a tie and being a wise ass about rules and regulations) turns out to be a hero. I thought it was quite funny because he looked like a former neighbour of mine. Of course the most incredible stuff happens and in the end they

Spoiler:

literally blow up all animals which are left in the zoo

so this turns out to be the ultimate anti-endamgered species film ever. I guess the author of this story was bitten by some animal when he was young or whatever, so much hate for anuimals, unbelievable. There might be something in this movie for you if you are a bad moviefan, but otherwise you really should stay away from this.

The Final Girls - nice take on the slasher genre, in this story Max, a teenage girl, loses her mother in a car accident. Her mother always wanted to break through as an actress, but she was always remembered by her role in an 80s slasher called Bloodbath Camp. When Max is visiting a convention of fans at a cinema where the film is also being shown, a fire breaks out and Max and er friends escape through the creen. This way they end up in the film, which is great for some (Duncan, the avid slasher fan) and terrible for others (Vicki, the bitchy former friend of Max). Trying to figure out what they have to do in order to get back to their own world, they meet the cast, so Max also meets her mother again, who of course doesn't know Max because Max is coming from the future. They also meet the killer, and he starts slashing and hacking his way through the film again. They make a plan, but they need a final girl, the girl who is gonna kill the slasher and end the movie. So... who is it gonna be? Nice and funny film, it spoofs and honours the slasher genre at the same time. There weere some really funny jokes, others were OK but not that good. The movie goes pretty sentimental on the whole mother-daughter thing and the symbolism about getting over the death of your mother is driping from the screen. I had a good time watching this, and I can recommend it, just a little warning that you have to be able to handle quite some tearjerking scenes with mom and Max.

Bunker of the Dead - terrible schoolproject-like "film" with two guys wanting to explore a secret nazi bunker because they think there is a huge amount of gold being hidden inside it. The majority of the film is being shot rom the GoPro cam on the explorer's guy forehead and it sucks. He just wanders around the bunker hallways, meeting sometimes US soldiers guarding the complex and sometimes nazi zombies. The whole film becomes very gamey that way, you feel like you are playing a crappy version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. When it starts to get a little interesting, the huge plotholes make sure you can sink back into your boredom again: for exampe when an alien type of nazi zombie is being discovered, it pretty soon just disappears. The endboss is predictable, the real ending not so much and I must say it is quite a bit shocking (although the US army officer acts really stupid immediately after). Short film, but still better to skip it.

The Scarehouse - two friends build a scarehouse on Halloween. They invite paying guests, but they also have a slut-entrance: here some girls arrive one by one and they are in for a nasty surprise, as the friends give them a horrible treatment as a revenge for what they had done to them earlier. Through flashbacks you get to see what happened, and therefore your understanding for their behaviour will grow. The torturings range from uninspired and cliche to quite resourceful. There is a number of plotholes and a lack of real suspense: you never get the feeling that the two friends might lose it or get caught or anything. The ending was quite predictable. I had expected something really bad, and although this will never win any prizes, it wasn't as bad as I first thought. It entertained me and that is good enough.

The Pack - the 2015 dog movie (there is also a 1977 dog movie and there is that French zombieflick with this as the English title, so don't confuse them) from Australia. A family lives on a desolate farm, and although it is difficult for them to make ends meet, they want to stay there. When some sheep turn up dead, the farmer starts investigating. While he has to hold off the bank representative who wants to buy the farm, he finds out that it is a pack of wild dogs. This pack now starts to terrorise the family, so the farmer has to make sure he rescues his wife, daughter and son. OK-ish film, nothing very spetacular. Problem with the dogs is that there are only a few (max five was what I was counting) and that they aren't very scary. Yes, they bite of course, but they sometimes just walk past a person and don't do anything. Shots of the surroundings are beautiful, acting is OK, atmnosphere is good too but the lack of scares is making this film nothing more than mediocre. So if you want to kill 87 minutes it is quite OK, but you won't be surprised or anything.

The House That Dripped Blood - 70s British horror mivie, in the style of "Hammer House of Horror". Anthology wrapped around a house which does things to people, and in the different stories, which all take place inside or close to the house, you get to see several tenants of the house who all have their respective problems. A horror author goes crazy because of a character he made, a retired businessman sees the love of his life in a wax museum and can't get her out of his mind, a single father has to deal with his somewhat special daughter and a filmstar needs to get his own clothing for the role of dracula he is playing. All these things, which don't seem very extreme, are turned into atmospheric little tales that end bad. I had good fun watching this, the last story is the funniest imo, with a nice joke on Lee, when the filmstar in this part says "That's what's wrong with your present day horror films: there's no realism. Not like the old ones now. Great ones: Frankenstein Phantom of the Opera, Dracula. The one with Bela Lugosi of course, not this new fella." All the more fun that Lee plays in another story of this very film. Apart from Lee, there are some other great actors in this one, like Peter Cushing, Denholm Elliott and Jon Pertwee. Ican easily recommend this, especially if you like the older British horror movies.

Badlands of Kain - read some mixed reviews on this one, the tagline was inspired by The Eagles I guess ("Welcome to Kain, you can check in anytime but you can never leave"). Written and produced by and starring Rachelle Dimaria, this movie is not so much a horrorfilm as it is a mystery. There is some minor gore, the horror should be more psychological, but it wasn't so scary. It gave me an uneasy feeling at times, because you knew something was gpoing on in the town of Kain, but it took me awhile to find out what it was. Well, it was a disappointment to me, as the mystery turned out to be something M. Night Shyamalan could have written and I stopped watching his films after Unbreakable. What I did like was the acting, that was quite good, and I also had fun watching Katrina Norman as she is a sweetheart. Overall I wouldn't recommend it though, as it is too little a horror and too long to just give it a spin.

Rain of Fire - aka Holocaust 2000. The Italian "remake" of The Omen, in which Kirk Douglas is Mr Cain from Cain Enterprises, a compqany which is planning to build a thermonuclear powerplant in a Third World country. Disregarding the environmental and health risks, he wants to pursue his plan, but then things start to happen differently than planned: the next elections in the country are won by an opponent of the plant, Cain's wife dies, and more weird stuff happens. Could it be that an evil force is haunting Cain since he saw a cave close to the buildng site where the name Jesus was spelled on he cavewall? Together with a journalist he tries to find out what is behind it, and bit by bit he discovers a very evil force, which not only wants to ruin the lives of some people around Cain (and later, when Cain turns against his own plan, he is harassed too), but wants to destroy the world by means of the plant. Atmospheric film, but a weak storyline kills the suspense. Very predictable where the source of all evil is hiding, I felt like I was a bit offended by the film because it was stretching it: after I knew who it was, it went on and on about other people until, finally, it made the same conclusion I had drawn 30-40 minutes before. Italo fans might have fun with this, but it isn't very impressive. The whole apocalyptic monster thing is ridiculous btw.

Dracula Untold - again a film about Vlad Tepes, the Romanian prince who is associated with vampirism in all the stories. This film focuses more on the story behind the events that lead Vlad to become a vampire in the first place, and that is quite original. This film is therefore more a historical drama mixed with a little horror than a hardcore horrorfilm. You get to see battles between the Ottomans and the Romanians, political and personal drama, nice shots of Romanian (Irish) nature and at certain points loads of cgi which was OK-ish and a little bearable. The story is interesting enoiugh which is a good thing, because you already know how it will end. There was one thing which didn't add up

Spoiler:

the vampire promises Vlad that he will destroy what he loves most, even his wife and son, but he doesn't destroy his son really

but overall I enjoyed watching this. The Ottomans are a bit charicatural, but it is mostly acceptable. Nice point of view for a change, but not a groundbreaking film in any way.

Dark Breed - had this one sitting on my HDD for ages, but finally gave it a watch. Alien and military film, starring Jack "Pointman" Scalia as the captain who already had an encounter with aliens in the past, and is now hellbent on doing things right when infected astronauts have returned to earth, his ex-wife being one of them. Pretty unsurprising film, with some nice assets to look for if you are a bad moviefan, like: the driver of the van trying to get away in the beginning is an astronaut, but in the shots where it drives through fire, you can clearly see the stuntman wearing an antifire mask sitting behind the wheel; when in the storage facility, the number of empty boxes put there to just fall against in a fight is challenging to pinpoint; same goes for a scene in the hospital where it seems that some empty cabinets and glass doors were just put there to fall through in a fistfight; the contact lenses which were used to make alien eyes were not always in the same position, so you can see the pupil of the eye standing upright in some shots and then being diagonal on the next. So, there was a lot to have fun with, and I didn't even start on the storyline. So if you wanna have a laugh, or a game of "count the cliches", go and pick this one. Just saw it for one cent on amazon, so I bought it.

Chillers - the last movie from the Toxie's Blood Bank box. It's an anthology where passengers in a busstation tell each other their recent nightmares. In one of them, a cute guy in the swimming pool becomes a demonic figure, in another a woman falls in love with a newsreporter who happens to be a vampire, in the third a boy goes camping in the woods but the danger deosn't come from the woods but from his ringleader, in the fourth a young guy discovers that he can bring back people from the dead, but he accidentally brings back an axe murderer and in the final one a professor teaches his students about an ancient Meso-American wargod and then one of his students gets under the spell of this god and starts killing people. Most of the stories were a bit meh, sometimes I couldn't really follow, acting was below par (it looked very staged throughout), gore was OK. It had been a while since I saw a film from this box, but I guess this is one of the better ones. You might give it a go if you are a Troma fan, or if you like 80s trashy horror.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - when the book came out I thought this was quite a nice joke, so when the movie was made I was sure I was gonna watch it. I have never read or seen Pride and Prejudice, so I'm sure a lot of "inside jokes" are lost on me, but still I had great fun watching this 18th century zombiehunters drama. The upper class English have parties and balls, but tey also have to live with the constant threat of the zombies running over their precious little society. The Bennett family is blessed with several cute daughters and they have to marry in order to not let the estate go to someone outside the family. One of them falls in love with Mr. Bingley, a friend of Mr. Darcy, one of the more famous zombie hunters in England. Elizabeth Bennett seems to like Mr. Darcy, but he acts presumptuous so Elizabeth is being put off. An army officer called Wickham emters the story and he shows Elizabeth how people and zombies maybe could live together in a new world. When London is being overrun by zombies, things go rapidly out of hand and soon both the men and the women face challenges of their own, both zombie and human inspired. Acting was good, great cast. Make up was nice too, gore OK, some cgi but nothing very disturbing (although some of the estates looked very fake on the outside). I had good fun watching this, and I can safely recommend this to any zombiefan. It wasn't a scary movie, so if you are looking for scares better pick something else, but if you wanna have a good time and a few laughs, go for this one.

The Witch: a new England folk tale – a family gets expelled from a plantation because of a religious conflict. They start their own farm somewhere in the wild, and their deep religious customs guide them through these rough times. One day, Thomasin, the eldest daughter, is playing with her youngest brother Samuel when he all of a sudden disappears. At first they think it’s a wolf, but when the oldest brother Caleb vanishes too and returns naked and bewildered, they start thinking of witchcraft. The twins Jonas and Mercy blame Thomasin, and she blames them in return. The family is about to be torn apart, or will a saving grace come down upon them in time? Nice film, great acting: all dialogue is in 17th century English, so subtitles are mandatory for most of us. Anya Taylor-Joy is a great actress and beautiful, too. I had a good time watching this, it has some genuinely scary moments. Recommended.

Out of the Dark - Paul and Sarah move to Colombia with their daughter Hannah because Sarah can get a job at the paperplant founded and owned by her father. They get almost everything from the company: the house, medical services etc. Catalina, a local girl, is being hired to babysit Hannah. On the first night however, Hannah disappears and Catalina is sent away, although Hannah is found inside the dumbwaiter. That day and in the next few days Paul and Sarah learn of a legend about the Holy Children, who got burned by the conquistadors. Locals believe that the ghosts of the children still haunt the area. So when Paul and Sarah start seeing images of little people walking around, they suspect that the legend might be true. When Hannah disappears again, they move heaven and earth in order to get her back, but of course the question is will they be fast enough in finding her? Acting is good, setting is very nice and atmospheric. Story was quite OK to begin with, but about halftime you will know how it will end because of the quite obvious hints you get. Ending was a bit meh, also because of the predictability, but it didn't ruin the film for me, at least not totally. OK film.

Curtains - 1983 slasher with hints of a giallo. A director who works together with the same actress for some years, has an idea in order to make her act a believable mad woman: she should have herself committed to an asylum. So, when she is inside, she learns after a while that he has started making the film, without letting her know. This makes her mad indeed, and she escapes in order to get revenge. In his house he has gathered a bunch of women to select for the main part, but surprise surprise, they start to die one by one. Most of the kills are pretty straightforward, but there are some nice variants to the simple murder to be seen. The ending has a giallo-esque twist in it, but not as extreme as in some of those Italianmade thrillers. Atmospheric, with some nice imagery and OK gore, this slasher is a safe recommendation to all horrorfans.

La Novizia - bought this one together with "The Nun & The Devil", and gave it a watch yesterday. It turned out that it wasn't what I expected: instead of a nunsploitation with torture, witchcraft and lots of sex/nudity, it was a sexual comedy, without torture, without witchcraft, but of course with the lots of sex/nudity. The humour was gutwrenchingly bad, most of the jokes were either lost on me or made me feel cold like when being embarrassed in public. The soundtrack was German and when it was Italian there were German subs (which was about 50% of the time). The story was noty very interesting and the ending was a wtf moment, but that was about it. Better luck next time, this one is one to forget.

Killer Crocodile - Italian monsterflick from 1989, by Fabrizio de Angelis under a pseudonym. The storyline is quite classic, the rest of the film is bad up to when it becomes hilarious. The crocodile is built (it has a mentioning in the opening credits even "crocidile created and built by..."), and therefore static: this is very obviou thorughout the film. There are two stances the croc can do: mouth shut and mouth open. When the moth is open, there is a scene when it gets attacked with a spear or something and then you can clearly see the cloth lining of the inside of the croc's mouth. More fake stuff: when Conchita is having her autopsy, she is obviously breathing, she is actually breathing quite heavily, which is quite something for a dead girl. When she is found, the editing is very abrupt: upon finding her we get cut to a new scene immediately. I also loved it how they were measuring radioactivity on some waste in dumped barrels with a geigercounter and then concluded that the waste was radioactive, while it said "RADIOACTIVE" on all of the barrels In the tropical jungle the birdsounds are European, which is also quite special. Acting is horrendous for the most part, which adds to the hilarious-factor. I won't give away all the treats because you have to keep something to look out for, but I'm sure there is enough. Recommended for bad moviefans! Oh, and there is even a sequel!

The Green Inferno - cannibal film by Eli Roth, it is an ode to the cannibalsploitation from the late 70s early 80s from Italy. In the ending credits there is what Roth calls "a brief history of the cannibal genre", which contains all the famous names. I was actually quite happy that a modern day director was making a film like this, as it is such a niche genre, and of course I have seen them all already. So, a new movie was very welcome. I read somewhere that to get a tribe to cooperate, Roth showed them Cannibal Holocaust and then they happily volunteered to be extras as the tribe. Quite funny if that is actually true. The white people are activists who were gonna sabotage a bunch of bulldozers in the rainforest in Peru, in order to "save Amazonia", as their T-shirts stated. After having done their part, they fly back in their one engine plane and it crashes in the middle of nowhere. The survivors are quickly kidnapped by the tribe, who are, of course, cannibals. The best scene is when they enter the village the first time, and after that, there is more to come. The previous part of the film was a quite long introduction to the characters, but unfortunatly they still stay quite superficial, even after these 40 minutes. The cannibal scenes are nice and brought back a lot of memories. Some drawbacks are that since this is a modern day film, production value is so high, it doesn't really fit the theme of the film. You get a feeling like you are watching a show, instead of a feeling like being there in the middle of it. Acting by the whites is OK-ish, some characters are over the top typical, but maybe that is part of the ode. I also read some reviews in which the cannibals not being nude was frowned upon. Yes, the cannibal films from the 70s/80s contained a lot of nudity, but times have changed and like the animal cruelty, the nudity has gone. Yes, that is a bit of a disappointment, but I must say that it didn't bother me too much while watching. The ending is both dull and classic, but I had a great time watching this. Recommended, especially for fans of the genre.

Proteus - this was a classic monsterflick with a drug smugglers gang ending up on an oil rig, but in fact the rig is used for biological experiments and they meet some alien-like monster who can shapeshift. Here, both the opening and the middle part were very boring. I was mostly reading reviews of The Green Inferno and watching this with half an eye. I didn't miss much, maybe some wooden dialogue here and there. The final scenes, though, were worth the watch: the monster becomes really big and ugly, and the hero of the film has to do several tricks before the inevitable ending, with, who would expect that, a countdown on a selfdestruct system. Acting was subpar, some of he cast were reading out their lines a bit too much. If you are short on time you might wanna skip through and only watcch the last 20 minutes. Boring, except for the final part, which is great. Not sure how to recommend.

Blood Cult - shady direct to video slasher, which isn't very fulfilling to watch, unless you want to go for SBiG moment spotting. A lot of dialogue is very muffled, sometimes characters say things and the only way you can make out the fact that they are actually saying anything, is by the moving of their mouths. I didn't miss much I guess, but it was annoying anyway. The story is rather cliche, with a serial killer haunting a campus, killing sorority girls like it's nothing. He leaves some sort of an amulet each time, and a very redundant voice over explains to us that this is the main similarity the police has to go on. A guy who looks old compared to my grandpa is actually the sheriff, and since elections are coming up he needs to solve this case quickly. He doesn't leave a moment unused to ephasize this, very literally (he says "with elections coming up, we have to wrap this up soon" etc.). His daughter and her ugly boyfriend help him out in his research but by mere coincidence he finds out a gbout a spot where the killer (he is associated with a ritualistic cult by that time) and his friends are gathering. He sees some stuff happening, but then it is all a dream, or is it? In this hospital scene you can see a crewmember with a boomstick microphone and he is so far into the picture that you might hink it is intended (which it isn't). The ending is very meh, like most of the film. Very bad film, like I said, only for bad moviefans.

Invisible Ghost - Bela Lugosi is a doctor whose wife left him for another man some time ago. He still lives in his old house with his daughter and their personnel. Sometimes, when the doctor is alone at night, he gets hypnotized by a woman outside, resembling his wife. When he is under her spell, he murders a person in the house. This happens several times, but because he can't remember anything about this the next morning, both he and the police have much trouble to solve the case. This goes on in a pretty slow tempo until the solution arrives by coincidence. Really, that ending was one of the most simplistic ones I have ever seen. Nothing special, only for Lugosi completionists.

The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues - 50s monsterflick with a message about nuclear energy. Close to some oceanographic institute, several bodies wash up in a few days. Both a scientist and an FBI agent are investigating, but their effort is hampered by a creature showing up in the ocean, and several suspects who all have their own agenda. Although the story is quite nice and has a little Cold War touch with the blonde femme fatale, the monster action is too stupid and too little and far between to be cool. Acting was OK and the image quality was quite high, especially compared to Invisible Ghost. A little plus is that the movie starts with a monster scene, instead of waiting for the last 5 minute to show it briefly, like these flicks ususally do.

Massacre Time - a western by Fulci. Before this one, he only made (sex) comedies, and you can still see that in this film, where some actions and scenes are outright hilarious. For example: the first few kills made by Jeffrey Corbett (George Hilton), the halfbrother of Tom (Franco Nero), the main character, are done while he is hanging off the side of his horse, like in a circus act. The story is simple: Tom goes back to his hometown after he has heard that it got taken over by a bad guy named Mr. Scott. He and Jeffrey are gonna fight him off so they can take their town back. The bad guys are like in a comic book, the heroes too, they can do incredible stuff, of which some is outstandingly funny, like the scene where Tom sits in a wagon which gets loose and he shoots people while the wagon is rolling, then it stops, he jumps out, makes a salto, lands behind the bad guys and kills them all. This one is not as grim as Four of the Apocalypse, Fulci's later western, but yo can already see that he is a director with some ideas. Nice film, I'd say this is for Nero/Hilton/Fulci fans only though.

W Delta Z - thriller about a series of murders in New York (Brooklyn mostly). Melissa George is Helen Westcott, a new teammember in a seasoned homicide squad, and her partner becomes the grumpy Eddie Argo (Stellan Skarsgard). She learns fast although she is very nervous in the beginning. It doesn't take long before the first body shows up, with the letters W, Delta and Z carved into it. When other dead bodies turn up, the poloice starts to see a pattern, and via a scientist they get on track of a person who wants revenge more than anything. Acting is good, it was all believable what was happening. The "twist" in the end was not as shocking to me as it might have been for some audiences in certain countries

Spoiler:

it turns out that Eddie's informant is also his boyfriend

but the cause for all these murders was actually quite a bit shocking and gruesome. For horrorfans there is enough to enjoy, the corpses are pretty gory and there is also the revenge thing which might be appealing: the killer also does some Saw-like tricks to the victims. I enjoyed this enough, nothing groundbreaking, but very tolerable.