The Wretched - Ben is going to live with and work for his father for a while. His parents are heading for a divorce and Ben is trying to cope but having a lot of trouble with it. Working in the harbour where his dad runs the business, he meets Mallory, a happy girl who makes Ben forget his problems for a bit. More trouble is brewing though, as Ben finds the neighbours next door being very suspicious. After he sees a strange creature at night wandering around the neighbour's house, he starts doing stakeouts and discovers the presence of an ancient witch, who first makes people forget about their relatives and then preys on the forgotten. Usually it's ghostfilms that give me the creeps the most, but this one also managed to make me feel uneasy. Atmosphere is very nicely done, as the happy and careless scenes are mixed up with dark and gloomy ones, but sometimes the darkness slips into the happy scenes, shaking the balance. Acting is OK and effects are cool, the witch regularly comes out of the skin of an animal or a human being which looks gross. There is also a nice giallo-esque twist in the story. Pretty good film, recommended.

Bloodsucking Bosses - aka Bloodsucking Bastards. In a company a bunch of employees are filling their days with slacking: they play games or do actually nothing in their boss's time. When Evan, their manager, is being skipped for a promotion in favour of Max, an old nemesis of his, he and his slacker friends find out that Max is actually a vampire, turning all employees one by one into minions of him. So the guys and Evan's love interest Amanda are gonna fight back to ensure they defeat the undead. This is an officestyle horrorcomedy and as with most of horrorcomedies, this one is not scary., It is very gory though, some rooms have the blood literally dripping off the walls. The comedy part is in order, there were quite some funny scenes, although they didn't have much to do wit the horror part, they could have been part of a non horror movie easily. It was pretty enjoyable though, I had a good time watching it. Don't expect any serious vampirism and also no scary scenes and you will be good. Recommended.

Blood Thirst - black and white Filipino movie from the sixties, so not to be confused with other films of similar title. If you want to look it up: it only got released in 1971. The story is set in Manila, where young girls are being murdered and their bodies are all found drained from their blood. Miguel, the local detective, calls on his American friend Adam to help solve the case but this guy has more eyes for the local women at first. Soon Adam zooms in on Mr Calderon, a club owner whose female employees are among the victims. One of his dancers has something special over her and it harbours a dark secret... This early attempt at exploitation horror from the Philippines has some real wooden acting and stiff dialogue. Some lame attempts at humour make it worse, and it shouts B-flick off the screen. The horror part was OK-ish, although the lack of color makes it less enjoyable. If you like bad movies, this one is a nice treat, others should think again before watching this.

Welp - a Flemish horror, there aren't too many of those. This one is called "Welp" which is a name given to boys who are boyscouts. When Sam, the main character, goes camping with his boyscouts unit, the older guys who lead the boys tell them stories about the masked bushkid Kai, and when they have been on the campsite for a while, Sam starts seeing Kai and tries to befriend him. Kai however is half wild and half human, so he is very unpredictable. What starts with stealing some items from tents, leads quickly to violence... Atmosphere is great in this one, the forest and the camp setting make for a good scary movie. For me a problem was the language, as Flemish is a bit understandable, but not all the time so I switched on English subs which made me have some kind of a schizo experience, but that didn't make the film any worse of course. Acting is nice, even the kids do a good job. A bit more explanation about where Kai really came from would have been nice, but as it is, it's also a bit mysterious which is a good thing. If you can get your hands on this, watch it.

The Evil Beneath Loch Ness - yay, let's make another movie based on local lore and legend! In  this B-flick, a team of scientists is researching the bottom of Loch Ness when an underwater earthquake swallows one of them. To replace him, a guy is flown in from his job in Afghanistan and while being skeptic about the whole monster thing, he will soon find out that the earthquake didn't just swallow his colleague, it also gave something back.... A very dumb monsterflick where the locals are against any form of research because it might scare off the tourists, when the team discovers something indeed they make the default request to the local authorities to close down the lake which of course is ignored because it is the season, etc. Well, you can just spell it out. A stupid love story is added and some students who think they can prank tourists with the fakest looking dino you have ever seen. Acting is somewhat OK but a few characters are overdoing it a little. All in all this is really very forgettable and it is only mildly enjoyable if you know what you are in for.

Fearless - aka Poliziotto senza paura. A poliziottesco by Stelvio Massi, whose films mostly are poliziotteschi: action films centered around either a policeman or a private eye. In this one, we follow Walter Spada, a private eye who has to count his pennies as he tries to come by. Work is slow and while he makes up wild stories about his huge office with the most modern equipment to others, he is trying to make ends meet. A big assignment falls into his lap when a rich banker from Vienna hires him to find his missing daughter, but this pretty simple task leads him into a web of intrigue and mystery in Austria, where his own life will be in danger too. Acting is mediocre and the action scenes sometimes feel a bit too choreographed. The dubbing is awful as you might expect from an Italo film, but the plot twist at the end is gialloesque, I appreciated that, although the ending is rather sudden. I'm not so much into poliziotteschi, I prefer the giallo, but this one sometimes moves into the giallo territory. Only for Italo fans I guess.

Level 16 - when I bought this I was under the impression this was a kind of a scifi thriller and although you may view it as such, scifi is probably putting many people on the wrong foot. There aren't any aliens or space related things, and the science part is, although essential to the plot, not very obvious. It's set inside a boarding school for girls, the Vestalis Academy (the name must be derived from the Vestal Virgins of Roman times), where groups of girls are taught to be obedient and clean, so they are up for adoption to wealthy families in the outside world. This outside world is said to be dangerous and poisonous, as to keep the girls afraid and inside. When Vivien, the main character, reaches the top level (level 16 from the title), she finds out the school isn't what it says it is and together with Sophia, a girl who once betrayed her a few levels down, she starts on a quest to find a way out. Atmosphere is great, it really feels claustrophobic inside the building, and you never get to see anything outside of it. The girls and how they behave and are being bossed around reminded me a bit of Handmaid's Tale, and the plot (the secret which the school is harboring) reminded me a bit of Breeder even though the latter is from later times than this film. Acting is great and there are many little things in this film which are treats for moviefans, like names of characters and older films which are being shown to the girls as a reward. I loved it, highly recommended!