Unspeakable - a guy is sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. A woman named Diana Purlow studies criminal minds, and after she has investigated the guy who was innocent, she gets to investigate an infamous murderer. She tracks down his motives and his frustrations, while the warden of the prison only has one thing on his mind: execute every motherf*cker in his prison. Starcast with Dennis Hopper, Dina Meyer, Jeff Fahey and Lance Henriksen, so acting is good. I was even moved a bit in one scene. Yet, the story doesn't uphold too well and it starts to annoy you while watching. This kills every film, so this one goes down too. Unfortunately, because the possibilities were there.

The Prophecy 5: Forsaken - this one was filmed back to back with part 4. I still think they should have released these two apart from the first 3 films. And even then, this feels like a filler: it had to be done for closure of the Prophecy series. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this flic. Waste of time. Even Tony Todd, whom I like gives a shit performance. Forget this one. Fast.

The Bloodstained Shadow - nice giallo with a lot of atmosphere and beautiful shots. A guy visits his brother who has become a priest. Years ago, when he was still a kid, a girl was killed in the village the priest lives in. Now that he is back, the killing starts again. The guy is gonna check out if he can find the killer. Nice plot, although I firstguessed the killer right. The score by Goblin is also cool. Recommended!

Suck - a band called The Winners is totally not winning anything, but when their female bassplayer gets bitten by a vampire and thus turned into one, the crowdds go wild on their performances. So, they start to enhance the vampire thing. Success follows, but the moral backdrop of this is of course: do you want success at any price? Although this moral shit lies superthick on the plot, it is a pretty enjoyable flick, with small roles fro Henry Rollins, Moby, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper. The music is somewhat lame, I fast forwarded through most of it. Still, I had a good time watching this.

Blue Sunshine - cool 70s horror about a group of people who went to school together in the 60s and then used some kind of acid called Blue Sunshine. Nine years later, one by one, they start going crazy and killing people. One guy wants to find out what's going on, but since one of the group is running for congress, and thus cannot have someone linking him to past drug use, he encounters hostilties. He even gets accused of the killings. To save himself and to solve the case he has to go to the bottom of it. Nice atmosphere, cool music. Some familiar faces among the cast. I really liked this one, recommended!

Zombie Self-Defense Force - supercrazy Japanese zombieflick, with a UFO crashing near Mount Fuji and then everyone in the surroundings gets some sort of blast. After that, all dead people become zombies and everyone who dies does so, too. There is even a zombie baby! At first there was cgi blood and it was very ugly, but after a while they started using fake blood which looked infinitely better. It isn't scary, but it is really funny! Recommended.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times - atmospheric giallo with, you might have guessed, 7 murders. Some of them are really cool, I especially liked the one with

Spoiler:

the head spiked on the fence

Nice music, good cast, with Barbara Bouchet and Sybil Danning among others. At first I guessed the killer wrong, but after a while you can't miss who is responsible for the killings. Recommended.

Santa Sangre - uuuggh, a very long film which is very pretentious and tries to be arty but turns out to be overly dramatic and theatrical. Exaggerated symbolism leads to confusing sequences with the odd funny scene inbetween. The ending makes clear how the story was meant to turn out, and actually that is pretty OK. But I didn't want to spend two hours before that watching this grotesque arty fairytale. I strongly disagree with the majority of people praising this film.

Jack Be Nimble - nice portrait of brother and sister who get separated in a foster home: Jack goes to a cruel family and Dora ends up in a nice one. When they are grown ups, they meet again and Dora is the love for their mother and Jack is the hate. Nice touch about duality of emotions and great acting in this film. There wasn't enough horror in it for my taste, though. More kills and more gore would have made this one for me. Still, a good movie to watch.

Shaft - this brother rocks those badasses on with a soul tune to the background. One of the most famous blaxploitations ever. Nice action story, but nothign really speical. I enjoyed it most because of it's music and it's reputation.

Food of the Gods - on an island where they go hunt, Morgan and his friends find gigantic animals and soon one of them succumbs to a swarm of giant wasps. Morgan wants to find out howcome the insects have become so big and he finds out that there are more giant animals, the most vicious of thej being rats. These seem to have thought of a plan to eradicate the humans. Ridiculous plot this one, and I laughed frequently while watching: it is a great turd! The rats are so clever, they make an ambush with a fallen tree over a road to stop a ar, but they can't swim for some reason. More dumbness ensues as a group of humans tries to survive on the island. Recommended for bad moviefans!

Thursday night:

Anatomy - Franka Potente is a medical student who is invited to Heidelberg University, a prestigious academy for doctors/medics/surgeons. Soon she finds out that the bodies used for research aren't from people who gave it to the university with their consent for medical research. Instead, the bodies are snatched: people simply get drugged on the street and then shipped to the university. Especially people with rare diseases run this risk. Of course Franka's character strongly disagrees with this conduct and she starts to fight the anti-Hippocratian order, the organisation behind all this. The suspense is OK, but there were moment where I thought it was lacking a bit. The plot is good, the ending nice, but it could have been (even) better. Acting OK, overall I'd say this is quite enjoyable, but not worth a lot of trouble to get this film.

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave - Hammer recycles the dracula story once more, this is the third film with Lee as the famous count. I think it is a nice feat that all three are different, but still it is "just another dracula movie". Of course Lee acts great again and some of the supporting cast is good too, the atmosphere is what you can expect from Hammer, but still I think it wasn't original enough. I was expecting a bit more surprises I guess. Maybe it's just me. It's not a bad movie, that's for sure.

Friday night

Dearly Devoted - aka Devil in the Flesh. Someone on imdb wrote that you should go see The Crush instead and I have to agree. Rose McGowan is a teenager (Debbie Strand) who falls in love with one of her teachers in an obsessive way and she will stop at nothing to get him. The build-up is far from subtle, as the film starts with her mother dying in a fire and immediately you know that Debbie is the one who started it. So after thois scene you are just waiting for futher kills, and they don't come. So you wait and wait, and see some stuff happening, but overall it is not exciting enough. Debbie makes friends, or actually just one, and she starts stalking the teacher (whose acting job is only half-heartedly done imo). There is almost no tension (contrary to The Crush) and I got the feeling that there were many ways still for the teacher to escape this siatuation, while in The Crush Alicia's grip on the neighbour is feeling almost like strangulation. The ending is somewhat OK, there is one shocking thing in it, but it can't save the movie. I'd say skip this one.

The Black Cat - Fulci's favour to a producer turns out to be a nice flick about a guy controlling a cat to execute several murders in town. Some effects are superlow budget, but atmosphere is good, despite the cheap sounding music. Some of the kills are very inventive, like in the best giallo tradition. I don't like cats very much, but if you do, you might think this movie sucks

The Killer Must Kill Again - Cozzi giallo, I watched it in Italian with English subs and I can rip it for you guys if you like. Story is rather simple and all of it is actually written out on the back of the DVD, just the ending is not there. SO there aren't many surprises while watching. OK acting, I didn't think this film was Argento-esque as some claim. Only in some images, like the rotating images around the heads-scene, could be called that way imo. Plot is straightforward, there aren't any intentions to put you off on the wrong foot, like in many other giallos. Nice and simple.

Vampire Journals - rather boring and cliche vampire film where some vampire wants revenge on an older vampire for making his girlfriend a vampire too or something like that. Mediocre vampire scenes, nothing you haven't seen before. Even atmosphere was lacking a bit imo.

Prom Night - the 1980 version. Cool slasher, although you have to wait a long time before the killing starts and the plot outcome (the "who is the killer" question) was a bit weak, imo. Music is cool, and the teenage "problems" are portrayed nicely, in order to have some character development like you rarely see these days. Leslie Nielsen in a serious role is still a bit hard to swallow for me, but still I enjoyed this movie.

Audrey Rose - oldest movie I know with Anthony Hopkins in it (A Bridge Too Far was the oldest I had seen before I watched this one). It's about a girl who lives happily with her family, yet she gets nightmares almost every year around her birthday and she seems possessed or something like that. Hopkins is a guy named Hooper who contacts the family because he think his daughter, who died in a car accident years earlier, has reincarnated into this girl. The family, especially the father, has trouble to accept that, even refuses to believe what Hooper is telling them. Acting is great, also by the kid, but this isn't really horror. The possessed thingy isn't really a possession and is only a very minor thing on screen, although it plays a big role in the plot. There are also some dumb goofs which you don't expect in an otherwise OK to good movie: at some point a woman tells about the accident in which Hooper's daughter died. She was in a different car and saw what ahppened, but she also says that she saw the car tumbling down a slope and falling into a ditch. She then continues to tell what happened next, while she couldn't have seen all that from her car. Apart from that, the plotline with the reincarnation stuff and the guru from India and all could have been elaborated better and the ending felt a bit sudden, even thought his film lasts for 109 minutes. So all in all, OK movie, good cast, but plot should have been worked out better.

La Sorella di Ursula - atypical giallo, because it has lots of sex in it, almost pornographic. This makes this giallo very sleazy, whereas most others are quite stylish. The landscape is amazing, however, the surroundings of Salerno are beautiful! I'd love to go there once (giallos, for all your holiday advices). The plot wasn't very strong, but I loved to watch Barbara Magnolfi.

The Box - weird film, the fact that it was directed by the guy who made Donnie Darko helped me a lot while watching. I read a lot of reviews stating that this film was a mess, or that it was hard to follow. I don't understand why those reviewers said so. I thought it wasn't hard at all. Maybe a bit more challenging than a simple slasher or anything, but I never got lost in the plot and that does happen to me with other films (which are clearly worse than this one). I must say that Cameron Diaz was not so good in this film and my tolerance for her is high, so that really means something. Frank Langella however did a great performance as the man with the box. The beginning is strong, the middle part is OK and the ending could have been better, but still I think The Box isn't so bad as many people want you to believe. I'd say give it a try and tell me what you think.

Had some trouble playing a Screamatorium DVD, so I ended up watching only one film:

Do You Like Hitchcock - late Argento film, homage to Alfred H. I'm not a Hitchcock connaisseur, so I didn't get all hints, but I did get plenty anyway, because they were so obvious (like characters renting the DVD of Strangers in a Train). The sotry itself is rather simple, and therefore the plot was a bit unsatisfying for me. I knew before this wasn't Argentos best, but still I had expected it to be better than this. Anyway, I agree with most when they say that this is better than Il Cartaio, and therefore it is to be praised a bit. When you're new to Argento however, it isn't wise to start with this one as your impression of his work will be wrong. If you like Hitchcock, you will like this one too, I guess.

The Omega Man - second film I have seen which is based on the story "I Am Legend" (first one was The Last Man On Earth with Vincent Price). In this one, the creatures which inhabit the earth after the nuclear wars, aren't zombies per se, they are quite intelligent and have formed some sort of a cult. They have pale skin and white eyes because of a disease they contracted, but they aren't out to eat people or something. They act like barbarians, destroying the human cultural heritage (for example by burning libraries). Charlton Heston, the lone survivo, finds out about a group of kids who aren't infected and he sets out to help them. Nice film, bleak atmosphere like in the opening sequence of 28 Days Later. Recommended.

Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens - a weird couple is central in this film: the woman is very promiscuous and wants sex almost all the time, but her husband, who is presented as a very dumb guy (IQ of 37, which is impossible btw), only wants sex by penetration in the ass. And she doesn't want that. So they both go their ways and have a lot of sex while 70s music accompanies the naked scenes or the big breasted radio reporter. There is a lot more sex and nakedness in this one than in previous Meyer films. The plot has a tad more content than most, but isn't as good as in Up! for example. Still one of the "better" Meyer films.

Romasanta - Gothic horror about lycanthropy. It takes the matter quite seriously, the film is Hammerish, the atmosphere is quite right, although the setting helps a lot in this case: 1850 Spain. Julian Sands is a man who suffers from lycanthropy and when he kills some people, an investigation is started. Not only the police is interested, a professor is wanting to learn about the "disease" too. There aren't many killings and they aren't very bloody either. It is more a drama with a horrorish touch than a real horror, but the drama doesn't bring it home totally. It is a tad too arty, and a bit more spectacular stuff, be it a chase, or some gory kills, would have made this film better for me.

Catacombs - got this one because it has Pink in it, but she isn't worth watching as an actress. She does her thing, but that's about it. This film is about an illegal party in Paris' catacombs which were used to house 7 million dead when all cemeteries were full, some centuries ago. The sister of the Pink character, Victoria, is afraid of the dark and so she is reluctant to go to the party but in the end she is there anyway. After a while she gets lost in the catacombs and she is very frightened. This stage continues for way too long: she sees/hears something, screams, runs away. Repeat. The ending was super annoying at first, but then it took a nice little twist. Shame that you have to sit through 45 minutes of a girl screaming in dark tunnels before. With 30 minutes cut it could have been something.

Infested - wow this was so totally bad, my wife couldn't sleep because of me laughing at this flick. The cgi looks like it is from the 90s, the continuity goofs are plentiful (curtain pulled off, curtain hangs correctly again; not so much blood on face, next shot loads of blood on face while there wasn't any action; flies first fly free in daylight, later they get incinerated by sunlight; etc) and the predictablity reaches new heights. Note to future viewers: when someone doesn't reply to your question within 2 seconds in this film, they are infected! Or infested, of course. The "monsters" are flies who enter someone's mouth and then make him a zombie. I hope cast and crew had fun while making this, because if this was ever meant to be serious, I pity those people. Recommended for bad moviefans.

Paganini Horror - pretty messy horror by Luigi Cozzi, who also brought us Starcrash. This one is a feast for bad moviefans too, as the characters are so dumb (after the first persons have gone missing and then another couple has missing too, the remaining persons say stuff like "I hope they will return" - facepalm) and the killings are so awfully bad taste-like. I love Cozzi for amking this trash. Recommended highly for bad moviefans.

The Thaw - weak film, total rip-off of The Thing, but way less scary and also way less gory. The beginning is promising, with the bug crawling into the headwound, but it is almost the scariest thing in the entire movie. The ending is ridiculous and in the meantime it is dragging along with improbable actions and annoying character building (the characters are annoying, not the building). If you want frozen monsters and have seen The Thing already, go for anything else but this one.

When The Bell Chimed 13 - aka Trece Campanadas. A faulty DVD made me not enjoy this for 100%, but the film is not to blame. It is a supernatural thriller, with a Spanish sculptor returning to his town o birth and being confronted with both his mad mother and the ghost of his dead father. He feels obliged to finish his father's work for the cathedral, and the ghost goes really far in convincing him when he wants to stop. Beautiful shots, good camerawork! OK to good acting, atmosphere is nice in the snse that you know something isn't right. The ending is cool, but if you are into Spanish horror, you shouldn't be surprised. Recommended, if not highly.

Death Smiled At Murder - aka La Morte Ha Sorisso All'Assassino. A weird mix between violent giallo, and atmospheric gothic horror, directed by Joe D'Amato. A doctor finds a formula to revive dead people and so he does revive some. An aristocratic family has to deal with this. Like I said, it is quite weird. At first you might think it is a "normal" gothic horror, and you'd expect a vampire to walk in any moment. But there aren't any, there is only "normal" people. D'Amato uses some excessive violence, the scene where one character dies and falls down into a pool of blood is hilarious, as the pool of blood is there before he falls down (it's his own blood...). Since I like Italian horror, I liked this one too, but if you're looking for giallo, you might dislike it.

The Hunger - stylish horror with some famous A-actors, notably Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and Willem Dafoe (in a tiny role). David Bowie also stars in this one. He and Deneuve play a vampire couple, but when he suddenly starts to age (it isn't really explained why that happens, except for that there is a disease causing rapid aging - but then again, how can vampires catch diseases?), she disposes of him and replaces him with his geriatric doctor. Lots of cloth blowing in th wind of fans (I deeply resent that kind of "arty" effects), but nonetheless a nice film with a focus on personal drama and not on horror. The fact that the couple is vampiric, is not so important. So if you want lots of action and blood etc, go for a different one.

Death Walks at Midnight - aka La morte accarezza a mezzanotte. I had never seen an Ercoli giallo before, and I must say that he is not as good at it as some others I have seen work from, like Martino or Argento. It is pretty straightforward, even the music is a bit flat and although the plot is actually quite OK, this film still leaves you wanting some. Maybe I'm spoiled, having seen other giallos (more famous ones) before, but I had about the same felling as after having seen Do You Like Hitchcock, whoch, although from Argento, wasn't as good either. The English dub didnt help either. I still like to watch these films in Italian, even though those tracks are dubbed in later too.

The Vengeance of She - Hammer fantasy film, about a woman named Carol who hears voices calling her "Ayesha". She finds the urge to travel and a doctor, Philip Smith, travels alongside her to the lost city of Kuma. Yes, levels of absurdity keep rising in this one. In this city there is a huge statue, resembling Carol's face and upon entering, she meets the inhabitants who say she is their queen, called Ayesha (surprise, surprise). So she is supposed to marry a guy Killikrates, but a mean sorcerer has an evil plan to become immortal at the cost of the couple. Wow, this was quite an absurd film, but it was shown wih the utmost sincerity. Not many goofs or anything, but the storyline just killed me.

Blood Tracks - a rockband called Solid Gold goes into the mountains to shoot a videoclip. When they're closed in by an avalanche, the crew finds out about a family of savages who have been living for years in the abandoned factory nearby. This family feels threatened and kills everyone who enters the factory. Sort of The Hills Have Eyes-like film, only in snow covered Swedish mountains instead of desolate American desert. Some wooden acting here and there, some useless nudity, overall not a movie to remember, but I don't regret having seen it.

Night of the Demons - the 2009 remake. The girls are sexier (like in some other remakes - Sorority Row comes to mind), story has somewhat survived the remaking process, acting is OK, effects are sometimes good and someitmes a total mis. Edward Furlong should stop acting, he just annoys the hell out of me lately, and in this movie it isn't any different. Maybe shaping up would help a lot: loose that belly, Edward! The "getting demonised" scenes are boring and cliche, as it is fast-forwarded-shaking-head-to-and-fro AGAIN. The one thing they did well was the feeling of not being able to get out of the house. That felt good. I recommend the original, although the girls in this one are sexier. But that's the only plus over the original.

Intruder - on the cover it says "with Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi". Well, Bruce is in it for one scene close to the ending of this film and he has a screentime of about 2 minutes. A bit like Tiffany Amber-Thiessen in From Dusk Till Dawn 2. Raimi has a bigger role, he and his brother act as employees in a store where the cashier has some trouble with her ex-boyfriend. When he is out of jail, he visits her in the store, and after she rejected him, people start to die gory deaths. Now they have to find out two things: who the killer is and how they can escape him. Nice slasher with killings which aren't just gory but also quite inventive. Atmosphere is very 80s and I like that. Recommended, maybe even highly.

Cold Eyes of Fear - aka Gli occhi freddi della paura. This was a giallo from the type I don't like so much. Too much actionmovie-like, and too few horror-like. The criminals use pistols, which is not as charming as when they use knives, they aren't murderers but kidnappers/blackmailers and there are also many things which are wrong. A corpse glimpsing with it's eyes, a wired door with explosives yet the system doesn't work (the door should pull the lever, but it opens inside instead of outside) and some very awful dubbing. Quickly back to the nice giallos!

Demonia - one of the later Fulci movies. It is kind of cheap: the image looks washed out and the props/sfx are too fake. That scene when the cats jump up at the woman, man, that was superfake. The only scene which was a bit gross was the one in the meatfreezecell, the pig made me crinch. The whole cult thing was a bit vague, I didn't really get it, while it is the basis for the plot. Oh, well. It is Fulci. Enough gore for the fans, but don't expect any storyline to follow