Tony – a film about a London serial killer. The cover says it can be easily compared to Henry: A Portrait of a Serial Killer, so that made me interested. I must say, there are some similarities. The superdesolate existence of Tony, a jobless and lonely man, living in a grey apartment is depicted in a striking way. I almost started to feel depressed myself, so bleak is the atmosphere in this film. Tony spends his days watching 80s actionfilms on VHS, and when he invites people over to have a drink to alleviate his loneliness, he kills them when they behave badly. After a while he disposes of the bodies in plastic bags in the Thames. The aimlessness of his existence, his living circumstances and the non-spectacular way in which he kills his victims certainly made me think of Henry. The biggest difference between the films is the ending: while Henry has a final scene which is almost legendary in my opinion (and left me shocked on the couch), Tony just ends in the middle of the storyline. It could have continued for a while, and it felt a bit unfinished. A pity, as the rest of the film is really interesting. Still, recommended.

Fragile – good ghostfilm. The first hour or so is not anything really special, although the acting is good (again, good job by children) and the setting (a children’s hospital about to be closed) is great. Atmosphere is of something lurking, an invisible threat, nice. The ghost-thing however seems like you have seen hundreds of times before, although the origins of the ghost are kept a bit in the dark . But in the second half, the mystery about the ghost is getting slowly solved, and towards the end of the film there seems to come closure. The ghost is actually scary, and when I first saw it, it gave me goose bumps. Well done, Balaguero and crew! The ending is also well done, although it could have been a tad more realistic, but let’s be honest: this film isn’t about realism. Recommended, if not highly.

Grizzly – 70s monsterfilm. It is a low budget effort, on the cover it says “18 feet of towering fury!” but in the film you never get to see that. You get “bear vision” and some scenes of stock footage with bears, but there are zero scenes with the actors and the bear in one image. Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel try to hunt down the beast, but of course there are: 1) drunk hunters spoiling the fun, and 2) a park director who doesn’t want the public to know about the impending danger of the grizzly. A lot of attempts go awry because of the other hunters, or because of the fact that they were tracking down the wrong animal. In the end,

Spoiler:

George gets him with his bazooka

(no kidding), which is hilarious of course. But overall this film is a bit too slow, there was a general lack of things happening. Still, a bad moviefan might enjoy it for it’s moments of bad taste.

Near Death - a real treat for bad moviefans, this one. A group of ghosthunters goes into a haunted house, where a group of ghouls lives. They need human blood to stay "alive". This film has so muich good fun because it is so bad, it is way too much to describe it all. But I can assure you it has almost everything: superbad cgi (Paint Shop Pro explosions, I'm looking at you), very bad acting (overacting on the one hand, total lack of emotion on the other), very, very bad effects (the ghosts in the mirror blast lightning which isn't reflected in said mirror; or a skull is lifted out of a body and it isn't attached to any bodyparts at all, as in muscles, or sinews) and a lame storyline to top it off. I can't really remember how it went, because I was so busy laghing out loud at the stuff I mentioned above. Highly recommended for bad moviefans!

Short Night of the Glass Dolls - aka La corta notte delle bambole di vetro. An atypical giallo because the mystery has to be solved by a guy who is in some sort of a coma. He is found in a parc in Prague and everyone assumes he is dead. He is not, however, and he can hear everything around him,. He starts slowly remembering what happened to him and his girlfriend, who had disappeared. To solve the mystery, he needs time to remember everything and put the puzzle back together. In that same time, however, doctors are operating on him to see whether he is dead or alive. Slowly he unravels the truth about her whereabouts, and while he is having flashback after flashback, you get hints about what happened. It totally surprised me: I hadn't linked all stuff together correctly. Wonderful storyline, nice climax anda grim ending. Very well done, one of the better giallos, ranks among the top Martino and Argento films.

Yongary - Korean rip-off of Gojira. Everything is exactly like in Godzilla films: there is a farfetched reason, caused by humans, which makes the monster awaken. Then it goes to the country where the film is made (Japan in Godzilla films, Korea in this case) and goes on a rampage, destroying miniature buildings like they are cardboard boxes. Wait... Then of course the army is deployed to destroy the monster, and something "different" is needed to make sure the monster is really beaten. In this case, it is a little boy experimenting with the "itch-ray" made by a scientist. It actually makes Yongary itch all over, therefore it looks like he is dancing. Yes. Really. The effects are typical for the type of film, and in order to enjoy this, you have to be in the mood for it, or invite group of friends and have some beers while watching this. For bad moviefans only, I'd say.

Watchers - nice 80s monsterflick with Corey Haim and a young Jason Priestley. A dog jumps into Corey's truck, and swearing he wants to keep him and take care of him, Corey takes the dog home, hiding it from his mom. What Corey doesn't know, is that the dog escaped from an exoploded lab, where some other mammal also escaped: an OXCOM, an Outside eXperimental COmbat Mammal. This genetically designed animal is bred to kill. Now it wants the dog dead, while Corey wants to save it, and the NSO (the creators of the OXCOM) want to keep their project secret. Atmospheric film, with Michael Ironside once more as the bad guy (from NSO this time) and Corey Haim as the teenage hero who is gonna save the dog. And the world. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, especially because you don't get to see the monster that quickly (there is a cover out there revealing it, imo one of the stupidest things to do). Recommended.

The Hollow - a kid's version of Sleepy Hollow. Where that latter movie has some scary moments, this one doesn't. It has some laughs, though, for example when the "headless" horseman (who actually does have a head in the form of a pumpkin which lights up from time to time) enters the screen. There were some slightly sexy babes in this one but nothing too much. Stacy Keach does his thing as a groundskeeper with some weird accent and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter is also present to show that he in fact can't act for sh*t. Judge Reinhold is totally miscast as the tough footballcoach. Nice passtime, but nothing to remmeber it by actually.

2-Headed Shark Attack - some university got the brilliant idea to send a ship to the wide seas with a professor, his wife and a large group of students in order to study stuff. "A semester at sea" it is called, so I'm wondering what the university had in mind: they had to stay at sea for several months, or what? Well, Carmen Electra is the professor's wife, and among the "students" is Brooke Hogan. Oh, and there is actually one guy playing a smart person, and near the end one smart girl adds up to that. The rest of the "students" is either really dumb, or just a bomb full of hormones. I can imagine that latter thing, btw, when you are at sea with a group of scantily clad babes for a whole semester. OK, now we haven't even talked about the creature whichj is in the very title of this film. It is a versatile creature, as it can change sizes, and it has rubberfoam teeth which still can produce large amounts of cgi blood, which in turn keeps everyone dry in the surroundings when it "splatters" on them. This makes for some nice bad movie fun, if you didn't have enough of that already with Carmen and Brooke. Recommended for bad moviefans.

No Reason - Olaf Ittenbach used to make darkish films which were about nothing and had bucketloads of gore in them. This has changed. The bucketloads are still ther, but now there is a storyline in this film too, and it is actually quite good. You have to finish the entire film to see why that is, and besides from that being a good point, it isn't too hard either: enough to see and only some 70 minutes long. The story is pretty mysterious, and the search for the truth goes literally through hell. There are some hellraiser-like figures in this film and some really weird scenes too (the SM basement with all kinds of weird sex acts comes to mind). And of course the gore, of which there is much. And some painful scenes too

Spoiler:

although the penis mutilation scene didn't make me cringe, as the penis was so fake - to see the bloody stump afterwards was quite awful, though

Recommended, not just for gorehounds and/or Ittenbach fans.

Manhunt - aka Rovdyr. Norwegian horror which is set in the 70s. A group of friends go on a weekendtrip and when they have stopped for gas, they take on a hitchhiker. This girl seems to be very afraid and soon she feels sick and they have to pull over. While they are on the side of the road, a group of men grabs them and a little bit later they find themselves tied up together in the middle of the forest. A hunting horn sounds... and they are the prey. A bit of a rip-off of Eden Lake, even some details are the same (like the barb wire). What lacks is some background. Everything just happens and you don't knwow why. This isn't bad per se: this film made me cringe a few times, but the ending was supercliche and the overall storyline was a bit lacking. Not bad, but if you are into this kind of violence, pick Eden Lake instead of this one.

Arachnid - the director of this film, Brett Piper, is pro stop motion, so he makes his films that way. This makes for some hilarious scenes in this film, where a meteorite supposedly hit the ground and turned spiders into giant monsters. These giant monsters look very plastic-like and their motion is kind of stuttery because of this old-fashioned form of filmmaking. But... I loved it! I'm a huge fna of old horror and this film brings back the days. It isn't an old film at all, but the feel of the monsters makes it so. The rest of the film is quite superfluous/forgettable: nothing interesting happens outside the scenes witht he spiders. And unfortunately, most of the film consists of such scenes. A shame, but I can imagine that it is quite costly to make an entire film stop motion, so I can forgive Brett, but next time he better makes mre mosnter scenes. Recommended for bad moviefans.

Satan's Dreams - aka Witchboard 2. A girl named Paige moves into her new apartment and she finds an old ouija board. Curious, she starts experimenting with it and soon finds out that the spirit of the previous inhabitant of the apartment, Susan, is still haunting the place. Paige starts an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Susan, in which she gets help of the brother of the owner of the apartment bulding, but she also has to deal with her (ex-)boyfriend. This "investigation" is a bit giallo-esque, you start guessing what might have happened and I must say that I was quite quick in finding out. But that doesn't mean this film iks bad or anything, it was actually quite OK. A shame that the DVD transfer on my disc was superbad. Now I'm quite curious about other Witchboard films. Recommended.

Wolf - this isn't so much horror (except fpr the fact that werewolves are in this film) as it is a drama. The werewolf thing is just used as a metaphor, and it is coming off nicely. Jack Nicholson is Will Randall, a guiy about to be replaced by his younger colleague. Driving home, he hits an animal with his car and when he tries to drag it off the road he gets bitten by it. Then he starts noticing his senses becoming better, and he also gets a new taste for life: while he was about to accept his replacement at the publishing house, he now starts to fight back for his job. In the meantime he meets Laura Alden, his boss' daughter and soon she is fascinated by Will. His wolfish behaviour however, isn't easily combined with normal life. Acting was top notch in this film, especially by the lead characters, but also some of the "lesser" characters were played well by their actors. The story was interesting, but the ending was a bit meh, imo. I had expected something more extreme, I guess. Still, recommended, as this is a good film. Just keep in mind that gore is minimal and there aren't change-scenes that much.

i liked Wolf, Nicholson was good in this one

Love Bites - aka Les Morsures de l'Aube. A shade of vampirism hung over this film when I bought it, so I was sort of expecting a vampirefilm, maybe with some new angle on it. Well, this wasn't a vampirefilm at all. There is one character which does something which remotely resembles vampirism, but it's only in one scene and that's it. The character is played by Asia Argento btw and she is hot in this one, although I like her even beter when not speaking French but Italian of course (she does so in one of her final scenes, which was quite odd imo). The marketing of her character was great, but unfortunately she doesn't get all that much screentime,. That is reserved for Guillaume Canet and he plays quite well. The story is about him wanting to get into a party and when he mentions the name of an infamous partygoer, he is hired to find that particular character. This search brings him to weird clubs and secret societies, but the climax was a bit dull imo. All in all it was quite OK-ish, the story fell a bit flat on me, but Asia is very sexy and therefore saving some of this film.

Spider - a Cronenberg movie, so you know you will get something out of the ordinary. This one is about a guy with a mental disorder. He is called Dennis "Spider" Clegg and he is just out of the mental hospital he has been in for years. He is weird, as he writes unreadable stuff in his notebook and he mumbles to himself all the time. During the film, he is going on a journey in London's East End to find his youth. It is quit a journey, as he finds ouyt stuff about himself he didn't know (or didn't want to know maybe). It isn't so much of a surprise that there ois more to it than just a guy who is out of the looney bin, but at first I thought it would be about

Spoiler:

his mother not being his real mother, but instead hi,m being the son of the prostitute

but I was wrong there. It turned out to be

Spoiler:

the fact that he killed his own mother, and that she wasn't killed by his father, as he had imagined all the time

Nice plot, and depressing atmosphere. Some very good acting, but overall it had also something boring over it. I don't know, maybe the uneasy feeling I had at the ending was caused by the film, maybe it was because I had expected a film which would have interested me more.

Meat Market - low budget zombieflick. The swimcaps with stuff glued onto them are all too visible, and the ex-secret agents who work together with the three vampires in sexy outfits to fight the zombies aren't too smart. The fact that the vampires are gonna do some pornscenes near the end wasn't helping much either. Both image and audio quality were bad. Some OK gore, but that's it for this film. Might be something for bad moviefans, but all others should stay clear of this one.

Spider seems interesting, thanks Slayer

edit: ahhhh, i soad it

Sometimes They Come Back (1991): A Stephen King short story adaptation. A teacher takes a job at a school in his old hometown. Soon his class is decimated one by one and replaced by students that say were transferred from down south, from Milford. They look just like the students that once terrorised him and his brother 27 years ago. He is about to find out that Milford is not another school and down south has also another meaning... My brother told me that this movie is bad, but I liked it. The acting was okay and the make up effects were also good. It felt like a good old school King adaptation.

I have seen Sometimes They Come Back twice: once when I was young, and I thought it was really scary. When I was older I thought it was quite atmospheric (but not nearly as scary as before, though).

Morirai a Mezzanotte - aka Midnight Ripper. Lamberto Bava giallo, and although it is not as good as the 70s masterpieces from the giallo greats, it was still quite enjoyable. The setting is very 80s, with the clothing and matching music, the city in which it was filmed was Perugia, I think. I'm not sure because it is never mentioned where they are in the city and imdb doesn't name a filming location. They do mention Ancona as a city where a certain person was killed and after a while they go "to the coast" to a certain hotel which is in San Benedetto del Tronto, close to Ancona. The main characters are working or studying at a university, and the closest ones are in Perugia and in L'Aquila (which might be the city too, buit it looks more like Perugia). Guessing the killer is quite hard, I had two options and both were wrong. What I did see, was that the killer

Spoiler:

had used some sort of make up to make it look like he had a burnt face

but that didn't help me find out the correct person. I must say that it was quite a bit far fetched too, but not as extreme as in some other giallos. So although it lacks the brilliance and the atmosphere of the 70s giallo, this is still a nice film by the young Bava.

Backslasher - a British low budget slasherflick centered around social media. Not really, though, it is more about vlogs. Well, nevermind. It stars Eleanor James whom I thought was quite sexy, but in this film that image shattered: she looks so dumb all the time and the fish eye camera doesn't help either. To save the film there would have to be a storyline but unfortunately that is very weak, and while fast forwarding through this flick (meanwhile seeing numerous useless sex- or showerscenes), only pausing a few times, I noticed that it totally didn't matter that I had "missed" stuff. Very dull film, although the ending was not so unoriginal

Spoiler:

the killer kills Eleanor in the last shot and you never get to know who he or she is. I find that quit annoying, especially when the rest of the film is so dumb

It runs for only 68 minutes but that still feels too long. Avoid.

Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks - aka Il castello della paura. Dr Frankenstein is operating on dead bodies in his castle again, but this time he is working in an area where Neanderthal men live. One of them is now in the basement of Dr Frankenstein's castle and serves as a base for creating a monster. While acquiring new dead bodies, the footsteps of the dwarf working for Dr Frankenstein are found in the graveyard, and now he is a suspect so Dr Frankenstein dismisses him. In the meantime the townspeople are ready to torch the castle, because they think Dr Frankenstein is behind almost everything which is going wrong in the region. Some beautiful women get abducted by another Neanderthal man, who does so under direction of the dwarf who is seeking revenge on Dr Frankenstein. Weird film with almost no logic in the storyline and a whole lot of coincidences, but hell, I enjoyed it. It is a bit messy, as in sometimes it looks like everyone is just doing something, but not in any way coherent with each other or the rest of the film. I thought it was charming. This might be interesting for bad moviefans, or for fans of Italian cinema from the 70s.

Shaft - part four of the Shaft films. Many people see this film as a remake, but it's not, Richard Roundtree (the original Shaft) even makes a cameo in this film as the uncle of this new John Shaft, played by Samuel L. Jackson. The original music from Isaac Hayes is brought back and I immediately noticed how good that themesong is. Sadly the typical 70s atmosphere is lacking and the mix of actionman and lovemachine has gone from 50-50 to 90-10. But the storyline was quite interesting, and Shaft was really cool once more. Nice fourth part (maybe it was done as a tribute, and then I'd say it succeeded), but I'd recommend everyone to go see the 70s Shafts first.

Alien Species - this is the 1996 film with Charles Napier. Aliens invade earth, using flying saucers which fire huge explosions but then do no damage. A couple of cops have to transport some criminals to a jail, but they encounter a family with a damaged car on the road, so they get picked up in the jailvan. Soon after, they notice why there is such chaos around: alien invasion! They search for the spot where the aliens have landed and they find out that there is a huge alien city underground where the aliens are processing everything they beamed up. The cops and the family fight their way through together with one of the criminals and of course in the end all will be well. This is one great feast for bad moviefans! Effects, logic in the storyline, the alien suits, everything is of top notch SBiG quality! Highly recommended for bad moviefans!

Tromeo and Juliet - The Troma version of the famous Shakespeare story. It has been punked up, so it has a lot of make up, leather and piercings in it. This Troma version puts a lot of sex and rock 'n' roll into the story. I don't know the original Romeo and Juliet by heart, so I surely missed some references, but the ones I did get were quite humorous. I must say that this is one of the better Troma films, which doesn't sink off into a myriad of dull jokes, although thre were the obligatory puke and poop jokes, but since there was enough other stuff to see and other jokes to laugh from, it was forgiveable this time. Lemmy does the intro and Debbie Rochon and Tiffany Shepis are being sexy again (and pierced much, whoa). The gore is very much over the top and some stuff is really cool to see (like the monsterpenis). Recommended, especially for Troma fans.

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Spasmo – weird Lenzi giallo about Christian, a guy who has mental problems. He is walking the beach with Barbara, his girlfriend. After encountering a woman who looked dead but was still alive, they go to a party where the woman is present too. Late at night they return to their apartment, where a killer is waiting with a pistol. In the fight that ensues between the killer and Christian, the pistol goes off and the killer falls down. After a while the body is gone, so Christian is starting to doubt whether the killer was really dead. And that’s not the only thing he is starting to have doubts about… Like I said a quite weird mystery, but towards the ending you will get to know enough to understand it anyway. Lenzi tries to conceal the plot for as long as possible and he does so quite well, although there were some things I still didn’t understand after having finished watching, for example why there were mannequins hanging around on ropes or lying around with knives in them. But the final plottwist is a very nice one and I’d say this is one of the better Lenzi films. Recommended.

28 Weeks Later – the premise for this sequel is nice, and it explains the situation since 28 Days Later very well. London is now in containment and all infected people are dead. Now the US Army (who else?) is controlling the perimeter to make sure any eventual survivors can’t leave the city. Strict rules are applied for those who wish to return to their old homes. This all is filmed pretty cool, it reminded me a bit of the Total Recall waiting lines for going to Mars, with all the security measures and all. A family has been dispersed, because two kids were on a trip when trouble broke out and now they return home, to their father: their mother and little brother have perished, so it seems. Soon however, they are gonna search for their old home and they find their mother, not dead but carrying the virus anyway. Now the US Army medical department wants her as a test person to get a cure, but not everyone in the Army is so fond of this idea and when all hell breaks loose again, panic takes over and the soldiers start to fire on every moving thing they see. Together with a rogue sniper and the medic, the brother and sister try to escape the city, but that’s not gonna be an easy task. I enjoyed this film, even though the “zombies” are running ones and I’m pro-slow zombies. Buit the storyline is cool, the effects are good and apart from the fact that

Spoiler:

the father seems a bit too unkillable

it is very much possible to suspense disbelief. Recommended.

Konga - looks like another King Kong rip-off, but has something of it's own too. A famous doctor of a London University comes back from a journey through Africa, he brings back a chimp. He makes the chimp grow with one of his experimental fluids, and all of a sudden the chimp has turned into... a large gorilla. This ape listens to the doctor's oprders, so when the doctor is shunned by the dean, the ape kills the dean. When the doctor is threatened by the research of a competing doctor, that man also dies at the hands of the ape. The list of victims can be made up after scene one of the film (well, almost) because it is 200% predictable. The female housekeeper of the doctor, who married him in the process, is shocked by the developments and she plans to take action. Then the ape breaks loose and then we get the all too familiar King Kong-like scenes, with the army about, lost of shooting (of which 95% seems to miss the not all too small target) and a dramatic apotheosis. Really cool 60s sfx, like plastic carnivorous plants, stop motion change scenes and obviously miniature buildings, this is a nice treat for bad moviefans. So break open that case of beerm invite your friends over and enjoy Konga! I'll rip this one for you all soonish.

Dard Divorce - Ittenbach is famous for his over the top gory films, and this one is no exception. A woman is in a divorce and now is struggling with her husband over the curatorship (?) of the kids. When he takes them off for the weekend, she has a bad feeling and when her dog disappears and her husband is wounded on hr porch crying out thet "They have the children", she begins a search for her son and daughter and ends up in a real nightmare. Really blunt film with a lot of direct violence and torture, it reminded me of Guinea Pig 1 at times, and it made me cringe a little. There are bucketloads of blood again, and also some guys who are trying to make an art out of torturing people. Not for the fainthearted, this journey through hell is quite well made, but it is also partially ruined by the complete lack of acting talent of the main character (sadly, that is Olaf Ittenbach's wife) who is also having trouble with speaking English properly: the heavy German accent never disappears. Same goes for the children, btw. If you like bad movies or are a gorehound, you might enjoy this one.

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! - this has been done several times now, but I can still have fun watching it: a group of hot bitches (strippers/whores/whatever) has to fend off a zombie outbreak. Nice ladies, but not as hot as in Strippers vs Werewolves; good jokes, better than in all films with Strippers in the title; good effects too, also better than all other Stripper films. I laughed out loud a few times and it was not because the film was so bad but because it was funny. The pimp especially made me smile a lot. Don't expect Oscar material (but who does, with a title like this), but it is quite a good film. Recommended, if not highly.

Scared to Death – aka The Aberdeen Experiment. Nice B-movie monsterflick from the 80s. If you have seen Syngenor, then you might recognise the monster in this film: it is a syngenor too, this film was some sort of a prequel to Syngenor. The monster is the result of an experiment and of course it got out of hand: now the cast (who inadvertently suffer from the “illogical-dialogue-disease”) has to run for their lives. A large part of the film consists of running through very dark sewers, chased by the man in the monstersuit. As a neutral viewer, you might think this a boring film, but as a bad moviefan it is mighty enjoyable. So I recommend it for those of you who like B-movies.

E Tanta Paura – aka Plot of Fear. I had seen La tarantola dal ventre nero by Paolo Cavara and I liked that one, so when I could buy this off of a friend, I did. I’m glad I did so, too. It is a pretty complicated giallo, and the plot surprised me again and again. It starts off with a series of murders where the killer leaves a picture from a kid’s fairytale book and every time the way the victim was killed is represented in the picture. So far it is a pretty simple police thriller, but when the cops start to look for clues, they find out more and more about the victims and the surroundings of their deaths. All victims used to be present on a decadent party in a villa, where a girl was murdered. So now the cops have to find out what really happened and of course who is behind all the killings. I guessed the mastermind behind the killings soon enough, but still the plot had some huge surprises in it. With some nice touches of other subgenres, this giallo interested me throughout, although some of the chases could have been shortened a bit. Recommended, one of the better giallos I have seen.

The Vampire Lovers – classic gothic film, which is a co-production between AIP and Hammer. It has everything you expect from a Hammerfilm, a nice and somewhat nostalgic atmosphere, a setting in 19th century Europe, Peter Cushing, some beautiful women and almost bloodless vampire killings. The storyline is far from original, but it is performed well enough. Time and again I was thinking that I had seen this film before, but that wasn’t the case: it simply resembles so many other Hammer vampire films that I was thinking that. However, it was quite enjoyable. Maybe not the best gothic vampire film I have seen, but at least it is in the better half of the genre.

The New York Ripper.

Silent Night – I didn’t have any Xmas horror left which I hadn’t seen yet, but a few weeks ago I saw this rip coming along of Silent Night (2012), which is a nice remake of Silent Night Deadly Night. Again a mad Santa is on his way to brutally kill and maim several people, especially those who “live in sin”. So Santa kills an adulterer, he kills a spoiled girl who hits her mom, he kills a porncrew, etc. etc. Some of those kills are very cool, like the flamethrower kill(s) and the wood chipper kill. The police of the town which is terrorized by Santa, mostly Jaime King and Malcolm McDowell are slowly but steadily unraveling the truth about Santa. I did the guessing game, but it was kind of useless, and that is the biggest drawback of this film: the ending explains only one murder, and everything else in the film is left unexplained. The final fight in the police station is very cool, though: the lighting of it reminded me a bit of Dario Argento. Usually I frown upon remakes, but this one is quite well done.

When The Lights Went Out – British ghost film, presumably based on true events. I never believe that. It plays out in the 70s, 1974 to be exact, and the setting is really cool: I couldn’t find a detail which was off, or anachronistic. Story is quite OK, but it is all pretty predictable too, you know when the door will slam, you know when the ghost will appear, etc, etc. The development of the friendship between Sally and Lucy is nicely done and overall the acting is OK. The different ways to get rid of the ghost are also pretty good, but near the end the film spins out of control. The ending is so dumb

Spoiler:

the good ghost chases off the bad ghost

that you wonder why it had to come to this: it could have been solved ages ago. No explanation as to why it had to wait until 1974, just the ending then. Mediocre, not bad, not really good.

Night Claws – wow, bad acting galore! Dialogue is stupid, and the characters seem to wait a few seconds every time before they reply to someone. So it is like this “I don’t see the problem.” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) “Well, you have to fix it anyway.” They also do very dumb stuff, like jumping in front of the guy with a pointed handgun, shouting “Don’t shoot! It’s me!” The monster is a guy in a furry suit this time, and the effects are really cheesy in this department. There is a plot twist which I didn’t see coming, but it isn’t anything groundbreaking either. So if you are in for a real treat in the bad movie kind of way, then you can safely pick this one.

Minotaur – supposed to be a film adaptation of the Greek myth, but the similarities are scarce: there is a monster (which isn’t even half man half beast) and people nearby have to make a sacrifice to it (of which the numbers are wrong in the film). A hero is gonna kill it, but he does so in a totally different manner and gets help from others. Also, the labyrinth seems natural while it was actually designed and built by Daedalos, Icaros’ father. It was supposed to be a prison for them, but in this film there are several exits, one of them (the famous “the exit on the far side of the labyrinth”) doesn’t even have a door! Apart from these mistakes, there are several other goofs to enjoy, I missed some (read about them later), but I noticed the broken horn of the minotaur is getting way longer when Theo (the hero) plants it into the minotaur’s head: suddenly it is so long it sticks out on the other side of the head. There is a high level of predictability, at one point an actress was even slowing down while speaking, waiting for the bull’s horn to pierce her. Some acting was OK, but some was really overdone, like that of Tony Todd. So you might enjoy this when you like bad movies, but if you are searching for a good film about Greek mythology, keep on searching: this one isn’t it.

The Revenant – cool film! A soldier, Bart, gets killed in Iraq and after his funeral, where his closest friends are devastated for their loss, he climbs out of his grave. He returns home, and his friend Joey. At first Joey has a hard time believing what he sees, but soon he sees the advantages of the situation: since Bart can’t be killed, they start to sweep the streets of LA. They kill robbers, rapists, drug dealers, etc and they become known as the Vigilante Gunslingers. This whole thing is accompanied with a nice dose of humour, there are some great jokes. At some I even laughed out loud, so good job. I really had a good time watching this, even though it was quite long, almost two hours. Some of the twists in the plot were pretty OK, others were a bit dull. The ending was cool, it wasn’t very original in itself, but the road towards this ending was very original. The final scene was nice and a cool way of making full circle with the film. Recommended, maybe even highly.

sounds really interesting, thanks