Shredder – I think this film is a tribute to 80s slashers, because if this is a serious attempt at making a horrorfilm, the makers failed miserably. However, if this is a tribute, then hats off, as it was great fun. In the opening sequence a snowboarding guy gets decapitated: the mood is set. After that, we see the usual group of youngsters going into a skiing area which has been closed up due to murders in the past (wink, wink). Of course, they get warned by locals "not to go there". It doesn’t take long for some others to meet their untimely demise, and one by one they end up in a pool of gore, some in pretty creative manners. Of course the question is again “who is the killer?” and it isn’t too hard to guess, at least in the right direction. The final scene contains again some heavy cliches, so I recommend this to anyone who is gonna watch this as a nice tribute to 80s slashers. Have fun!

Casablanca Express – in the beginning of the 70s, Sergio Martino made some of the best giallos that were ever made, but like most other (Italian) directors, he lost it later in his career. In the 80s, he made some nice films, but they weren’t as good as his 70s work, and this one, from 1989, is a typical Italian B-warmovie. It has a cover where a Stuka divebomber attack is portrayed, but it isn’t anywhere in the film. The story itself is very superficial, with a “twist” which really isn’t a twist. It has some sleazy sexscenes and the nazis are consciousless monsters once more, as the German paratroopers murder almost anything moving while attacking the train where the main character is on, protecting prime minister Churchill on his way to Casablanca. This main character is played by the son of Sean Connery, and one of his fellow actors on this film is the son of Anthony Quinn. The cast is completed by guys like Glenn Ford and Donald Pleasance. I had a good time watching the goofs, but if you want to see a good warfilm, you need to skip this one.

The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave – a nice mixture between giallo and Gothich Italo horror. Alan’s wife Evelyn is dead and he can’t really cope with that. So, to silence his trauma, he brings back home some prostitutes and he tortures them. When that isn’t enough, he remarries, but after a while people start to die around him, and his former wife gets up out of her coffin. Slowly but steadily Alan is losing it. While the atmosphere is more of a 60s Gothic Mario Bava and especially the resurrection of Evelyn enhances that, the twist is very giallo-esque. So while there isn’t a gloved killer, the amount of nudity, the nasty kills and the ending make this very much a giallo. Recommended, especially for fans of the genre.

Sisters of Death - early slasher from 1972, not released until 1977 for some reason. It's storyline is something we would see done more often in later years: pledges are being initiated into a sorority, but something goes horribly wrong and one of them dies. Years after, a reunion is organised and the five girls get together in a mansion in Paso Robles. They have some drinks and a little party, and when the drivers who drove them there join them, it gets better and better. But soon one of the girls turns up dead, and she will not be the only victim... Artmosphere is great, acting is OK, gore is OK too but the main thing you should watch this film for, are the mistakes and goofs. I'll give some examples, as to show why I had great fun watching this: the fence around the mansion is high voltage, and it says so on a sign with a large light on it "current is on when light flashes". The first time the drivers want to get in, and they see the sign being outwards. Later, the party tries to get out, and now the sign is inwards, showing the crew only had one such sign available. When the fence later in the film causue one person to die, this person is electrocuted of course. To show this, some firecrackers are attached to the fence on the spot where the person hits the fence. When the person falls down, however, one firecracker has a delayed exploosion and goes off anyway. And these are just a few examples, so highly recommended for bad moviefans!

Hercules and the Masked Rider - I guess this is a Hercules film just to cash in on the Hercules wave which was around in the beginning of the 60s, because Hercules is a very unimportant character in this film and had he not been there, the story would have been the same. This film is way more about the masked rider, so the title should be inversed, actually. Again, there are oppressed people, bad rulers and a love story where the woman had to marry the bad ruler in order to keep peace. However, she actually loves the masked rider. OK, so there is a lot of fighting and many witty remarks by the masked rider while fighting. Hercules only pops up a few times and then does some musclework. He doesn't say a single word (or maybe I missed it, but it is very few in any case). This was one of the most boring Hercules films I have seen, but since they all have that special feeling, it is still interesting enough, especially for fans of the genre or bad moviefans.

Macabre - not the Bava film, but an Indonesian horror. It's original title is Darah, and it's about a group of friends who are on their way to Jakarta when they see a girl standing on the side of the road in the rain. They bring her to her house, and then they get invited for dinner. They accept and after a while, it turns out that that wasn't such a good decision: the family living in the house is out to kill them all. As one of the visitors is a pregnant woman, they have a special interest for her (baby). Very gory, this film has elements of some pretty well known western films, like TCM and some modern French films. Atmosphere is a bit creepy at times, especially the mother of the family gave me the creeps. The policemen are overly dumb imo, but overall this was unoriginal but nice. And it really has a lot of gore, I can't stretch that enough.

Deadly Blessing - good thing I watched this on the same night as Macabre, as this one really lacked gore. Macabre made up for both, so to say. This one is about a woman living in a superreligious community (they are some sort of Amish, but they are called Hittites - a name I only know as an ancient people from the Middle East). Her husband dies, and the community thinks it is because he rode a devilish machine (a tractor), and they also call the woman an incubus. When she invites some of her friends (one of whom is a young and pretty hot Sharon Stone) over for some moral support, things are getting a bit out of hand. More people die and there is also a Hittite youngster who gets his hormones shaken up by the femalke friends. Atmosphere is OK-ish, but it doesn't really get scary. That doesn't mean this film isn't inhteresting, because it is, but Craven has made much scarier and also better horror films than this one.

Shark Hunter - a megalodon has survived centuries in the ocean, kills off a family and then causes a group of bad actors to converge on a submarine to hunt the "meg" down. Wow, this film had so much bad acting that it was almost a relief when someone got killed. The cast tried to speak English, but since they were Italian/French/Bulgarian for the most part, that was quite a challenge. This made it unintentionally funny, and together with a very big fake shark and some superobvious hints about the plot, this were the ingredientrs for a C-movie. Not so many kills and few shark action were a bit of a letdown: they should be in any sharkfilm, imo. It would have been one of my favouriote bad sharkfilms if there would have been more of it, But since it was lacking, this doesn't come off as more than averagely boring.

Twisted Nerve - 60s thriller with horror elements. It's about Martin, a 21-year old guy who has lost his father, his mother remarried with a guy he dislikes and he has a brother with Down syndrome who lives in an institute. To cope with his emotions, he makes up different personalities and one of them is called Georgie, a small child. When he gets caught stealing a toy, he puts on the Georgie character and thereofre wins the pity of a girl named Susan. After that, he develops an obsession for Susan, following her around and eventually moving into the house she lives in as a "paying guest". There, he treats Susan's mother like she is his mother too and plays with Susan, who doesn't seem to notice that Martin/Georgie isn't as backward as he shows himself. After a while though, he kills his mother's new husband, kickstarting a chain of events which will result in a climactic showdown. Not much gore in this one, but the Martin/Georgie character gave me the creeps in a nice horrorish way. Atmosphere is the winner here, as it sets a nice mood of fear. Acting is great, too. I recommend this one, just keep in mind that it is more the psychological horror type, with almost no gore. But it is a good film, that's for sure.

Homecoming - the Joe Dante episode of MoH. It is a zombiefilm mixed with Wag the Dog, I really liked it. In the midst a campaign for the presiedntial election, one of the spin doctors comes with a quoite on TV about him having a wish: to get the soldiers who are killed in action back home alive, so they can tell everyone about the just cause of the war the US is waging at that time. Instead, the soldiers come hom to vote for the president's opponent, and now the spindoctors have to come up with a solution. More funny than scary, this little film has it's criticism of the Bush administration and to a lesser extent the media piled on in thick layers. It was a bit overdone imo, but it still made a nice 60 minute ride with zombies. Fun.

The Children - every horrorfan I know has his/her favourite subgenre, favourite directors and also his/her scariest type of creature. For me they are ghosts, but the scariest of them all are kids. Kids in horrorfilms always give me the creeps and fine examples of this are Village of the Damned and Who Can Kill a Child? I had never heard of The Children before I saw it for sale for only a few Euros so I gave it a chance. Man, those were the best few Euros I have spent lately! The kids are (pretty) scary and the story, although a bit crappy, has enough action and gore in it to keep you interested. Acting is great, especially by the kids. The bad side is that imo the mothers were extremely stubborn in getting in touch with what was happening. I understand the director wanted to show us the dilemma of survival vs motherly love, but this was overdone a bit. Still, recommended.

House - aka Hausu. Japanese movies are always a bit weird in my opinion, and this one is pretty weird too. It's about a girl who has a fight with her father over summer vacation, as he wants to bring his new girlfriend and she doesn't like that. So she heads out to her aunt's place and brings her sic best friends over. These girls all have strange names like Prof, Mac, Sweetie, Fantasy, etc. This because they have a certain characteristic which is exaggerated and represented in the name (Prof is the clever girl, Fantasy always imagines things which aren't really there, etc.). When they arrive, the aunt appears in a wheelchair and welcomes all the girls. Later on, the aunt can stand up and the cat does weird stuff too. Strange things continue to happen and from a certain point the girls get killed one by one, most of them by something which is related to their characteristic, for example Melody, the musical girl, gets killed by the piano. The ending is a catharsis in an ironic way. This film is not only weird because of standard Japanese strangeness, but also because many visual styles are mixed in this film. Sometimes it is cool, sometimes it is a bit weird. It wasn't as good as I expected, but it is certainly something special.

Jenifer - the Argento MoH episode. It's about a policeman who saves a woman's life. This woman, Jenifer, has a deformed face, and when the cop finds out that she is in an asylum, he takes her home until he finds a better place to live for her. Due to her looks this turns out to be hard, so hard that it seems that she has to live with the cop's family. This is too much for the wife and kid, so they move out eventually, while the cop tries to save Jenifer. She on the other hand turns out to be quote aboguous: on one hand she is a hot girl horny as hell and having sex very often, on the other hand she has a very weird habit which is very hazardous to life around her. The ending was very predictable. The selling point of this short is the music, it is superb! Visually it is not as stunning as Argento's earlier work, but the music really makes up for that. So go listen to this one, and maybe take a look too.

Don’t Panic – Michael gets a Ouija board fopr his birthday and when they start playing, his friend Tony gets possessed by a demon called Virgil (wow, cool name for a demon) and then starts killing people all over the place. These kills aren’t very spectacular: you don’t get to see any of them happening, just the results. The gore is decent, though. In the meantime, Michael is developing a love relationship with Alexandra, a girl with one large eyebrow (this isn’t part of the story, the actress just looks like that). In the end, he has to confront Tony and try to put an end to the killing. The ending is quite original, but the final shots are very, very corny. The cast is Mexican, and they are almost all B-grade and lower. Some of them look surprised almost all the time. Or indifferent and emotionless, when a victim’s body is found. I had great fun, but this is really only for bad moviefans.

Progeny – a doctor and his wife are having trouble to get children, and when one day it turns out the wife is pregnant, they are exhilarated. However, the doctor keeps having dreams about spaceships and alien abduction. He and his wife were both “lost” for two hours on the day of the conception, too. The doctor tries to unravel this mystery, but his wife doesn’t want to cooperate, as she is afraid to lose her baby. With all kinds of therapy, hypnosis even, the doctor makes his way to the solution. When he sees his future child on the monitor at the first echo, he is convinced it isn’t his child and he sets out to save his wife. Quite atmospheric, but also too slow paced, this film has something, but doesn’t really cut it. The aliens look cool and the plot twist is great imo, but thew rest of the film tends to be boring at times. Not the best Brian Yuzna I have seen, but it wasn’t a complete waste of time either.

Anamorph – not really a horror, this film is more a police thriller with some horror aspects. It made me think of Silence of the Lambs, but it’s more straightforward, simpler. It doesn’t have the imprisoned killer in the advisory role, for example. What it does have is a killer who turns his victims into artworks, and he also appears to be the Uncle Eddie killer the police assumed to be dead for years. A veteran detective, who also worked on the Uncle Eddie case, gets the job of catching this guy. It takes him a while before he finds out what the killer’s message is, but when he does, it enables him to go after the killer. The plot had a nice outcome, but the ending was also somewhat weird:

Spoiler:

it is quite an open ending, as you don’t get to see if the detective survives. The last victim however, is very much dead

and that was pretty original and I liked that. Good film, nothing spectacular but entertaining enough.

Sweet Karma – a Russian girl goes after the guys who first lured her sister to Canada, then forced her into prostitution and finally killed her. She is some sort of angel of vengeance, comparable to Foxy Brown or The Bride. A modern revengefilm in which the revenge isn’t done by the one who was abused, but by her sister. To infiltrate, she goes really far and when inside, she starts to take out everyone involved with the human trafficking of her sister. Some of the kills are OK, but others are pretty plain. Near the end, there are some nice surprises and plottwists which I didn’t see coming. Well done, it gave the film that little extra to make it more special. Recommended.

Zombibi – Dutch zombie comedy (it says zomedy on the cover…). I must say I had some fun watching this, but there were a lot of “local” jokes only Dutch people would understand and it also had some other drawbacks. Acting. Again, this is a problem. Some people are overacting all the way through, up to and over the point where it gets ridiculous. Almost all the actors have that exaggerated pronunciation of the Dutch language nobody ever uses in reality. Again, it is apparently necessary that the group of people who are the “heroes” consists of both negroes and Moroccans and a white girl, like we have to overemphasize that we have a multicultural society. And the humour is quite childish at times. But still, I had fun. Why? Because some of the jokes were actually funny, because the gore is great (although the green stuff looks extremely fake, even for zombiegore), the cgi is (very) well done for a change, Ravelli is hot and Jan Doense has a cameo as a zombie. He is some sort of godfather of horror in the Netherlands, so that was funny. Only for Dutch people, and I think I had also fun because this was the last film in a row and it was already very late

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer – this movie is a prequel to the Stephen King series of Rose Red. I haven’t seen Rose Red yet, and according to what I read I chose the best watching order. This film is about Ellen, who marries a rich oil tycoon named John Rimbauer. He builds her a house called Rose Red. Already on their hineymoon trip, Ellen experiences a darker side of John, and when back home, they experience that the house seems to have an own conscience: people disappear and whispering goes through the corridors. Although most things Ellen discovers have nothing to do with horror (more with drama), the ending has a somewhat horror-ish feeling. I sincerely hope that Rose Red has more horror in it. This film was actually a bit boring.

Trancers – wtf was this? A scifi which is more an actionflick with a young Helen Hunt. She is doing a good job with the rubbish she had to deal with (the script). In the future, a cop is sent back to 1985 to stop Whistler, a criminal. This guy wants to lay his hands on a certain forefather to prevent future events., and Jack Deth, as the cop is called, has to prevent that. Sounds messy and it is, too. The futuuristic stuff is only a box and the cop being teleported and some scenes in the beginning, but if you n\blink twicfe you won’t notice that this is a scifi. Bad, but scifi fans might have fun with it.

Movies I tried to watch today: Dracula: Reborn
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2320030/

What can I say? If this was an Asylum movie I'd be now very interested, which movie this one was mocking. But to tell the truth... most Asylum movies are even better than this one.

The Fourth Kind - read a lot of bad stuff about this film, but I could buy this for a very low price, so I gave it a chance. I must say I understand the bad stuff I read, but it isn't all bad. The weird thing about this film is that it has some very creepy scenes, in which I felt a chill going down my spine, only to descend in to totally unbelievable rubbish the scene after. So, in my opinion, very good scenes were alternated with very bad ones. Some films take away all tension by showing too much, and this film is almost the other extreme: this one shows too little. Everytime something exciting is about to happen, the image gets scrambled so you don't see shit. You can hear, though and that makes up for it a bit. The "reality" stuff should have been skipped, because 10 seconds of Googling shows you that it is all fake, even though strange things have happened in the town of Nome irl. Jovovich does a good job, but her hysteria is the same in all movies I have seen with her, so I kept thining of Joan of Arc while she was under hypnosis in this film. All in all this isn't a masterpiece but it has some interesting features.

The Swarm - I guess this is one of the longest 70s films I have seen, and it isn't a good thing. Two and a half hours is way too much for a plot like this one: mutated killer bees take over an ICBM site and then threaten to overrun all of Texas. There is a stellar cast with actors like Michael Cain and Henry Fonda, but it is pretty poor what they have to work with. Katharine Ross provides some necessary eyecandy, and some of the effects arfe quite cool, like the hallucinations. But there are also a lot of dumb mistakes, like when the swarm of bees down a couple of helicopters. They simply get some bees on their windshield and the are "out of control". Yeah, right. Also there are some classic goofs, like Cain and Ross coming out of a room in a hallway: when they are filmed on the back, going out of the room, the hallway is engulfed in flames. Yet when they are filmed from the front, continuing their way thorugh the corridor, all flames are gone from there. So as a bad movefan you can have your fun. If this film would have been 90-100 minutes, it would have been OK. Now it is just an odyssey to sit through.

Godsend - Paul and Jessie Duncan lose their 8-year old son and just before the funeral they are approached by a doctor who says he can make him come back from the dead with some cloning technique. They go for it and they move into a new home, far from relatives and former friends and they get new jobs. Everything seems to be fine with the new Sam, he is the ideal kid and all memories from the old Sam are locked away, to not confuse the new one. When the new Sam becomes 8 years old, he starts to become a little less ideal. Weird stuff starts to happen, and when Paul thinks the doctor wants a permanent place in their lives, he starts investigating. After a while he finds information which puts the entire thing in a new context. What starts out as a supernatural thriller, turns into a science fiction in the literal sense of the word (so no aliens etc, but fictional science). The stpory is quitye good, and Robert de Niro acts fine as the doctor, but there are also some flaws which make this somewa\hat less a success. The kid who plays Sam 2 can't really play the "good Sam" very well, and the worst thing is the ending which seems to be made in one day or something. Some aspects of the plot are explained quickly and then

Spoiler:

the family moves into a new home

and BAM, the end. This leaves you with an unsatisfied feeling, even though there were some creepy scenes in the film and the plot isn't all too bad. It is just not so well executed.

Dead Birds - a little surprise every now and then keeps my interest in horror very much alive. This film is one of those surprises. It has a plot which seems quite incomprehensible, but it is not., You just need to pay attention thoughout the film (soemething which I didn't do 100%, so I missed some clues) and then you will find out how it will end. I liked it, although it isn't entirely original.

Spoiler:

The whole "you are already a monster but you just don't know it yet" thingy is taken from The Sixth Sense, but this one is cooler, imo

This film is set during the Civil War and a bunch of bankrobbers take refuge in an old plantation house. There, they encounter several supernatural beings and one by one they start to disappear. When their loot disappears too, the remaining few set out on a search with catastrophical consequences. Pro tip: look closely for hints about the plot, it will make the viewing experience more fun. I really enjoyed this one, recommended, maybe even highly.

Battle Royale II: requiem - a sequel that I didn't like. The story is simple: BR has failed to make Japan's youth any better, and terrorism has gone on the rise because the survivor of BR has formeda group of kids around him who fight against all adults. So, a new law is passed: BR II. The terrorists are on an island, and that island gets invaded by a new batch of rioting students. The opening scenes are promising, except for the teacher, who may not even kiss the shoes of Takeshi Kitano (who did this part in BR 1). After they arrive on the island, however, it gets boring and repetitive. They all have automatic weapons and they look like soldiers, so it becomes a pretty average warmovie instead of a cynical approach to the youngsters-adults conflict, which was so nicely portrayed in BR 1. The filmmakers tried to put in a layer of criticism on American warfare around the globe, but they smackerd it on so bluntly, that it is annoying. The result is a bunch of very moralistic speeches inbetween the fights and it doesn't make the movie any better. The film is also way too long: over two hours. It gets boring rather fast, so I started doing other things while it played in the background. I never do that when the movie is at least somewhat interesting or funny. I'm glad I only paid 2 Euros or something for this. I recommend everyone to skip this one and if you want some Battle Royale, then rewatch part one.

Scorpion with Two Tails - aka Assassinio al cimitero etrusco. A 1982 film by Sergio Martino whom I admire as one of the best giallo makers from the 70s. Like most others, he started losing it during the 80s and this movie is an example of that. The cover art is great, and probably the best thing about this film, although atmosphere is good too and it has that typical Italoian horro vibe all over it. Acting is not so great, but there are many genre favourites to enjoy, like John Saxon

Spoiler:

who dies 10 minutes into the film - lol

Elvire Audray, Paolo Malco, Claudio Cassinelli and Franco Garofalo. The storyline has many subplots like in a giallo. Actually, I had several times when I thought the film was over, and then a new subplot was coming up, sometimes only slightly related to the main story. In the effects department the limited budget is showing: in the cavefights the polystyrene "rocks" are dancing around. However, I had fun watching this, as I love Italo horror and this is a fine example. The film has some good stguff and some bad, and thereofre this can be seen as a showcase of the transition Martino made from a giallo genius to a B-moviemaker. Recommended for Italo fans.

MaximXul – a police detective has trouble with his reputation of being the son of a famous policeman, so when a series of murders is committed in Baltimore, he is determined to solve the crimes. His girlfriend, a reporter, wants to make a career too, so she starts investigating with a partner, in order to get to know more about the case. All victims are punched excessively, and even after the fatal blow, more blows are dealt. Both the detective and his girlfriend get closer to the solution, but they can’t solve it without the help of a mysterious professor called Marduk, who tells the detective about ancient demons, one of them is called Maxim Xul. It is this demon who is doing the killing. Around halftime you should know who the demon is, if not even before that, as the plot is very predictable. It is so mpredictable that you could even start to doubt and think “No, it can’t be that”, but then yes: it is that. Acting is wooden and most of the dialogue seems to be read aloud from some cueboard. Effects are OK-ish, although most kills are in the dark or offscreen. The demonic thing is plain and simple, without any effects (it is simply a demon “in human form”). Bad film, might be entertaining for bad moviefans.

Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold – since the cover portrayed some scantily clad blonde with a whip and a sword, I was in for some nice exploitation. I was had. It is some sort of a kid’s adventure film with cowboys and “bad Mexicans”: a gang with comancheros and the army, lead by an evil colonel whose character acts pretty gay. There are also some indians, but they get really mixed up: there are Mayans, Aztecs, Apaches and other North American tribes all living in the same area. It has a lot, but it doesn't have a scantily clad blonde with a whip and a sword. Bummer. The film is presented like an episode from a series, I don’t know why and it felt a bit dumb and redundant. There is a secret treasure guarded by indians, there are high priests doing sacrifices, and there are the evil Mexicans trying to steal the gold treasure and of course there are Yellow Hair and her friend the Pecos Kid. A lot of fighting, some chases with horses and some nice shots of the landscape. But nothing really interesting, only some stuff for bad moviefans, like the religious statues from the indians.

The Carrier – a village called Sleepy Rock gets to deal with a mysterious disease. A guy who already is an outcast in many ways, gets atacked by a dark creature and now he is infected. Whenever he touches something, that object gets infected too, and when someone else touches the infected object, he will disappear into thin air. Of course a panic breaks out and of course all roads out of town are barred and there is some kind of storm coming up. OK, so let’s take a huge pill of suspense of disbelief and then you’re ready to go. The townspeople dress up in plastic as to not get infected or dissolve, and then they go searching for The Carrier, the source of the disease. This takes the rest of the film to achieve. The ending is not too cliche, but overall this isn’t really great, as a lot of acting is B-grade at best and although the effects are nice enough, they don’t succeed in letting the film grab you or leave a lasting impression. Maybe for bad moviefans.

Cyborg Cop - I started watching this film, and some 10 minutes in I recognised what ws going on, so I checked here and I had posted here in 2007 that I had seen it on TV. I don't remember much of it, except that it was suitable for bad moviefans. It had a lot olf explosions and gadget stuff, like ikn the BBB movies. But, since I had already seen it, I switched it for something else.


Poltergeist III - Carol Anne has moved into her uncle's and aunt's house in Chicago. They live in a skyscraper and they also work there (on different levels). Everything seems OK, buit it's not: the ghosts have followed Carol Anne to Chicago and now they haunt her on all floors of the building: mirrors crack, temperatures drop, and her uncle doesn't knolw what to do about it (he is some sort of a caretaker of the building). It was nice to see a good cast with Tom Skerritt and Lara Flynn Boyle (in her first feature film), and they were acting quite good, but this film wasn't so scary. Also, there were a lot of easily spotted goofs, like

Spoiler:

the icy cars: the drover is clearly visible

Tangina the medium returns to save Carol Anne once more, but the way how it is done was a bit disappointing, so this series goes out like a nightcandle (is that an existing expression?), after a superb part one and a great sequel, this third part is not so good. As a standalone film it is slightly better than average, as it has some scary moments, like

Spoiler:

the hand out of the desk which trhows the coffee mug through the mirror

but it simply not enough to make a good film.


Prey - Bridget Moynahan is a stepmother who is on a safari with her two stepchildren. When their giude gets attacked and killed by lions, they are stranded in the car, with the keys right outside., But the lions are still there, so it gets a bit hard to grab them. This is a film which could have been called "Stupidity in Africa". Let's play a little game about this film:

When the guide is just killed, you
A) duck and keep quiet so the lions might lose interest and go away
B) sit behind the windows, looking out and screaming the hell out of your lungs

When you finally get the car keys, you
A) return to the road and drive to safety
B) don't look where you're going, just bumping away deeper into the middle of nowhere

When it starts raining while you're all deeply thirsty, you
A) get your empty bottle and try to fill it with rainwater
B) try to get some drops on your hands so you can take a few sips

When a lion is attacking your car, and you think of slamming in the gasolinetank (which is filled top the brim btw, even after all this driving) to make fire, you
A) make a torch to drive off the lion
B) blow up the entire car, the only means of transportation for miles around

OK, when you have all A, you are declared sane by me now, and you might enjoy this film for it's flaws. If you have all B, you might think this film is realistic.

All "B". Does that mean I´m insane or just stupid?

Hehe, go watch Prey and find out

Yesterday, I watched

Teenage Exorcist - horrorcomedy with a lot of lame, and some funny humour. Brinke Stevens is a girl looking for a job at a university and to get it, she has to live close to it. So she rents an old and creepy apartment, where the landlord is in quite a hurry to get out before dark. At night, she hears voices and other weird stuff happens. Her sister and her sister's lover come over, and by the time they arrive, Brinkle's character has been possessed by a demon already. The guy who loves her also arrives and a priest is brought in to cast out the demon. This priest however, is too busy to fend off the zombies right outside the house to bother with exorcising the demon. It's raining cliches and quotes from other films in this one. Some of the quotes are from other horrofilms but I even heard some Spaceballs quotes coming by. I think the Scary Movie makers have seen this one too to get some inspiration for their lame jokes. Not a gripping film as it got harder and harder for me to keep interest. But if you're looking for some brainless fun, you can easily watch this one.

Murder Obsession – aka Follia Omicida. Riccardo Freda’s last completed film (he filmed this when he was 70 years old). It’s a mix between a giallo and an Italo gothic horror. It has several genre favourites, like Silvia Dionisio, Anita Strindberg, John Richardson and Laura Gemser. It’s about an actor who has a temper problem. When he was a child, he had already committed a murder after which he has been treated for his problems and now he is gonna visit his ill mother with his girlfriend and some crewmembers of his latest film. Soon after their arrival strange things start happening and people start dying. The actor now fears his treatment might have failed… Atmosphere is a bit weird, but it feels great! Acting is OK, but the English dub makes it seem wooden at times, as the lip movement is by far not synchronised. The effects are mostly laughable: the big plastic spider is so fake you have to see it to believe it, the plastic bats hang from visible wires and one kill is when an axe ends up in a paper mache head (also too fake for words). Fun for bad moviefans, and also quite a must see for Italo fans.

Girl Slaves of Morgana Lefay – 70s French softporn exploitation, so you can expect a lot of lesbian action, many tits, some medieval bondage action and as a bonus you get some fantasy world, a dwarf and a secret set of talismans. Anna and Francpoise travel the countryside and run out of gas. They end up in a bar where there are only staring mute locals. That night, they “sleep” in a haystack, amnd next morning Anna is gone. Francoise is gonna look for her and she ends up in the fantasy world where Morgana rules. Francoise finds out that she gets a choice in Morgana’s world: eternal life plus total obedience, or free will and a normal life of aging and dying. It seems to her that Anna has chosen already. Nice shots, camera work is very nice, but this film has that French weirdness all over it too, which means that it isn’t a good film. Although I must say I enjoyed this film better than Rollin films, where I got bored several times. If you like exploitation, this is an easy pick.

Deathdream – aka Dead of Night. Andy is a soldier in Vietnam and when he gets killed, he returns home. Nothing out of the ordinary, you might say, but Andy returns as if he is still alive. So in fact he is a zombie: not a living dead zombie, but a Haitian type zombie. At first his family only notices that he doesn’t say much, but when he goes out in search for blood, things start to get messy (literally). Although he is a zombie in searfch of blood, this film is more a drama than a horror, imo. The way his family deals with the fact he quickly deteriorates is quite interesting and it aslso has some horror aspects of course, but it isn’t your everyday gory bloodshow. Cool detail is that this film was Tom Savini’s first sfx project, and you can see them shine in the final scenes of Deathdream. This film didn’t bring what I had expected, but it had a good atmosphere and an original plot and ending, so I was satisfied when it was finished after all. Be prepared for something out of the ordinary and you’ll be fine, for those I recommend this one.

Shadow – the directorial debut of Italian director Zampaglione. It’s a bit of a weird film. Jake Muxworthy, whose performance I already liked in Borderland, plays the lead role as an ex-soldier who returns from the war in Iraq and goes biking in the mountains to get away from it all. That is hardly possible, as some hunters are harassing him and Angeline, a girl he met in the mountains. While they are trying to avoid the hunters, they end up in an unknown area, where a mysterious killer hangs around. The killer stuff in this film is quite gruesome, with some gory torture. However, this part isn’t the mainpart of the film. Actually the film starts out like Bloodtrails, or Bosque de Sombras, then changes into some sort of a Saw-like film and the ending is a surprise and made me think of movies like

Spoiler:

The Others

Nice debut, I’m curious about what this guy will make later.

Demon Lover – aka The Summoned. This is more a softporn with a horror touch than a horror. A woman called Jenny has a cheating husband, almost no friends and a shitty boss at an even shittier job. When a new woman is moving in next door, she gets to know her pretty soon and Jenny, her friend and the new neighbour are having a seance. After this, Jenny gets visits in her bedroom by an invisible entity, making her having some nice orgasms. She also has sensual dreams of steamy hot sex in a white world with some strange man. In the meantime, her husband gets suspicious, and also people start dying: Jenny’s friend is among them. The police starts investigating Jenny’s husband, but when he is attacked, the cops know they will have to look elsewhere. Will they ever find out what’s going on? The softpornscenes aren’t so bad, as the Jenny character has a nice rack. But trhe rest of the film is really B-grade: te cop has all the wrong clothing, the “demon” is a guy with a rubber mask and the appearances are made by shadows on the wall… Good fun for bad moviefans, although image- and soundquality are bad at times (I watched the UK disc).

Bait – sharkfilm in an Australian supermarket. While the storyline of this one has some great aspects (and even a hint of originality, with the setting), the cgi spoils it. I admit that the cgi department didn’t deliver rubbish, but a lot of stuff just looks too fake. Sometimes just a tad, sometimes the fakeness hits you in the face. Shame, as it could have been a great film in it’s (sub)genre. Josh is a lifeguard together with his buddy Rory. One day, when he has a hangover, Rory takes over his buoy guarding and then he gets eaten by a shark,. This trauma causes Josh to turn into himself, and thus driving off his fiancée Tina. One year later, a tsunami hits the beaches where Josh lives, and he gets trapped inside a supermarket with a few others, among which is Tina and her new boyfriend from Singapore. They have to deal with several threats: the criminals who just wanted to rob the supermarket when the tsunami hit, the electrical cables which almost hit the water and the sharks who go tinto the supermarket with the tsunami. Although there are several goofs, the acting is OK and the way the people try to solve their problems is also quite interesting. Some stuff is quite predictable, but hey, this is a monsterflick after all. Really, shame on the cgi, otherwise this would have been one of the better sharkfilms I know.

The Abandoned – a Russian born, British raised woman from America returns to Russia after a notary has found out about her whereabouts, as she has inherited the old farm where she was born. She has to go through some trouble to get there as it is kind of remote, and when it gets dark, her driver doesn’t notice her in the woods and drives off. On her own now, she goes into the farm, where she meets a man and it turns out that he is her twin brother. Together they go and find out why they are both there at the same time, a few days before their birthdays. Soons ome creerpy figures in the house help the mto solve this puzzle. I love this film! Nice atmosphere, good acting and original storyline, which goes up and down and doesn’t give too many hints at where it is going. Therefore the ending isn’t too predictable, but not totally unguessable either. Recommended, I might even say highly.

White Skin – aka La peau blanche. French-Canadian film about a guy called Thierry who hates redheads, but when he meets Claire, he totally falls for her, even though she has fiery hair. She is a very weird girl and Thierry’s friend Henri doesn’t trust her one bit, so he is gonna investigate and finds out what Claire and her family are really like. The storyline is quite original, but it takes it’s time to grow on you, and abvout halftime in the film things start to get interesting. I was very annoyed by the ugly French-Canadian accents in the film, but that’s personal I guess. It’s a huge difference from French French at least. The development of the plot is cool, as is the ending, I really liked that. Original twist on something which has been done before, just not in this way. Recommended, just keep on going if you don’t really like the first 45 minutes.