The Barge People - English horror which tries to breathe the atmosphere of the 80s and it succeeds partially. The opening credits are in a vintage style and I liked it, the story is pretty simple and straightforward: two couples, of which the women are sisters, are gonna have a weekend on a barge, cruising down a canal. The canal is haunted, there are some creatures living in and around it and they are on an eternal hunt for human flesh. The obnoxious guy on the barge is always handling his phone (this is where the film loses its vintage modus) until they collide with another barge. The people on that one are angry and when the two couples are anchoring at a pub, things look grim when the crew from the other barge comes in... This film gave me TCM vibes and it can actually be viewed as a modern British take on that story. You will know what I mean especially at the end of the film. Acting is decent, I was happy with the subs my disc had because some of the characters were hard to follow just on audio. Kills were sometimes off screen but sometimes they were centerpiece, there is plenty of gore once things get going. I had fun although it lacked originality plotwise.

Hands of the Ripper - Hammerfilm from the early 70s. It starts out with Jack the Ripper (the name Jack isn't mentioned but people shout "It's the ripper!" so it's pretty obvious who we are dealing with) committing a murder and running home where his wife finds out his murderous identity. In the playpen their baby witnesses the gruesome consequence of her mother's discovery. Jumping forward in time, a doctor is taking care of an orphaned young girl who was found in a room with a member of parliament and a dead body. The doctor wants to study her mind, he is a follower of Freud and wants to know what is behind her behaviour. The girl gets into situations with dead bodies more often, and slowly but steadily the doctor finds out how things are happening. This film does what Hammer does best: great atmosphere, great acting (especially the doctor and the member of parliament but also many smaller roles) and therefore is a good example of a Hammer horror. Story is interesting enough but it's mostly the aforementioned qualities which will keep you watching. Recommended.

Diagnosis Death - Australian film described as a horrorcomedy. A schoolteacher gets diagnosed with cancer and has only a few weeks to live. His last chance is to participate in an experiment for a new drug against cancer, he will get the new drug, the control medicine or the placebo so small chance will get the correct cure and even smaller he will survive. In the hospital he meets a 17-year old girl and they bond in their misery: both being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Together they find out that a pretty famous female author died in the hospital presumably committing suicide, and piece by piece they reconstruct what actually happened to her. There are kills in flashback, there are ghosts but the sfx for them are B-grade and the plot is pretty predictable, you can see it coming from miles away. The comedy part is very modest, a few jokes of which some are ok and others are rather cheesy. Film takes place in mostly one location and revolves around just three characters, in the acting and the script they try to lift the film above its level but they don't really succeed. I have seen worse but this is nothing special, about average.

The Shallows - sharkfilm taking place on a secluded beach in Mexico. Blake Lively is Nancy, a med school student who is going to surf in the "secret spot" to get away from home after her mother died. After doing some runs, she encounters a wounded whale which has attracted sharks. Nancy gets attacked and in order to survive she has to take shelter on a small rock. The tide is rising though, and it will mean the rock she is on will be submerged. In order to evade the shark she has to go for a different hiding spot but the shark is still around. Lively carries this film, there are about ten other characters but she is the film, together with the shark. A strongpoint of the film is that you only get to see the shark a few times, which enhances the fear of the animal. The sharks are partially cgi but pretty well done and Lively does a superb job in acting. Some things are well done but aren't repeated consistently, like the pain the salt water  in her wounds causes: after the first time it doesn't seem to harm her (or she got used to it which I doubt). The loneliness is very well portrayed and also quite realistic. Nancy starts talking to herself and to a wounded seagull while trying to get to safety. Some options arise for help but they aren't very successful. Nice film, great acting and atmosphere. One of the better sharkfilms I have seen, recommended.

Maciste, gladiator of Sparta - a peplum with Mark Forest as Maciste, an invincible gladiator who not only beats waves of opponents but is also being desired by a Roman princess. When he encounters a blonde woman chased by soldiers, he kills one and chases off the other one. He falls in love with the blonde girl and she turns out to be a christian. From here on out the film functions as some sort of propaganda tool for (early) christianity, as of course Maciste is gonna help the innocent christians from being persecuted by those awful, bloodthirsty Romans, who are an exaggerated caricature of themselves in this film. Acting is mediocre at best, the fights are what you expect with people falling over into the wrong direction, before they get hit, etc. There is a man in a monkeysuit to top things off. Mildly entertaining, but there are way more hilarious peplums out there and way less cringy ones.

Legacy of Evil - aka The Possession of Michael D. This is a typical 90s horror which doesn't really wanna reveal the fact that it is a horror. So there is a lot of beating around the bush, lots of talking and almost no horror action. Rather boring actually and the story doesn't make up for it: it's a dime a dozen plot about a guy being sort of possessed because he inherited it from his dad (didn't know it was a genetic thing, lol). There is a fun appearance by Phylicia Rashad, of Cosby Show fame, but other than that this film has very little going for itself. I got duped by the backside mentioning "Mike is possessed by a powerful demon bent on destroying him and his new family" but the demon is among the tamest I have ever seen on the big screen. Avoid this film and instead go for something that is actually trying to scare you.

La Casa di Mary - aka Superstition. Although the title is Italian, this isn't an Italian movie, just Italian import (the movie is Canadian). A young couple is making out in a car close to an infamous mansion when they get scared. It turns out to be a prank, but the pranksters meet their demise in the mansion after the couple has fled. They aren't the first victims of the mansion or the "black pond" behind it. The church is the official owner of the property and they have several people working there as janitors as some kind of social project. One of them becomes the suspect of the disappearances but then he disappears himself. The police urges the church to help them in their search for the guy but in the meantime more people get to know the supernatural powers surrounding the house. It turns out that in 1692 a witch was drowned in the pond and after all these centuries her spirit is still very much present... Typical 80s horror with many kills and gory deaths, acting is OK but atmosphere is lacking a bit: the witch isn't very scary. The ending is also very typical for an 80s horror so if you are into films from that era you can safely put on this one.

Il mostro della strada di campagna - aka And Soon The Darkness. Another Italian import film, this one is an English/French co-production. The story is about two English girls going on a cycling vacation in France. One is out to have fun and enjoy herself as much as possible, the other one is a bit more serious and wants to reach certain goals in cycling so as to make the most out of their holiday. When they get into a small fight about what to do next, they split up and when the serious girl has travelled a bit alone and then returns to reunite with her friend this friend is missing. A guy on a motorbike seems to have followed them and he is now offering his help, but can she trust him? With ehr limited knowledge of the French language she is trying to put the pieces together and find her friend, but she also has to watch out for herself. Pretty minimalistic film and also very slow. It's a typical summer movie, where you don't have to pay much attention in order to be able to follow the plot. If you want action and/or gore then this is not for you. It had a very giallo-esque feeling over it, with the mystery of the missing girl and several red herrings as to what had actually happened. Nice film, not sure if I will watch it again though.

We Are What We Are - aka Somos Lo Que Hay. Mexican film about an atypical family who have to deal with the death of the father. After his passing away a new leader has to be appointed and a ritual has to continue. It is left a bit unclear what the ritual is, but if you read the synopsis you already know: it is the catching of humans and the preparation of their flesh for the family to eat. An unpopular policeman receives a tip from the morgue where they did an autopsy on the father's body, so he starts an investigation to find the cannibal family. After several discussions and failed attempts at catching a human, the family seems to have found the way into their future, but the police are hot on their heels. A pretty dark film, both literally and figuratively speaking. The relationship between the family members is nicely portrayed, I thought it was a clever way of showing that (at least after the father's death) it's the women who run the show. The ending was predictable but still OK. A remake of this was made in the US three years later.

Mercy - based on a Stephen King story, this film is about George, a boy whose grandmother is his best friend. He gets bullied but she teaches him to stand up for himself. When he gets older his grandmother has to be taken care of in her own house after she gets dismissed from the nursing home she was in. So he, his brother and their mother move in with her, but strange things are happening and slowly but surely they find out that grandmother isn't simply an old woman. George gets drawn into a fight against creatures from the underworld and in the meantime he has to make sure his family members stay alive. Whereas the occult part of this story was quite interesting, the ending was very cringe and it ruined the film at least partially. Acting is OK (George is played by Chandler Riggs of Walking Dead fame and his mother is played by British-Australian sweetheart Frances O'Connor) and effects are pretty well done. Some stuff in the story feels a bit superfluous but it's not a problem really. If you manage to press Stop 2 minutes before the film ends you will have a good time.

The Devil's Candy (2015): Story about a family that moves into a new house whose previous owners were murdered. Not much later the father who is an artist is hearing voices (of the devil? maybe. spoiler: it is never explained) and starts painting creepy pictures in the garage of the house. Then the son of the previous owners who is also hearing the same voices shows up and starts attacking the family. He is focused on killing children as sweet food for the devil - hence the title of the movie. I watched this because it was on TV and it had a solid rating of 6.4 for a horror movie on IMDb. Now I don't really understand this good rating. I was pretty disappointed by the movie. It was lacking in all aspects: character development, explanation of the story and scariness. My rating is 3 out of 10.

Longlegs (2024): I watched this in the cinema the other day. This is about a serial killer called Longlegs that seems to kill entire families that have a child that was born on the 14th of a month. He leaves a cryptic letter behind at each scene, but doesn't leave any traces whatsoever making the FBI think that he somehow manipulates the families into killing themselves. Then a young FBI agent with some psychic abilities is assigned to the case and it is soon revealed that she shares a common past with the serial killer. Well this was a good movie imho but not so good that you should compare it to Se7en as some others did. Nicolas Cage plays Longlegs and he is awesome in the role. I like the setting, cinematography and the mood of the movie. What I didn't like was that a lot of things are not explained, what happens with Longlegs and the twist at the end felt a bit weird and unsatisfying.

Nice to see some new reviews, keep mit up!

Lo Spettro - aka The Ghost, 1963 film by Riccardo Freda with Barbara Steele. She is the wife of a crippled man, Dr Hichcock who has found out his own cure: he needs to be injected with poison from time to time in order to heal. The only doctor who is willing to do this, is a handsome young man, Dr Livingstone and of course he has an affair with Hichcock's wife. Love the names btw, not cocky at all He of course has control over the amount of poison they use and when he is using a little bit too much, they bury him and are ready for the inheritance. However, after his death they hear sounds and see things, is the doctor really dead? Or did he rise from his grave to haunt his murderers? Atmosp[heric little film, I liked the acting, it was great. The plot is predictable, and if you are looking for hardocre horror this is not for you. It's up there with the Hammer films, although they usually have a slightly different atmosphere. I enjoyed it, that's for sure.

Die Sister, Die! - the cover of this DVD shows two babes, one holding a razor to the other's throat. This is entirely misleading, as the picture is both too modern and not showing anything related to the content of this film. In this regard the more famous film poster with the red dressed blondine running the gauntlet with zombie arms stretching out to her is not much better: it likewise has nothing to do with the film itself. Actually the plot of this 1978 film is similar to that of Lo Spettro which I watched yesterday, only this time it's an elderly woman who is the target of a murder scheme and it's her brother plotting it with a waitress whom he hires as a nurse to his sister (and to spy on her in the meantime). There isn't much action, the quality of the image is limited and the acting is nothing special. I had hoped for something more slasherlike, but this isn't it. The family secret which is unraveled during the film is something you can see coming from miles away, so no surprises there. Very tame and mediocre, I'd skip this if I knew what I was in for.

The Shout - weird film, with an atypical chronology. After we have seen the ending with a nurse entering a room to check on some deceased men, we see an insane asylum where a young Tim Curry (in his third feature film) is visiting a cricketmatch. He gets into a conversation with Charles Crossley, a man who used to travel around. Charles tells him about one of his adventures in which he invades a marriage with devastating consequences, in this story he also reveals he has learned a skill with which he can kill by using "the shout". Another psychological horror, and maybe it was simply because I wasn't in the mood for it after having seen Lo Spettro and Die Sister Die, but this film could not grab me. It is a bit arty and it has no gore, while I was in for some graphic butchery. Acting is great though, Bates is very convincing as the subtle and sneaky invader who presents himself as the nice and helpful type. John Hurt is also great as the victimized husband. So if you want to see some great acting, pick this one, if you want gore, skip it.

The Sadist with the Red Teeth - aka Dents Rouges. A strange film by French filmmaker Jean-Louis Van Belle. Daniel has had a car accident in which his best friend died. He has had treatment for this but he still has some mental issues when he is being released: he thinks he is turning into a vampire. His doctor tries to cure him while Daniel is being helped to return to normalcy by his girlfriend Jane. Strange film as I said, because a lot of it is not very clear: the doctor at first seems to be the only trustworthy person but near the end he starts saying and doing things which are the opposite. The whole vampire thing too: is it pure imagination of Daniel or is he actually turning into one? It's all very ambiguous. Some other things are strange too: the doctor's assistant has a tic, Jane is not actually French so she speaks French with an obvious American "r". The special effects are limited and look cheap, the blood is bright red but present in abundance. So enough gore but also a lot of weirdness, that's this film for you.

Demon Witch Child - aka La Endemoniada. One of the later films of Amasndo de Ossorio, but still smack in the middle of Euro horror highlights (1975). The film starts in a strange way: the image quality is pretty low in several scenes, lots of burning spots and artefacts in the image, and the opening scene is shown twice for some reason: we see an old woman going into a church throwing chandeliers to the ground. It turns out she is the head of a witches coven, and when she gets arrested by the police in a case of a missing baby boy, she hurls herself out of the window, committing suicide. The coven swears revenge, and the daughter of the commissioner of the police meets one of the witches and is bespelled by her. From that day onwards, the governess, the cleaning lady, a local priest and finally also her father notice there is something wrong. Can they save her from the curse of the devil? It struck me as odd that the witches were so open about them being a witch in this film, I would have thought they would try and hide this fact from the authorities, but not in this film. I had fun watching this, it's a nice Euro horror gem. A shame that sometimes the image quality was so low, but still I can wholeheartedly recommend this.

Master of the World - Italian movie about prehistoric times, filmed both in Italy and on the Canary Islands. The story is simple: you follow several prehistoric men and women while they are strolling around, having an occasional fight with each other or a wild animal and trying to survive. There is very little realistic about this, it gives you the feeling of some sort of weird documentary but of course all this is made up. The cavepaintings are in bright red, yellow and blue which was rather funny to see and the bear they fight is obviously a tamed one. The first bear to appear outside of stock footage (which is easily noticeable as it has a lower resolution than the film) seemed to me to be a man in a bearsuit but they hid it nicely by letting him appear during dusk behind some smoke from the campfires. Later you'll see more bear action and that bear is real but you can clearly see the traces of some sort of chain which was constraining the head of the bear, but still what they did with the bear in the film was quite impressive. There is no dialogue in this film: the cavemen just grunt and scream and use signs to try and communicate. There is a little gore when after a fight the skulls of the defeated are cracked open to eat the brains. It's very Italo, with strange things woven into the story, some unnecessary shocks like the skulls and beautiful wide shots of the landscape. I liked it but I can imagine you'd want some more acting and dialogue than what you get in this.

The Sadist of Notre Dame - Jess Franco directed hundreds of films but in this one he is also the main character: a former priest who got expelled from the seminary because of misbehaviour now roams the streets of Paris to kill prostitutes and other "lost souls". In his mind, he is helping them, but in the mind of everyone else he is a crazy killer. He searches out people who are depraved, ending up in a count's castle where erotic parties are organised, with some theatrics and orgies. The police are after him but it takes them some time to close in on him, in the meantime he tries to confess his sins to a former mate from the seminary who is now a priest in Notre Dame. Very nice Franco film, with the usual sleaze but somehow also more of a story. There are Franco films in which you are wondering what you are actually watching because they are so vague or stripped of content, and there are Franco films which are pretty good. This is one of the second category. Recommended!

Shriek of the Mutilated - a yeti film, it has been a while since I saw one of those. The snowman is thought to be real by an anthropology professor, Dr Prell. He invites a group of students to a field trip to find and record the monster. Before they go, one of the students is being invited by Prell for dinner, the others see a former student at a party going crazy about his experiences with Prell. He tells them the entire group got wiped out and he barely survived, so the students start out a tad nervously. Rightly so, because shortly after arriving, the first death occurs and others will follow soon. Prell is busy luring the snowman in to at least photograph it, while the other students are more worried about their survival. Not everything is what it seems in this low budget creature feature. The plot isn't very original and you wonder why more than one group of students could even go on this field trip, but apart from that it is a nice B-film experience with very fake blood and mediocre acting. Recommended for bad moviefans.

Cutting Moments - anthology with some strange stories, the first one being about a dog getting addicted to crack after attacking a house full of crackpots with his boss (this reminded me of The Boneyard with the zombie poodle). The second story is about a USAAF veteran who killed his wife and then went crazy, seeing her everywhere and eventually cracking down. Third story was about a guy obeying a voice but it didn't really become clear what was happening, this was a boring episode and visually unattractive. Fourth story is about a punk guy who gets recruited for the Youth Liberation Front, which does home invasions. Not very horror, these last two. Last story is about an unhappy wife mutilating herself because of lack of attention from her husband, this was pretty gory and had a gruesome ending. This one also gave the title to the entire anthology. My ranking is 1, 5, 2, 4, 3 from best to worst. Low budget fans will enjoy this.

Edge of Terror - aka The Wind. Meg Foster plays Sian Anderson, a crime author who travels to a remote Greek island in order to write her next book. According to Elias (Robert Morley), the old man who welcomes her, there is little company on the island: except for Phil (WIngs Hauser) who is some sort of a housekeeper/janitor, there is nobody. Since it's off season, the inhabitants of the island are abroad spending their money. Sian promised her boyfriend John (David McCallum) to call him but the phoneline is bad and they get cut off regularly. Both Elias and Phil have warned her about the wind: it can be dangerous on the island. Sian sets herself to work but one evening she sees Phil seemingly digging a grave. She now suspects him of murdering Elias, but she isn't sure. Is Phil to be trusted or is he a psychopath trying to kill Sian? Acting is pretty good, all of the characters are convincing, the action is nice although there are some things which make no sense if you think about them, but I guess it would make for very boring movies if nobody ever made mistakes. The wind is making an atmosphere but apart from letting trees shake and windows clap, it doesn't do much. It's not the supernatural force you might expect it to be after the stories of Elias and Phil. Nice slasher with enough dead bodies in the end, not much gore though.

The Legacy - Pete Danner and Margaret Walsh, a couple from LA, receive a job offer from England with an advance payment of 50 grand. Margaret (the beautiful Katharine Ross whom you might know from "The Graduate") really wants to go, and although Pete has some reserves they go and drive around in the countryside on their motorcycle. Suddenly they have a near collision with a car, and the man in the car (Mr Mountolive) is being overly nice to them: he offers to let their motorcycle be repaired at the local garage and a room in his mansion where they can stay. Other guests arrive too and they are also being very nice to Pete and especially Margaret. At first it all seems very hospitable, but when they wish to leave, something always comes up. When one of the newly arrived guests turns up dead, it's the last drop for the couple and they make another attempt at escaping the mansion. Will they succeed this time? Although you as a viewer almost immediately feel there is something wrong with Mr Mountolive, you can't really know what it is. Slowly but steadily this mystery unravels for you and in the end it all becomes clear. There is some supernaturalism involved, and some of the kills are pretty gory but overall I would say this is on the border between thriller and horror. Acting is great and atmosphere is fitting, I really enjoyed this one. Recommended.

Alien: Romulus - went to the cinema with a friend to see this. He had recently rewatched Alien 1-3, I hadn't. This two hour episode in the Alien saga has pros and cons, as most movies have of course. The story is about Rain, a girl working as a miner on a space colony. When she is denied a travel permit yet again, she gathers with some friends who have made a plan to escape through an abandoned spacecraft orbiting their planet. This lead up to meeting the aliens was pretty well done and as credible as it goes in such a universe (apart from the fact nobody seems to care about the abandoned spaceship but the group of protagonists). As soon as we meet the aliens though, things go downhill, but not as fast as in some other films which came out after Alien 3. Ok, so here are the pros and cons: I liked the way the story was set up like mentioned above, the lead actress is doing a good job, the nods to the previous Alien films are nice although a bit abundant. Atmosphere is almost a bit like in the early Alien films and effects are mostly practical which is a big plus imo. Cons are that the characters are very onedimensional, even Rain, the main character doesn't get any real character development. The moments of "oof, you just made it in time" are way too much, it doesn't happen once or twice but over ten times which is destroying the limited credibility it has (talking about the second part of the film mostly here). And last but not least, the tension built up in the part where you don't see aliens is quickly blown away after seeing them: when a person gets infested it doesn't even take a minute before the newborn alien bursts out of that person. No mystery about who is infested and who isn't which makes movies like these always extra tense. No waiting for the moment where the creature will inevitably come to life, no, count to three and BOOM here we go. Disappointing. But having said that, this left a better impression on me than for example Alien Covenant. If you're a fan of the franchise you can surely give it a go, I am curious about your opinions. If you are new to the series then please don't start with this one.

After I came home I watched another fim (very different)

Devil's Obsession - aka L'ossessa. Seventies Italo horror by Mario Gariazzo who you might know from the jungle exploitation film Amazonia. Daniela is an art student who works on religious objects and one night (after she witnessed her mother have some kinky sex with her lover) she has a vision of one of the icons becoming alive. Soon after she gets possessed and only a hermit priest can save her. The film has low imagequality and is badly dubbed in English. It features some famous Italo actors like Ivan Rassimov and Gabriele Tinti. The backside of the DVD talks of "depraved sex" by her mother but that is still pretty tame. Daniela's sexual feelings are much more depraved, as she expresses herself to her father: "Make love to me. There is no such thing as incest, it's just an invention of priests". OK, it's the seventies, you could say things like that in films back then and not get sued. There are some revealing mistakes in the film which make it a bit more bearable to watch as otherwise it is rather boring: in the scene where Daniela is running wild through the village, she pounds a door, leaving bloodstains on it from her bloody hands. Later she pounds another door which already has bloodstains, revealing it's one and the same door even though she is supposedly somewhere else in the village. Runtime isn't too long but I would still recommend this only to Italo and bad moviefans.