Zombiefied 2011 Review

Zombiefied 2011

Directed by: Todd Jason Cook

Starring: Rebecca Torrellas, Mike Gebbie, Lisa Whiteman

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Running a site that is purely dedicated to reviewing only the truest of stalk and slash entries is great, but I must admit that sometimes there are films that I’d like to cover, but can’t because they don’t fit the template. I believe I’ve stayed faithful to only posting genuine entries, but the one that I’m most unsure of is The Dead Pit. My rationale for including it was because, sure, it’s a zombie movie, but there is really so much in the first half that reminded me of our favourite film style. The hulking masked doctor, the terrorised final girl, stalking sequences and heavy breath POV shots; it’s hard not to look at those ingredients and think: stalk and slash. 

Actually, it’s interesting that there have been so few true crossbreeds, but that’s where Zombiefied stands apart. Director Todd Jason Cook has said that he set out to make this picture the truest amalgamation ever released and so I was keen to see what he could achieve. Would this be a post that I would be confident could sit comfortably with the rest and tick the right boxes? 

Well, it all kicks off in a bedroom with a naked chick and a guy sharing lines of coke. As if on cue, the girl says with a knowing nod, “I’m off to take the obligatory shower”. Whilst she’s scrubbing away (in gratuitous close-up), her partner hears a noise in the kitchen and goes to investigate. He comes across a creepy mannequin that’s holding an MP3 player, but before he has a chance to raise the alarm, he is stabbed from behind by an unseen killer. Next up, the maniac goes to take care of his bathing girlfriend, but just as we are waiting for the anticipated slashing, out jumps the ‘zombiefied’ corpse of her recently deceased partner and it begins chewing on her neck! So, a zombie, a hulking killer, blood, a jump scare, a fantastic pair of (natural) boobies and cocaine. It’s fair to say that there have been worse opening scenes. 

Next up we head over to a heavy metal club called, Röcbar, where a concert is in full flow. As the group perform, the nut job from earlier (who’s now sporting a Nixon mask that’s identical to the one from Horror House on Highway 5) subtlety murder’s the DJ and inserts a CD into the music system. The new sound seems to have a strange effect on the crowd and they begin morphing into zombies and attacking those that haven’t yet turned – cue pandemonium. After a violent struggle, one band and their singer manage to escape the carnage and flee into the streets that are now filled with roaming re-animated corpses. We soon learn that a similar occurrence has happened once before, but not on such a grand scale. With the Police unwilling to assist, it’s left up to the gang of rockers to prevent the plague from spreading and find a cure. They’ll have to do so whilst avoiding the flesh hungry zombies and a malevolent masked killer… 

It gives me great pleasure to tell you that Zombiefied is a truly entertaining horror flick that may be rough around the edges, but delivers a rugged ride that’s unlike anything I’ve previously seen. It’s full to the brim with bloody action and it rarely allows you to catch a breath as the corpses drop. The plot unravels amongst hordes of murderous zombies that chow their way through an impressive number of victims. The director flings everything into the cooking pot to conjure up a gore-laden stew. Your taste buds may not be totally tickled by every mouthful, but it’ll leave your belly too fulfilled to complain about the service. 

Director Todd Cook has had a film reviewed here on a SLASH above previously of course, but Evil Night was a totally different beast that simply had no structure. People would walk on screen with no introduction, get killed and the same thing would happen once over. He does revert to a similar technique at times here, because there are a lot of nameless and eminently pointless victims that are lined up like pins only to be bowled over with minimal fuss. Zombiefied overcomes that though, because everything’s held together by a central concept that’s progressively intriguing and addictive. We follow a group of likeable characters that are desperately trying to find a cure for the epidemic and even if the way that the story choses to write out the authorities is laughable, there are various tweaks that maintain our engagement.  

Not everyone agrees with my stringent view on what makes up a true ‘slasher’ movie, but seeing as I am strict with my idea of the guidelines, I wondered what I’d make of a zombie/slasher cocktail. In fairness to Cook, he shows respect to both genres and their principles. The living dead are the modern kind that sprint after their prey, but the slasher scenes are traditional, with a hulking masked killer that has a calling card (aforementioned mannequin) and a traditional slo-mo stalk. The army of gut-munchers are under the control of the boogeyman and sometimes he uses them to devour his prey instead of a blade or axe. Even if this concept sounds like it may be tough to digest, I have to give credit to Cook for making the blend so palatable. He pulls off a number of moods; and even chucks in suspense on occasion, which magnifies during the slasher scenes. We also get a fair amount of gore, a couple of hot-ish chicas, a riveting mystery, an open-ending and the chance of a sequel, which I’d personally like to see. Perhaps the best thing of all is that an hour and forty-five minutes is a long time for a horror movie, but it really flew by. I was watching without alcohol too! 

From a technical perspective, Zombiefied is not a perfect movie experience. The thrash metal soundtrack is not for all tastes, it’s a bit casually scripted and it suffers the flaw that ‘plagues’ all zombie movies, which is, how much can really be done with the same MO? I honestly believe though that there’s so much here that works that you can accept those minor gripes, because it’s a real extravaganza of horror excess. I liked it so much that I was disappointed to see that Cook doesn’t have any other projects currently in the pipeline. I would never have said that when all I knew of his work was Evil Night and Night of the Clown. I can accept titles like that if they lead on to a wider plan and Zombiefied may well be his masterpiece.

Finally we have a zombie/slasher that truly can fit in with its brothers here. 

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√√

Gore:√√√

Final Girl:√√

RATING:

Los Inocentes 2013 Review

Los Inocentes 2013

aka Bloody April Fools

Directed by: 12 Directors

Starring: Charlotte Vega, Bárbara Mestanza, Mario Marzo

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Ok, I have to be honest; I just couldn’t live with it. You see, despite my respect and gratefulness to the country I live in (UK), I’m a patriotic Spaniard and I’m one that sees beauty in all things de España. Well, except maybe bull fighting. Oh and Magaluf. Anyway, I’m proud to state that I was the first slasher critic to give Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche a reputable ranking and here you’ll find an equally complementary review of José Larraz’s, Al Filo Del Hacha. I defended Jesus Franco’s cheese-tastic video nasty, La Sierra de la Muerte, and didn’t wince once during the corny closing of Los Ojos de Julia. So with this in mind, how could I live with the knowledge that the most recent Spanish slasher film to be reviewed on a SLASH above was the awful Altrapados en el Miedo. Since watching it, I’ve felt depressed, panicked, I’ve suffered insomnia, began drinking and smokin… Ok, I’m exaggerating, but still, something needed to be done.

I had to quickly find a film that could regain my home country some credibility, but with my copy of El Arte de Morir miles away in Spain, I was somewhat struggling. Then I remembered that I hadn’t yet got round to watching a DVD that I picked up a year back, called Los Inocentes. I came across it in a small shop in Aracena, purchased it and then totally forgot that I’d done so. Last Wednesday, I was tidying up my room and there it was staring at me, almost as if to subtlety say, “llevarme, verme, yo te ayudo… yo te salvo!!” – Could I have found the cure to drag me from the gutters of despair..?

A gang of kids get lost on the way to a party and so decide to spend the night in an abandoned school. It was the site of a gruesome accident a few years earlier, where a student was killed during a practical joke. Now someone haunts the corridors and the joke is most definitely on the partying teenagers…

It seems that when I watch slasher movies, I go through phases. I’m sure that as readers, you notice that I’ll post one or two ‘one star’ movies in a row and then a couple of much better ones. I don’t do this deliberately, it’s a coincidence, but I’m back on a roll, because Los Inocentes sits comfortably with Kill Game as one of the best modern slashers that I’ve recently seen. Much like a bottle of Sangria, it doesn’t blur the lines of what it has been produced to achieve. It’s a straight up slasher movie for fans of the genre and ticks and underlines the things that we expect and most importantly WANT it to do.

I guess that you could call it a mix between the stories of both Slaughter High and Friday the 13th, but it’s refreshing how the script never feels the urge to over-elaborate the homages. In a pre-launch interview, the crew openly admitted that they were referencing the peak period, but it’s a natural vibe that doesn’t overpower. We get a more typical final girl, ‘the have sex and die’ rule, heavy breath POVs and even a romantic sub-plot that is intelligently conveyed. Perhaps because the main characters are given emotive scenarios, we want them to prevail and I was extremely surprised by a couple of the deaths. Los Inocentes is a merciless movie at times and this tone is set from lift off, when the old ‘prank that went wrong’ chestnut is delivered with a starker more graphic flair than usual. In fact, this is quite a gory little movie that is filled with creative deaths of the like I’ve never seen previously. My favourites were the bee attack and a bizarre one with a girl’s brain, which is gooey, erotic and somewhat artistic in its delivery. The screenplay attempts to inject pitch black humour on occasion, including a genius play on words with the Spanish slang for a lighter; – ‘fuego’ (fire). In honesty though I preferred the moments when the atmosphere was more macabre.

The idea stemmed from a collaboration of twelve writers/directors that had met and studied at the notorious ESCAC School of cinema. Whilst some would question the concept of so many varying ideas on a production, one member of the crew, Laura García, said that she found it extremely natural and that she wanted the film to act as proof that ‘being a team’ really works. What we’re left with is an entry that strives to provide some deftly shot set pieces. The lighting is exceptional in places and the filmmakers do their best to bring the large dilapidated hi-school backdrop to life. We also get a nod to the recent ‘found footage’ trend where the action is shown through iPhone cameras, which leads to a pulsating escape sequence as the survivors hotfoot it through the woodland. There’s no killer guise for the antagonist and he isn’t even given a physical presence until the climax, but we do get a ‘killer calling card’; – a kind of ‘ginger bread man’ that’s left upon the corpses of victims. Writer Lluís Segura describes his vision of the classic slasher structure as starting out with 10 or so characters and killing them off throughout without knowing who’s doing it or the reasons why. You can see that they stayed true to this formula.

At times the film pushes the boundaries of reality and begins to feel a bit fairytale-ish. It’s not supernatural in any way, but some of the murderous set-ups defy logic, which seemed out of place with a concept that was so traditional. I was also disappointed with the performance of the actor that played the killer. In general, the acting was solid, but the best villains are restrained and not over-played. It looked like the person given this role (I won’t reveal so as not to ruin the mystery) knew what to do, but somehow didn’t really convince. Still, we get some truly beautiful women and a cute lead in Charlotte Vega – a girl that was born in Spain from an English mum and a Spanish/British father – who I predict that we’ll see more from.

Los Inocentes is pretty much a Slaughter High remake (El día de los Inocentes is like April Fool’s Day in Spain), but it is far more gritty and ruthless. There are a bunch of smart twists and gimmicks that bring the film to life, with the only real weakness being the killer’s revelation, which lacks the explosion of the source code that it was borrowed from. All is thankfully salvaged by a downbeat ending that we’ve seen before (even in a great eighties Spanish slasher), but was still a surprise. The DVD that I own comes with English subtitles so you should definitely check it out. I’m excited about the sequel that may already be on the cards…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:

Gore:√√√

Final Girl:√√√

RATING:

Curse of Halloween 2006 Review

Curse of Halloween 2006

aka Into The Woods (?)

Directed by: Jeremy Isbell

Starring: Jeremy Isbell, Sherrie Wilson, Travis Azbill

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Hola a SLASH abovers! This month is our 4th birthday and today is Halloween, so I was just looking back at how we’ve celebrated this date over the past 48 months. In 2011, I posted a review of the best slasher film ever made: Halloween. I followed that a year later with the pretty decent Halloween Camp, which wiped the floor with its cruddy predecessor, Scream Bloody Murder. The choice for 2013 was an extremely obscure fan film, which was zanily titled, Friday the 13th: Halloween Night. My next annual post was the surprisingly rare and moderately appealing, Left For Dead. For the big 2015, I’m (kinda) proud to present a SLASH above‘s very first ‘no star’ movie… Yay!!

In the city where I live, there have been reports of people being spiked with hallucinogenic drugs. After watching Curse of Halloween, I woke up sweaty and couldn’t work out what day it was, where I’d been or what was my name. I was worried that I might have been a victim of a tad of inconspicuous LSD poisoning, so I decided to retrace my steps. I thought that I’d begin by re-watching this film and keep a timeline of everything that happens to see whether I’d maybe been infected by the curse…ooooooooh

We start off with a boat pulling up to a tropical coastline and the words Curse of Halloween burst on the screen in what looks like Bold Calibri font. Nope, there’s no Jack-O-Lanterns, pumpkins or typical objects reminiscent of this time of year, instead it’s a sun-kissed beach that’s accompanied with Hard Rock music. Alrighty then. Names aren’t this screenplay’s strong-suit so I’ll identify the characters (like this in brackets) that we meet so that we can reference them again as we roll. The first is an individual that has a gun to his head (Suicidal Dude) but doesn’t look particularly bothered by the fact that he wants to end it all. He mumbles some barely audible chatter about a pumpkin queen and a ghostly curse that led to the murders of all of his friends. Not only does this completely destroy the tension of guessing who may survive the oncoming events, but even on the second viewing, I couldn’t make any sense of what he was saying. 

Next, we skip to an overweight male (The Driver) who is is heading along a dark road when he accidentally runs down a woman in white negligee (Negligee Chick) with a great rack. He stops the car and jumps out before picking up the injured female and taking her into a conveniently empty (and wide open) house. He leaves the stricken hottie on the sofa and goes outside to wave down a passing motorist for assistance. A six-seater pulls over to the roadside and out jump two young men. The first is later identified as Travis, whilst we’ll call the other one, Mr Ponytail, because he sports a long scruffy one. They leave their girlfriends in the vehicle and reluctantly follow The Driver who’s literally begging for help. When they enter the abode, Negligee Chick has disappeared (Like the Urban legend from The Cycle?) and Travis punches The Driver for reasons that are hard to comprehend. (Hey like the movie). Meanwhile, outside, the two girlfriends (Silicone Enhanced and Chubby) debate their current situation. Silicone Enhanced wants to get out to see what’s going on but Chubby doesn’t agree. Silicone Enhanced then sees Negligee Chick in the shadows and convinces Chubby by saying something like, “We’ll be safe if we take a flashlight.”(?) Was it a Swiss-army flashlight with a Bazooka that fights off evil demons? I don’t know. They did however feel that it would protect them, so exited the car and headed into the forest.

They stroll for a short time until they come across another large unlocked mansion. They enter and begin looking around, which made me ask, isn’t breaking and entering a crime punishable by lengthy imprisonment? Now we cut back to the six-seater and a new lass (Blonde Girl 1 with Brown Jacket) is shown waking up on the backseat. I don’t remember seeing her there moments ago, but if she was, she’s been abandoned without so much as an ‘hasta pronto’ from her friends. Nice. Mr Ponytail, Travis and The Driver walk over to the vehicle, totally ignoring the snoozy Blonde Girl 1 with Brown Jacket (can they see her, is she real?) and head off after their girlfriends to the other house. Once inside, Travis somehow separates from his buddies and is assaulted by a cloaked assailant (The Slasher) with a pale face. The hooded nut-job tasers him with a bolt of lighting that shoots out of the palm of his hand and looks like it was drawn on to the screen with crayon. 

Now that Travis is seemingly out of the way, Mr Ponytail comes across Silicone Enhanced and starts getting it on with her after she flashes her boobs at him. This part stood out because it’s astoundingly obvious that a body double (or porn clip) was used for the nudity bit. The fact that it’s a totally different type of footage and these boobs were a gift of nature (not suspiciously pert like Silicone Enhanced’s) means they weren’t even trying to convince us of authenticity. (I’m an expert in boob analysis btw!) Next we see a poorly shot scene of Mr Ponytail getting tasered the same way that Travis did by The Slasher. Keeping in mind that Mr Ponytail and Travis have surely been dispatched, we head outside to find Silicone Enhanced back by the six-seater with Chubby. Strangely, she’s showing no recollection of the mysterious event that just occurred or why her frolic with Mr Ponytail had been halted prematurely. (Let’s be honest guys, it happens to the best of us…)

The Slasher emerges from the forest and mutters something like, “Don’t turn around”(?), before a new character that looks to be played by the same actress as Blonde Girl 1 with Brown Jacket (I’ll call her Blonde Girl 2 without Brown Jacket) is shown strolling through the trees. Did they really re-use the same cast member to play two equally insignificant people? Well I’ve got a chance to find out because here’s Blonde Girl 1 with Brown Jacket and she’s being dragged under a sofa, surely by The Slasher, who made it back to the house in record time. Then we see Mr Ponytail smoking a fag, but didn’t I say that he just got zapped by The Slasher…? Isn’t he dead? I guess not. Hmm… We cut back to Blonde Girl 1 with Brown Jacket, but hold on, didn’t I say that she got dragged under a sofa? Well, she’s not under the sofa any more and looks fine exploring the house… Am I still on LSD? What’s going on here? She finds a food selection in the kitchen (looks like oven-cooked Garlic Bread and Chicken Nuggets) and heads outside to Mr Ponytail, The Driver and… Travis, who didn’t I say had been… Ah f**k it. Anyway they begin munching the freebies whilst blissfully avoiding any reference to anything that has happened previously. Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Chubby gets choked by The Slasher and locked in a room, but looks about as interested as a sleeping snail. This idiocy continues for a while, as people that we’d presumed were dead reappear and nothing makes a lick of sense. 

A few minutes (that seem like years) later, a car drives by, crashes into a lamppost and we meet its occupants. There’s a pudgy dude (Big Guy) and his girlfriend who is… hey it’s Blonde Girl 2 without Brown Jacket. How could it be that she’s just pulled up in a car if we’d already seen her strolling nearby a few minutes ago… I give up. We now learn that she actually has a name though, which is Ashley. Mr Ponytail (remember him) gets accidentally stabbed by Silicone Enhanced, but then shows up without so much as a scratch a little later. Why doesn’t anyone stay dead, dammit? Travis and Big Guy see a load of stuff that I guess is meant to be quite freaky, whilst The Slasher murders Silicone Enhanced by throwing her off a cliff. A few more silly things happen and The Slasher reveals himself to be exactly who we thought it was all along. It’s not hard to guess though, because we can clearly see his face under the cloak in most scenes. He slaughters everyone except Big Guy and Ashley, but just as they’re about to escape, Ashley comes over all kooky and screams at Big Guy. One thing to note is that throughout all this confusion and crapola, I saw Christmas stockings on one of the walls. So it’s not really the Curse of ‘Halloween‘ then is it…? 

So now we cut back to Suicidal Dude who’s still suicidal and still has a gun to his head. He tells us that even though we saw Travis get killed (at least twice) it turns out he was the only survivor of that fateful night. We are shown in flashback how Suicidal Dude helped Travis to recover from his horrendous experience by taking him away on holiday to an exotic island. Travis, Suicidal Dude and three girls – that seemingly don’t need or deserve any introduction at all – climb aboard a boat and what follows is ten minutes of absolute nothingness. We struggle to keep our eyes open as they drink beers and eat snacks on a lake whilst a score plays, ends and then starts again like a CD on repeat for TEN MINUTES. Did the director insert some random holiday footage to pad out his hour long feature? Quite possibly. Eventually, with only three minutes remaining, someone kills off the whole gang except Suicidal Dude without a single splash of blood. How does this relate in anyway to Negligee Chick, The Slasher or anything we’d seen previously? After two viewings, I still have no idea. Finally, we switch back to Suicidal Dude‘s ‘gun to head’ scenario from the prologue and he pulls the trigger before the film suddenly ends. No final credits, no special thanks, no blood, no inspiration, no explanation, no hope, no nothing; the screen just goes black. 

What to make of Curse of Halloween then? Well, I honestly have no idea. Is it a new drug-like experience that was responsible for my dazed state the next morning? A legal high perhaps? Well if it’s not, I don’t really know what to say. In fact, I do: this should never have seen the light of day beyond Jeremy Isbell’s editing tools. It’s absolutely diabolical. I’d like to make a joke about the director and his dire filmmaking abilities, but the biggest joke is on me for paying $13.98 for this steaming pile of poo. The only way I can explain this mess is that Isbell lost the script after shooting and edited the footage whilst heavily inebriated. There just isn’t any other logical view as to why it has the structure of soup. If ever you get round to directing a horror flick, you can rest assured that no matter what happens, it will never be as bad as this. I guess that could be something of a motivational quote for debutants to be used in film schools. At least then I would get something for my $13.98. There are entries out there in slasher-land that are so hilariously inept that they have their own type of fan base, like Nail Gun Massacre or Splatter Farm. Curse, however, engages in a different kind of way. Your eyes remain transfixed as your jaw drops to levels that you don’t recall it ever reaching and you feel a deep-rooted intrigue as to how anyone would have cojones large enough to attach their name to a travesty such as this.  

I recently had an interesting chat with an up coming producer who said its a shame Alfred Hitchcock didn’t do any commentaries. His reasoning was that it’d be great to hear how he worked and came up with his glorious ideas. For me, I’d pick a Jeremy Isbell talk-through everyday of the week. Watching him explain this catastrophe would be Oscar worthy. Happy Halloween… Beware of the curse…

Oh and btw, before I forget, if ever a movie could be judged on its trailer, check out the above… the music is from another film and the credits don’t even have the right title lol…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√

Gore:

Final Girl:

RATING: NO STARS

Stage Fright aka The Gallows Review

Stage Fright 2015

aka The Gallows

Directed by: Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

Starring: Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos

Review by Luis Joaquín González

I was just thinking, it’s been a whole two-weeks since I reviewed a film called Stage Fright; I might be getting withdrawal symptoms… So here we have the most recent of the five identically titled stalk and slash movies and it is something of a crossbreed of styles that we need to discuss. I first heard about this project in 2011, when I read an article that described it as a cross between Friday the 13th and Candyman. A trailer soon followed that stated an October 2012 release date and included a host of shots that I don’t recall appearing in the version, now titled as The Gallows, that I saw last night at the cinema. I could find very little information regarding the name change and all pages/sites that hosted the original trailer have been deleted. It’s lucky that I kept a copy, which I’ve attached to this post so you can see the differences for yourself. It’s been reported that the DVD/Blue-Ray release will include a lot of the deleted scenes, so I’ll be looking forward to finding out via a commentary what it was that led to such drastic re-modelling tactics? I wonder if it had anything to do with the release of the musical Stage Fright that may have been the first to successfully copyright that title…?

Since The Blair Witch Project made a splash back in 1999, horror has been awash with found footage ghost stories. Paranormal Activity is likely the most recognised of these, but a quick glance at any horror playlist will find countless films with similar concepts. Supernatural slashers are nothing new but aside from a couple of half-hearted additions (Dead of Nite), we haven’t really had a true combination of that style and the slasher genre… Until now. I guess that you could call it the first ‘Paranormal Slasher’.

A school in a small town is going to relaunch a play called The Gallows after twenty-two years. The show has a haunted history, because the last time that some students attempted to open it, a youngster named Charlie Grimille was killed by hanging on stage. The accident was caught on camera, but the investigation is still open due to some suspicious circumstances. A new generation of actors that are playing key parts in the second production decide to break into the theatre and stay there for the night. Little do they know that some things are best left alone…?

Ok, so the first question that I need to answer for you is whether The Gallows is actually slasher-tastic enough to be on the right website here. Well, I’m happy to confirm that it is most definitely a stalk and slash flick, but it’s one with a few supernatural flourishes. It has the whole House on Sorority Row/I Know What You Did Last Summer ‘revenge for a fateful event from the past’ thing going on, which is a key ingredient of a host of genre entries. It’s also worth noting that Charlie Grimille is a typical antagonist with a hulking frame and Burlap Sack-type hangman’s mask. I have always had a problem with a Nightmare on Elm Street being classed as a standard slasher movie because its methods of slaughter are too fantastical and therefore far removed from the original source code: Psycho/Giallos. Here, the victims are killed by a noose, which is a far less outlandish gimmick.

When the psycho makes his presence known, the film becomes extremely tense as the four teens are left wandering the dark corridors of the theatre and desperately trying to discover an exit. Travis Cluff does a superb job of realising the panic of being trapped inside with an unknown intruder and an adept use of soundbites and shadows means that we are constantly left uneasy about what could happen next. Another sign that this is a slasher movie is the placement of the hulking killer, because he manages to convey the Michael Myers-alike ‘appear in the background’ trick extremely well. I guess that the only true ghostly ingredients are the inclusion of unexplained sounds and a TV and VCR that plays footage of the initial accident with no connected power.

Whilst the handheld camera approach works to provide a few moments of tension and an incredibly effective late jump-scare, it has to be said that the movie might have played much better if it had been shot like a more standard third-person horror. The story was unoriginal but good-enough, the boogeyman was scary and the location was immense; so one can only wonder how it might have turned out if completed differently. I was speaking recently with a SLASH abover Brandon who agreed with my review of Gutterballs. What I said was that the characters are so deplorable that you don’t really care what happens to them and therefore are left without anyone to root for. The main camera operator here, a guy by the name of Ryan, is also a jerk, which means he ruins the opening part of the movie and dominates your reaction to the fate of other players. It’s not the fault of the actor, who alongside the rest, did what was expected of him. It’s just hard to understand what the screenwriters had in mind when they were dreaming up his personality.

With that said, after an intro that struggles to sustain interest, The Gallows becomes a scary and unique horror movie and one that I’m glad to have seen in the cinema. We watch these films to be scared and entertained and Cluff’s picture does exactly that. The missing footage may explain some of the parts that are slightly unclear (it’s hinted that you should not mention Charlie’s name in a Candyman type way, but not really clarified) and I am actually looking forward to seeing a director’s cut of the feature. Until then, this copy has enough to be worth checking out…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√√√√

Gore:√

Final Girl:√√

RATING:

Head Hunter 2002 Review

HeadHunter 2002

Directed by: Tom McGatlin

Starring: Tim Beamish, Johnny Derango, Casey Ellison

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Making an authentic take-on the slasher template is an extremely tough task, because the genre is densely populated and the guidelines don’t flex too much without stepping outside of the accepted trappings. The little-seen Headhunter pulls off the spectacular feat of giving us a synopsis that rises above expectations. Sure, it’s a slasher movie alright, but it’s one with something of a smart twist.

Released in 2002, Hunter has been largely ignored by most genre books and websites, which may well be because of its limited release. It was shot on a handheld camera in and around a fairly standard location, but it is concrete proof that a dose of creativity can outshine a meagre budget. I picked it up in a bargain bucket quite a while back and thought that I’d go back to re-evaluate it for you lovely people that follow a SLASH above.

A night-watchman in a warehouse settles in for his usual shift when suddenly he gets a call from a deranged stranger that claims to be ‘The Headhunter’ – a psychopathic killer that has recently escaped from a high security asylum. Soon after, he discovers the corpse of his chum and realises he has to fight to survive…

This film launches with a flowing tracking shot that lasts for at least five-minutes. It incorporates quite a lot of well-rehearsed movement and displays immediate ambition from director Tom McGatlin. There were many opportunities for a brief cut, but he braves out the timespan to deliver an intro that confirms that he’s out to impress. The biggest criticism of the Star Wars prequels, aside from the fact that they were awful, was that George Lucas filmed every dialogue scene like something from a wide-panned news desk. If he ever decides to return to the hot seat, there’s a conversation part here which is shot in a basic office space that he really should watch and learn from. McGatlin bolsters every set-up with an abundance of energy; and the riveting camera movement and visible enthusiasm is a pleasure to witness. He continued the dynamic approach throughout the runtime and kept things interesting even when nothing important was going on with the story.

The majority of the feature is made-up of only two characters sharing sequences at the one time and there was always a danger – in such an enclosed space – that the pace could dry-up and stagnate. Whilst there are a couple of sequences that should have been shorter, the film manages to valiantly sustain intrigue and keep us guessing. Victims are smartly introduced and quickly dealt with, which allows the focus to remain on developing tension. Hunter is by no means a gore film and all of the killings are off-screen, but what McGatlin manages to adequately provide are some sharp shades of suspense. Above all else, this is a cat-and-mouse chase feature and what is achieved on such minimalistic funding is eminently impressive.

Another thing of note is the realism of the dialogue, which is written not to imitate how movie stars speak, but instead how normal people do. In an early discussion, two guys converse about their dead-end jobs and wanting to study in order to find something better. Of course this is not quite Tarantino pop-trivia scripting, but at least it’s recognisable as genuine. I also liked it when T.J. was hiding from the masked-killer and said something along the lines of, “God if get you get me out of this situation, I promise that I’ll… “ – Again something many of us might see ourselves doing.

Headhunter is cheap and it definitely shows. The lighting is bad, the acting is sketchy and it takes place in a bog standard backdrop. It overcomes its budgetary deficiencies with a whole heap of raw talent, which I feel deserves praise. Knowing a bit about the production of independent features opened my eyes to the qualities that this one boasts, but I advise caution, because it’s not for everyone. Fans of body count flicks and splatter should steer well clear. If however, you like them unique and are willing to overlook some basic moments, by all means give this a spin…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √√

Gore:

Final Girl:

RATING:

The Boogey Man 1980 Review

The Boogey Man 1980

Directed by: Ulli Lommel

Starring: Suzanna Love, John Carradine, Ron James

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Money… When Lennon and McCartney wrote that it couldn’t buy you love, they were wrong. It can purchase pretty much everything. It’s the backbone to most of the experiences that we come across throughout our lives. The slasher boom of the eighties was not because Halloween received a four-star review from Roger Ebert. It was, quite simply, a response to the bundles of cash that Carpenter and Co transferred to their bank accounts after its surprising success. That’s not to say that there weren’t filmmakers that were inspired by that movie, but somewhere lurking in the background was the hunger that most humans are born with… The ravishing lust for cash.

I say this, because of all the Halloween imitators that hit screens during the peak years, none looked more single-minded in their effort to become a cash cow than this one. A friend of mine owns a small bar and I remember when I was about eighteen (and foolish), I filled a glass with a bit of everything in order to invent a brand new cocktail that he could call his own. It tasted like cat’s urine, but drinking more than one and a half of them would result in you being absolutely span-dangled. The Boogey Man is a lot like my brazen attempt at a phenomenal new beverage, because it takes parts of many popular horror films and chucks them into a blender in the hope that it’ll appeal to every ticket buying horror fan in the stratosphere. Does it result in a smooth blend of slasher-holic heaven or are we in for more feline-urine…?

A mother returns to the house where she was raised to overcome psychological demons that have haunted her since one fateful night twenty or so years earlier. Her mother’s boyfriend was abusive to her brother, which resulted in him stabbing the elder man to death. Somehow, her arrival awakens the spirit of the deceased villain that was trapped, supernaturally, in a mirror. Unbeknownst to them, they take the mirror with them to help with her rehabilitation and the evil awakens…

If that plot description seems somewhat peculiar to you when compared to other eighties Halloween clones, then you can be proud of your stalk and slash knowledge. The Bogey Man’s unique slant was in danger of not really knowing what it wanted to be, but in fairness, the net result just about works. Haunted house stories always seem to generate chills, which is likely because ghostly urban legends were what we heard the most whilst growing up. Thanks to a smart use of sound and an unnerving Halloween-alike score, we get the right kind of spooky atmosphere to maximise that fear-factor. The slasher homage is most visible when the killer strikes and these regular murders add gore and brutality to the concept. After the traditional cut and pasted Carpenter-esque POV house stalking shot, Lommel manages to implement a few of his own ideas into the direction and the odd one pays off. I thought the scenes that saw characters exploring a dark barn and discovering corpses were exceptionally filmed and there’s always a subtle undercurrent of dread.

It’s tough to make out what got The Boogey Man added to the DPP list and banned in the United Kingdom, although there’s quite a bit of tacky goo and shots of a child – and later his sister – being tied up in a suggestive manner. Like many former video nasties though, this picture doesn’t seem particularly gruesome in comparison with others that it shares its genre with. With Bogeyman, it was likely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve read reviews that criticise the level of the dramatics, but personally, I really didn’t think the cast were that bad. Uli Lommel’s beautiful wife, Suzanne Love, had some strong moments as the heroine and her real-life brother was cast to play, well, her brother in a role with minimal dialogue. The fact that he’s mute (and also a bit creepy) made us believe that he was set to be the villain, but it doesn’t take us long to realise that isn’t the case. In fact the film never really clarifies who or what the antagonist is. It’s these parts that show a weakness in the screenplay. It’s hinted that the mother’s evil boyfriend from the prologue has reached out from the beyond to seek revenge, but without giving anything away, the conclusion throws so much at us that we’re left scratching our heads. There’s a reason why I think this to be a strategic picture that’s targeted mainly to make a profit. The Amityville-alike house where the action takes place, Exorcist-lite conclusion and aforementioned Halloween-style murders are enough evidence to justify my accusation.

Still, The Boogey Man does provide some neat shocks. When it sticks to what it does best, it’s actually a compelling and scary film. There are a couple of extremely beautiful women in the cast and that’s always welcomed. The girl who got the scissors in the throat was awesome. Lommel pulls enough tricks to sustain a morbid tone and despite bordering on being ‘too supernatural’ in places, I think it is a good addition to the slasher catalogue. Those questioning whether it’s truly a stalk and slash movie can take comfort in the fact that it most certainly is. I must admit though, at times, it is one that pushes the boundaries. On a side note, Blood Sisters, Girls School Screamers and more recently, The Inherited, could all be considered as inspired by The Bogeyman. With Screamers, it was of course unintentional, but interesting all the same…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √

Gore: √√

Final Girl:√√√√

RATING:

Just Before Dawn 1981 Review

Just Before Dawn 1981

Directed by: Jeff Lieberman

Starring: Mike Kellin, Chris Lemmon, Gregg Henry

Review by Luis Joaquín González

Being a collector of slasher movies during the eighties was a unique and lonely hobby. Long before there were sites like Hysteria Lives or even the IMDB, contacting other people that understood or shared this passion was an extremely difficult task. I grew up desperately hoping to meet someone who carried the same obsession, but the closest I ever came was a guy that owned a second hand book shop in Bromley-By-Bow. The film I had been searching for at that time was Graduation Day and he was the only person I’d spoken to that knew it existed. He was adamant in his advice that I could certainly live without it, but the more he tried to convince me, the more I wanted to track it down.

In hindsight, I guess you could say that he was right about Herb Freed’s cheesy throwaway, so I had high expectations for the one slasher that he guaranteed I’d enjoy, Just Before Dawn. It’s not hard to find positive reviews for Dawn, it’s amongst the most celebrated of the peak period titles. I remember reading a complimentary piece on The Terror Trap, which led me to put more effort into uncovering a copy, but strangely enough, this is the first time that I’ve sat down to watch it.

 

A van full of youngsters head up into a mountainous forest for a camping trip and the chance to spend some time together. Almost as soon as they arrive, they meet a strangely deranged local who warns them of a demon that lurks in the mountains. Not letting his rants ruin their adventure, the troupe continue off on their trail. Little do they know that a psychopathic killer awaits them and they have no place to hide.

The cult success of Jeff Lieberman’s Squirm was what had attracted producer David Sheldon to hire him when he set about grabbing his slice of the slasher movie cash cake. Lieberman put together a brief script and an idea for a location, which changed numerous times before shooting began. It’s easy to see how well budgeted Dawn looks in comparison to some of its contemporaries and there’s no doubt that this helped to give the movie it’s thoroughbred reputation. Thanks to a stylish mix of brightly coloured and creatively planned cinematography, we get to experience the work of a director that’s brimming with confidence in his ability. Some of the shots of Silver Falls State Park as a backdrop are so gorgeous that the film feels almost like an advertisement to prospective campers.

Jeff Lieberman has stated recently that he was more inspired by Deliverance than any of the slasher movies that had been storming the box office around this time and it’s visible in what we see on the screen. Dawn doesn’t include lingering POV shots from a heavy breathing antagonist and it ignores the cliched approach for its final girl. Instead we get a group of interchangeable personalities that are given plenty of screentime, but offer nothing that we feel we can bond with. The best horror films climb inside your psyche and convey character actions that you recognise because they’re how you’d react if placed in a similar situation. Our heroine here never convinces that she’s deserving of our sympathy and seeing her climb a tree instead of fleeing her lumbering pursuer and putting on make-up once she’s escaped him makes her look peculiar and withdrawn. It’s almost as if the amount of effort they put into avoiding genre stereotypes left us with a script that forgot about the necessities of compelling drama. With no one from the cast list to root for, the amount of time it takes for the villain to put in an appearance does seem longer than it should have.

Backwoods hillbilly nuts are an ingredient that’s always fun to play with and Lieberman’s bogeyman is a fine example of a merciless assailant. In the opening, we get a gruesome machete impalement that leads us to believe that we could be in for a gory ride, but that early slaughter is by far the most graphic. It’s disappointing that we aren’t given more than a couple of brief bloody after-shots and Jonathan’s murder is ruined because we never really know how he was dispatched. Lieberman instead invests in some artful stalking scenarios where we are made aware that the killer could strike at any moment, but never sure when he will. These include a superb set-piece in a waterfall and a taut sequence that sees the maniac secretly hanging on to the back of the youngsters’ van as they drive into the wilderness. There’s a twist that I wish I wasn’t aware of before I watched the movie and it ends with an impressive tone that could almost be considered surreal.

Whilst Just Before Dawn is certainly amongst the classiest (and dare I say best) of the peak entries, there’s a fair bit that it could have done better. It’s stylishly directed and successful in its attempts to deliver a constant underscore of intimidation, but it’s a bit long-winded and doesn’t pack the punch that it took so long preparing. Stick Ginny Fields in place of the less than appealing final girl and it would have worked a whole lot better. Still, I must give praise for the slick production values and a wonderful soundtrack that gives us Blondie’s Heart of Glass and a terrific score from Brad Fiedel. I just felt that all the gloss couldn’t disguise the gaping hole in the story that a group of well-defined personalities would have fulfilled perfectly.

I have always believed that slasher flicks and especially those of the killer in the woods variety are the most terrifying scary movie, because they convey a concept that we know could really happen. Just Before Dawn understands these fears and brings them to life with some compelling suspense. It’s a slick and well-staged slasher that maintains an engrossing atmosphere. When it comes to killers on campsites though, its cousin from Camp Crystal Lake is still the one I enjoy the most…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √

Gore √√√

Final Girl: √√

RATING:

Girls Schools Screamers 1985 Review

Girls School Screamers 1986

Directed by: John P Finnegan

Starring: Molly O’ Mara,Sharon Christopher, Mari Butler

Review by Luisito Joaquín González

Imagine taking a film, any film in fact, and bolting on top scenes that would turn it into a slasher movie. You could have, say, a psychopathic mobster trimming the cast list of The Godfather. It’d be something like Cleaver from The Sopranos. Just remove the current deaths of Moe Green, Luca Brasi and Sonny Corleone and splice in footage of a masked menace doing the deeds with a pitchfork. It makes me wonder how Casablanca might look with an extended chase sequence that sees Inga Berman pursued by a maniac in a burlap sack? Do you think it could work? CGI is pretty good nowadays.

Whilst that does of course sound somewhat far fetched, Troma, the studio responsible for a number of cinematic curiosities, did exactly that when they picked up budget haunted house flick, The Portrait in late 1985. John P Finnegan had set out with absolutely no experience to make himself a motion picture. He pencilled a script and sourced funding independently in order to realise his dream. With $100,000 to play with, he called the University of New York and asked if they had any students that may be interested in his project. Within a couple of months, he had secured a cast of 18, a full crew and a superb location. His original intention had been to create a Hitchcockian tale of the ghosts of an incestuous relationship returning home. Troma agreed to distribute his work only if they could call it Girls School Screamers and shoehorn in some slasher action. The net result is an entry that can best be described as, well, something of a curiosity.

Seven fresh faced college girls have just found out that they’re going to be spending four days cleaning up an old Victorian mansion. It had been left to the school in the will of a recently deceased entrepreneur who stated that they could renovate or sell it. The youngsters pack their bags and head to the location, but soon learn that they could be in for more than they bargained for.

Look, I’ll give it to you straight, I’m not a massive fan of the supernatural/slasher hybrids that I’ve come across. Whilst there are a couple that have taken parts of each sub-genre and created a passable combination, more often than not, the strength of one style brings out the weaknesses in the other. I guess that in the same way I wouldn’t like a possessed child turning up during the conclusion of Halloween, I wouldn’t feel great about Michael Myers slashing his way through The Exorcist either. The glaring possibilities for creative expression make it seem strange that we haven’t yet been treated to a truly credible crossbreed of haunted house and slash, but of the ones that are currently available, none do a good job of selling the concept. Girls School Screamers is an interesting case in point though, because it’s a ghost flick that has been Godfrey Ho’d by its distributor. Godrey Ho of course was that Hong Kong born kungfu movie director from Filmark International and IFD that would chuck white American Ninjas in films that had not been completed or were a few years old. The net result would turn out to be an extremely confusing story, but full of outlandish Ninja action. The films made a huge profit in USA/Europe and titles like Ninja American Warrior or Ninja Terminator are good fun if you can stomach poor scripts and confusing screenplays. Watching Girls School Screamers now, after learning of Troma’s tampering, does give it something of an extra allure.

GSS, for all intents and purposes, is not a film that’s ashamed of its minimal budget. This fact is emphasised at the start of the credits where the words ‘introducing’ are placed before the entire cast, as if to helpfully inform us that none of the names that follow have done anything before this at all. This is clearly evident in everything that we witness thereafter, from the plodding direction to the amateurish performances. Dialogue and story scenes are conveyed as if they’re filmed on a soundstage and it’s rare that we get any camera movement at all. Finnegan’s script, which Is certainly ambitious, spends a long time building its background and giving its characters the chance to make an impression. They’re all written to be pretty much interchangeable though, so the first hour, while we are waiting for the maniac to turn up, struggles to hold your attention and quickly becomes sluggish. It can’t have helped to have so many debutants throughout the cast, because they had no one to turn to, when in need of some guidance. Unfortunately, being directed by someone who was also a first timer, made the whole shoot something like a high school play.

If you haven’t nodded off by the time that the action starts, we finally get to see what Troma’s input brought to the production. The killings are rather random in how they’re staged, because one or two are shown to be committed by a traditional unseen maniac, whilst the rest come courtesy of an invisible ‘force’. This has an effect on the story, because we have no central villain to fear. Whist the same actors were used and the footage doesn’t stand out as if it’s been bolted-on, it does leave obvious plot holes. It also make classifying Girls School Screamers as a slasher movie something of a harder task. Whilst we see meat cleavers, pitchforks and electrocutions with regularity in the genre, there are things here that are alien to the template. I want a SLASH above to be the truest stalk and slash catalogue on the web. If I haven’t yet posted The Superstition or The Incubus here as entries, is it fair of me to include Girls School Screamers? I guess that you could call it slasher-esque, but something of a supernatural take-on the standard format. It’s a, what was that word again… oh yes… curiosity!! 

John Finnegan has never shied away from the fact that he believes that Troma’s intervention ruined his initial ideas for the template. It’s easy of course to point the finger somewhere else for failings, but does he have a point? Yes and no is the answer, because without the added gore scenes, we would be left with a hideously boring travesty. At least now, the film does have moderate cult appeal, but it comes at the cost of a bewildering effect on the continuity. We see a silly intro involving a child getting freaked out by a ghost in the house, but it  never gets resolved. Also, the motivation of the antagonist is left up to the imagination. We never learn the reasons for his rage and why he kills the girls in the house. In fact, I am not even sure if it truly was him??? There’s the odd atmospheric moment that comes courtesy of a truly superb score and it’s funny to see college girls played by actresses the wrong side of their thirties, but is it enough? I really wanted to like Girls School Screamers and find a defense for it, but it is, unfortunately, a bit of a mess. A curiosity type mess? Well, yes funnily enough…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √√

Gore √

Final Girl

RATING:

The Unseen 1980 Review

The Unseen 1980

Directed by: Danny Steinmann

Starring: Stephen Furst, Barbara Bach, Sydney Lassick

Review by Luisito Joaquín González

With the process of a studio backed film to go from pre-production to post production taking quite a while, I’m amazed that so many early slashers managed to ‘borrow’ so much from Halloween so quickly. Carpenter’s hit was released on October the 31st 1978, but within a few months, there were already titles like The Demon that were definitely trampling the borders of creative inspiration. That isn’t the case so much with The Unseen though, because despite being labelled as a stalk and slash flick everywhere you look, it really doesn’t play by the rules of a typical genre piece.

It was one of the first films that I came across on big box VHS, but back then, I never rated it as a favourite. I hadn’t bothered with it for at least twenty-fve-years before I sat down to write this review and I was keen to see what I’d make of it now.

After a mix-up with the bookings at their hotel, three female journalists are forced to seek somewhere else to stay. Due to there being a celebratory festival in town, rooms are impossible to come by, but they find salvation in a jovial museum owner. He lives with his wife in a hotel that has been closed for ages, but after considering their panicked situation, he allows them to stay there. What he doesn’t tell them is that his son that lives in the basement doesn’t know how to play friendly…

I was reminded of this feature recently after completing my review of Silent Scream for the site. The two films have more in common than just an almost identical synopsis, because they both suffered fairly troubled productions. Whilst after an extensive reshoot, ‘Scream ended up close to what Denny Harris had envisioned, director Danny Steinmann was so disappointed with the final print of The Unseen that he asked to have his name removed from the credits. His justification was that the producers had edited out the majority of the big scares and left his feature unrecognisable. This intrigued me no end, because I wondered how a director’s cut of the footage might look. Steinmann never pursued the opportunity outside of a few interview comments, but it’d be interesting to know how much was removed or replaced.

The Unseen has its fans amongst slasher critics, but I must admit that I’m not really one of them. Whilst there is a lot to be credited that I’ll happily tell you about, I feel that in its entirety, it’s just a bit too odd for its own good. It spends the majority of the runtime building up an antagonist in the traditional fashion, but his revelation throws a swerve ball at us that’s just, well, alien. Without giving too much away, the bogeyman turns out to be more clumsy than creepy and then in a truly bizarre move, the script gives him an incomprehensible layer of pathos. He then makes a swift exit in a scene that’s as mushy as the death of Bambi’s mother, only to pass the mantle to another villain that is nowhere near as scary. I understand that they were trying to keep us on our toes by giving us something new to fear, but the idea is lost in its execution. We had waited so long for a glimpse of what we expected to be a hulking menace, only to be forced to change our perception at the last minute.

Another thing that you’ll notice is that the film is extremely slow paced. It plods along like a soap opera for large chunks, but then launches into an outrageous nudity scene that feels out of place. It does manage to build enough of a tone to keep us interested though and we do get a couple of creatively planned murder scenes. The first sees a young woman have her neck broken in a steel trap door and it’s juxtaposed with shots of a chicken being decapitated in a back garden farmhouse. This is one of a number of slightly off-kilter, yet effective moments, with the majority of the rest coming courtesy of an eccentric portrayal by Sydney Lassick.

I mentioned that I’d be interested in seeing a director’s cut of The Unseen and that’s because from a pure filmmaking perspective, it is simply a SLASH above. As I have already said, Lassick’s erratic characterisation really has to be seen to be believed. He shared top billing with Barbara Bach, who is also engaging as the hapless heroine. One could be forgiven for thinking that the former Mrs Ringo Starr had been hired only for her looks, but she is totally believable as the woman in peril. My favourite performances though came from Lelia Goldoni as Virginia, Lassick’s long-suffering wife, and Stephen Furst who played his son. It’s not an exaggeration to state that if awards could be given for horror film dramatisations, Furst would have at least walked away with a nomination. It’s a totally different person from his comedic turn in Animal House and he’s quite brilliant with the level of his conviction. We also get some classy cinematography in and around the gothic Victorian mansion that helps sustain an uneasy atmosphere that manifests itself credibly during the climax.

This is a tough film to review, because in many ways it embodies everything that I usually spend paragraphs criticising the lack of in other features. The thing is, you can photograph a crystal with the best lens that money can buy, but it’ll never be a diamond. There are certain rules of horror that can’t be broken and what we’re left with is a film that over promises and under delivers. It’s a shame that we will never see what Steinmann really intended, but there are those that like it, so check around before you take my word as gospel

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:

Gore √

Final Girl √√√

RATING:

Dead of Nite 2013 Review

Dead of Nite 2013

Directed by: S.J. Evans

Starring: Tony Todd, Joseph Millson, Cicely Tennant

Review by Luisito Joaquín González

It still surprises me that since Cannibal Holocaust launched the ‘found footage’ gimmick that has been vital to horror hits like The Blair Witch Project and Rec, it hasn’t been used very often in the slasher genre. It’s strange because I can’t imagine another style of horror that would benefit more from that narrative. I remember considering posting a review of The Last Broadcast on a SLASH above, as it incorporates many of the ingredients that are commonplace amongst features on this site. In the end though, I decided that this was wishful thinking on my part as it is not, in fact, a slasher movie.

That argument cannot be levelled at today’s choice of post, Dead of Nite, which is a recent British entry to the cycle. It was released hot on the heels of Evidence – another title that utilised pre-filmed flashbacks as a structure, but chose the standard stalk and slash template as an overcoat. What is it they say about waiting ages for a bus and then two coming along at once?

 

A team of youngsters that run an online paranormal exploration site decide to visit the notorious Jericho mansion. It has a reputation as the most haunted place in the South East of England due to rumoured sightings of ghosts and a murderous history. They are locked in for the night to complete some research, however the next morning, most of them are found dead. All that remains are the tapes from their cameras…

To say that Nite starts badly would be one hell of an understatement. We open with Police taping off the scene of the massacre and the camerawork judders like it was being filmed by an epileptic. To make matters worse, these weren’t even scenes of found footage that could be excused due to a shaky hand. Many low budget horror films incorporate cameos from previous stars such as Kane Hodder or Robert Englund as a form of genre recognition. Here we get Candyman’s Tony Todd, but I’m not sure if you could consider his appearance to be a plus. He spends ten of his fifteen-minutes worth of screen time whispering inaudibly and then when he does raise his voice, it seems that the effort he took doing so made him totally forget that he was supposed to be ‘acting’. To be fair though, it’s not only Todd that could be accused of poor dramatics. The scenes filmed outside the mansion before the teens are locked in the abode, play like a pre-school playground production of West Side Story. Someone call the drama coach, you guys have all got detention.

Anyway, when they finally bolt the doors, the screenplay goes on a self-discovery mission. If a script could suffer a midlife identity crisis, then Dead of Nite’s is in desperate need of counselling. After the obligatory shot of a full moon, the visitors decide to hold a seance. The ouija board spells out the word death and the glass flies off the table and smashes to smithereens against the wall. You could be forgiven for thinking that we have got a supernatural thriller on our hands, but after a sickle is grabbed from the wall by an ominous hand, the paranormal elements are never seen (or heard of) again. That’s not such a bad thing though, because when the slasher stuff starts, the film finally finds some credibility and delivers a few impressive chills.

Whilst Nite can be considered a ‘found footage’ film, these elements, much like the ghostly stuff I mentioned earlier, are kind of bolted on. One minute we will be watching a camcorder shot of the action and then in the next instant, we see everything through a fixed lens. Surprisingly though, this blend works extremely well in some places, like when the director cuts to isolated staircases and rooms to underline the atmosphere of solitude. After the fusebox is destroyed early in the runtime, everything is filmed in night vision and it makes the actor’s eyes illuminate like reflective motorway studs in the darkness, which was creepy. I liked the antagonist’s guise and Robin Scott Fleming delivers a decent score to help maintain the tension. The killer stalks with a traditional Michael Myers-alike strut and even if we only get a handful of murders, they are creatively delivered and fairly menacing.

Whilst there aren’t any true gore scenes and the mystery is easy to figure out, Dead of Nite has enough in its briefcase to at least deliver the odd moment that is worthy of praise. I wasn’t expecting much, but I enjoyed the few jolts and the attempt to make the stalking sequences as scary as possible. If you have seen everything else and keep what I’ve said in mind, you should check it out.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √√√

Gore

Final Girl √

RATING: