Three contained tales heavy with EC-like morality, with a functional interlinked story are what makes up this zero budget horror film. Sumner attempts something a bit different by eventually making the wraparound segment into a story in it’s own right. And sure, it fails. But it was bold, and I give the director credit for that. The three sections are titled Work Life, Home Life and Sex Life.

The first fable, Work Life, contains zombies affected by a nanovirus sent over the internet. Lowly programmer William Robert Moss subverts computer technology in order to win some friends. Obviously, in true Twilight Zone fashion, it goes wrong creating an office block full of gut-munching undeadites. While the ideas are strong, the performances are so distracting it makes it difficult to watch. This is a theme through most of the skits seems to be that the director has hired his friends, family and people from the street to populate his movie. Like the core idea, some of the effects are strong, harkening back to Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch.

Home Life may well contain some really dodgy effects, but it is also the creepiest and spookiest of the three stories here. Following a pregnant woman being haunted by the victims of a peadophile murderer, it manages to manufacture genuine spinal shivers while lumbering towards its telegraphed conclusion.

Last up is Sex Life, a Teeth-alike parable in which a girl and her brother hit the road leaving their abusive uncle in their dust only to find themselves trapped in the home of a serial killer.  The performances in this section are a marked improvement, which actually manages to damage the rest of the flick by proxy. This comic gore piece has some very interesting genre-redefining flourishes and is by far the most interesting. This may be mildly spoilerific so feel free to skip this sentence, but I was amazed to finally see someone with a killer vagina who isn’t a timid rape magnet but uses her affliction in an almost black widow-esque manner.

While uneven, Slices of Life is a fun little low budget anthology. After wading past the shoddy performances, there is a whole lot to enjoy at the core of this movie. Interesting ideas wrapped in competent direction and a streak of ghoulish charm at it’s centre.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars

I don’t want any of you readers to misunderstand me, this isn’t a good film. It ploughs through the motions, albeit in a fairly efficient manner. The tracing paper plot pitches Bloody Beginnings, predictably, as a prequel explaining somewhat the early life of series stalwart, Three Finger. Locked in an asylum as a youngster, Three Finger and his two brothers, Saw Tooth and One Eye, break free from their shared cell and wreak havoc on the staff. Flash to some years later, a group of attractive couples, who love to spontaneously break into applause, find themselves trapped in said sanatorium after a getting lost in the snow. Can you guess what happens next? I bet you can.

The script is entirely without legs, with the bulk of the dialogue being devoid of any wit or intelligence, even finding time to clunkily drop in the franchise’s titular moniker. While the words may be laughable at best, the assembled cast of Canadian TV actors, stuntmen, and Saw second stringers manage to handle themselves fairly admirably, but in the “ugh, I hate this character! When will they just die?!” way that pervades modern horror. This isn’t an accolade that I frequently bestow on low budget cash-ins but some of the scared acting and screaming is very different to what you might expect.

Bloody Beginnings plays with the recipe set by the previous flicks. Mostly set in a confined space, Wrong Turn 4 is forced to eschew the bow and arrow play of the previous three in favour of ridiculous over-sized drills and bone saws. I’m pretty sure O’Brien picked up a job lot of barbed wire at a steal too, as this seems to be the mutants’ new torture device of choice. While this may muddy the waters, it certainly provides a platter for some very decent gore set pieces. Employing a healthy amount of practical effects definitely helped bolster my enjoyment of the film, although it does fall prey to some god-awful CG effects and CG blood, particularly in it’s penultimate scene.

Sure, it’s nothing to write home about but as a nuts and bolts grue-soaked tool-killer thrill ride, it definitely ticks some boxes. Nothing new, nothing bold, but plenty to enjoy pitches Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings a world away from the previous installment, although hardcore fans of the franchise (are there any?) might finds themselves frustrated with the new direction.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10 stars

Zombies Of Mass Destruction is a slightly too on-the-nose allegory of the current Iraq war, leaving no room for interpretation. Even the title is a bad joke. Continuing in this vein, the humour is a mixed bag. Some broad swipes at stereotypes and the news media that hit the target, and some attempts at silly slapstick that are miles wide. The shifts between high and low brow are almost tectonic and confusing to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, the jokes come at a near breakneck pace, but only around a third of them will raise anything more than a mild smirk. I get the impression that every level of humour was employed in order to make this movie more acceptable for the masses, and while it is nice that most people will find something humorous in here, it really works to the detriment of the film.

Although the real kicker is the production value, the film harkens back to the Camcorder Coppola zombie flicks of the mid 90′s, bleary, washed-out, and devoid of decent lighting. While it is admirable that the films pacing and shooting style mean that the almost ninety minute running time zips by, the whole film just looks entirely amateur. The sheer volume of protagonists mean that each character is given the bare minimum of development, you simply don’t care who lives or dies. Plot strands are begun, and then almost immediately abandoned and the ending leaves you questioning exactly what it was you have just witnessed. Don’t even get me started on the tacked on, half-baked final scene which left me furiously scratching my head until I almost broke the skin.

Lashings of gore, and some fairly decent make up litter the film but with no emotion or excitement to hang it on, those scenes just appear as window dressing. It is clear to see where the bulk of the presumably meagre budget was spent. A few awful performances from peripheral actors cheapen the mostly bang up job done by those getting the most screen time, Janette Armand (Frida) is perfect for a WB style teen drama, and Doug Fahl has some real stand out moments. Although the script contains a few zingers, the bulk of the dialogue stinks likes last week’s mouldy corpses so it is a testament to their talent that these actors come across as well as they do.

Purists may enjoy the shambling undead of Romero’s heyday, and even a nod to his social commentary, but this is light years away from those genre classics. Sure, the satire makes targeted jabs at everything currently wrong with America’s climate of fear, but the inconsistent humour mixed with the dreadful appearance show that this does not deserve to be lauded along with recent zom-coms such as Shaun Of The Dead or Zombieland. Amusing enough, certainly not boring, but ultimately average.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10 stars

The traps are incredibly convoluted, lots of trip wires lead to flying blades, rooms filled with bear traps, and spring loaded platforms that propel people who do not tread carefully into walls of spikes. The sheer gall of these traps makes it easy to enjoy this film on a similar level to that of the Final Destination movies. Plenty of silly death scenes, ludicrous traps, and lashings of gore. I’d read somewhere that was written as a Saw prequel. I’m not sure how this would work in that canon, but I definitely think it works as a standalone piece. The family are certainly not squeaky clean, which seems to be a remnant of the original screenplay but again, this works within the slasher archetypes laid out for all to see in the Scream movies.

The Collector is presented as an other worldly entity, all creaks and whirrs. His Nightbreed style mask makes him look creepy as hell in the flashes we see early on, but as the film progresses and we see more of him, he begins to look a little bit ridiculous. I found it refreshing that, in a world where film is explained to the nth degree, no explanation for the killer’s motives (other than the fact he is a collector) were explained. It was nice to see a random killer stalking a random family for sport. It made his actions seem all the more gruesome, and as a viewer I had no idea of what he would do next. This lack of explanation recalled films like Funny Games, as well as the slasher films of yore. Although, that isn’t to say it is as intelligent as Haneke’s parable on violence in movies, nor is it as arrogantly forceful.

Written and directed by the team who wrote the Feast films, it’s nice to see them continue down their cine-literate track (although I haven’t seen the Saw films that they had a hand in as of yet). The Collector clearly has a giallo influence. Some of the shots have shades of Argento or Bava written right through them like a stick of well-lit rock. The lighting and composition is used to great effect in creating that creepy atmosphere, just like the old Italian masters used to do. It doesn’t hurt that The Collector wears black gloves throughout too. Again, I am not saying this is as good as a Blood And Black Lace, but it does show a certain aptitude for in-camera knowledge and eye for direction. Having not seen anything from the cinematographer, Brandon Cox, and this being the debut feature from the director, I have no idea who deserves the praise but it definitely looks excellent.

The Collector is a well crafted, disposable slice of modern slasher horror. Curbing from classics but keeping its sensibilities very much in the present day, it sits as an excellent example of the genre. Sure, it’s almost bereft of anything interesting to say thematically, some of the writing is pretty clunky and there are a whole host of unanswered questions (Why didn’t he lock the door until after Arkin was in? Why is there no blood on the traps before Arkin arrives? Is he just there for Arkin?) but strong performances and a focus on visual style make this stand out from the current crop. I do believe there are sequels in the pipeline, and while I am interested to see more, I am also pretty worried that the character will be explained away as just another Jigsaw which would be a real shame.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

At a glance, the first half of this film is a well shot, if exaggerated, slice of life all too real for many of today’s youngsters. The dialogue may be clunky and the acting may well be atrocious, but these situations will be familiar to almost every single one of us, the key difference is that we will never exact our revenge on those who tormented us. In fact, most of us will grow up to be fairly normal and well adjusted members of society. However, the people in this film are not most of us. Every one of them, on both sides, is a gross caricature designed to make us hate the bullies and feel for the victims. Although, the film shows us that, despite a few threats, the bullies are non-violent. Sure, they say some pretty hurtful things but I find it extraneous that this level of brutal violence is even marginally acceptable, let alone worthy of eliciting cheers from these fuck-ups.

Presented as a high school revenge flick for the Saw generation, the lead revenge-taker goes so far as to wear a gas mask and talk about how the bullies will all have a new lease of life after this event. Sound familiar? He talks for so long with the Scream voice changer that I quickly became bored. Any of the empathy I felt for him and his group just melted away, like the skin of a prom queen. His (AKA the screenwriter’s) need to incessantly explain everything to the Nth degree does more to cheapen the film than its gaudy plot to become “that” film that kids talk about. Elsewhere, the in class scenes show their teacher hammering home every theme in the film literally leaving nothing worthy of discussion remaining.

Amongst the mostly confused script and the oh-so-knowing dialogue (at one point, one of the bitchy girls says “Oh my god, I could die!” when discussing how fat she feels), there was one thing I actually thought was pretty neat. All of the adults who were supposed to be either guardians or role models were presented as faceless, concealed behind a mask of more-important things. The interesting and exciting shooting style is abandoned for the second half, where they opt for a more simple point and shoot method. This could perhaps be a stylistic choice, but as the film descends into yet another “torture porn” flick they not only lost my interest in the plot, but discarded the only portion of the film which showed some potential.

All this makes The Final a reasonably attractive stab at a dirty demographic that revels in its nastiness, and has no concept of the irony contained within it. I might be tempted to think that director Joey Stewart, believes he has made something Haneke-ian in it’s coldness, but seriously lacks ~Michael Haneke‘s aptitude. I recommend everyone just watch Heathers again.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10 stars

Initially, I was worried about how the directors would shoe-horn in the first person shot element into the film. This was handled fairly adeptly in the plot by sending in a SWAT team complete with helmet mounted cameras into the quarantined building of the first flick, just moments after the previous film had ended. Entering with them is a doctor assigned to the team by the Ministry of Health, who may not be all he seems. Infected people show up, as is customary, and battle with the team. Later, we are re-shown the first section of the film through the eyes of a different set of characters who sneak into the building with a camcorder. If anything, that apartment building is incapable of not having a camera in it. While it is a little bit extraneous to believe the initial event of the second section, if you operate the “suspension of disbelief” switch in your mind, you might just get through it. I know I did.

As a lot of other people have said, this is the Aliens to the original’s Alien, in more ways than one. Obviously, it echoes the plot of Cameron’s entry into the Alien canon, but also works as a more beefed up, action-packed counterpart. The ideas touched on in the previous entry are given centre stage here, and the film benefits from it greatly. Great action films about demonic possession are few and far between, this is the only one I can even think of at this point. It is interesting to consider a possession epidemic, and the religious implications of that. I’ll say no more, as we are dangerously close to spoiler city.

The films action scenes are short and frequent, which helps to build the tension right up. Due to the fact the SWAT team have cameras and guns, occasionally [REC] 2 can feel a little like you are watching someone else play a video game, which may alienate a few watchers. Alongside this, it also instils a computer game mentality where you have no idea what is coming, but you know it is only round the corner. Some of the writing is of a game level too, although that could just be in the translation, it definitely isn’t the first Resident Evil bad.

It is quite striking, with a specific grainy look carried over from the first entry. I, like many others, am getting a bit bored with this current cinéma vérité fad in horror flicks, but this one works. I am keen to see the directors out of their [REC] comfort zone with something new, but I’m almost certain that [REC] 3 will come first. If you enjoyed the original [REC] then this film should blow your mind, and even if you didn’t, this film may surprise you. It certainly surprised me.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

From the opening credits, you are well aware of the madness that is in store over the coming 90 minutes. From the moment David Daniels madcap claymation kicks off to the tune of Henry Rollins‘ wailings, you know that this isn’t your everyday gross out comedy. But gross out it is, the pus flies high, heads are ripped clean off, and soliloquies are read to a packed audience of rioters. The only accurate term for this movie is zany. The jokes, as well as the moments of grossness, come at such a machine gun rapid rate that it is nigh on impossible to get bored. Sure, there are a few scenes of lull, and plenty of references that UK audiences won’t get without some canny use of the internet (flying gimp, anyone?) but it’s never far from making you chuckle.

Winter parodies himself with such acerbic gusto, it’s inconceivable that anyone would be able to dislike him despite the fact that his character begins as the kind of pampered bastard celebrity we all love to hate. The cast are clearly having the most fun, with all their acting dials turned firmly to eleven. I can imagine a very anarchic shoot. Quaid steals the film though, his insane, gurning Skuggs is just a delight. It’s a wonder he didn’t choke on that scenery though. Freaked also contains a stellar cameo from Winters’ old buddy Keanu Reeves, in his least wooden performance of the 90′s.

It’s the special effects and makeup that really sell this film. Ricky’s freak look is something between a gremlin and Lurch, and it looks incredible. Don’t get me wrong, you would never mistake these effects as reality, but there is such a sense of fun injected that you can almost see it through the screen. Nosey the Noseman, The Worm and Skye Daily’s feet all look incredible. I defy you to not raise a smirk at the “really big shoe.”

The underlying plot, when you remove the freakish aspects, is very basic and familiar. Asshole meets girl, overcomes circumstances to eventually not be an asshole any more. We’ve seen it thousands of times in Oscar winners right down to TV movies, but we have never seen it quite like this before. There is no new or exciting direction, although the set design and lighting is excellent, it’s the writing that is key here. With many ideas coming directly from a sketch show, the rapid fire humour pierces you with laughter bullets, until you are bleeding chuckles from all over. Freaked may not be for everyone, but if you like your humour puerile and inflected with a horror influence, then you most certainly will love this flick.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

Frozen is the story of three friends, couple Dan and Parker (Zegers and Bell, respectively) and best friend Joe (Ashmore), who get stuck up on a ski lift after a resort closes, it’s the simplistic concept that serves the movie so well. Open Water in mid air, Frozen really elicits the “what the hell would I do in that situation?” reaction which has the potential gets chins wagging and gums flapping. There isn’t much more I can say about the plot without giving too much away, so just think about what could happen in that situation, and prepare to have it taken to the limit.

From what I have read, the movie was completely shot on the side of a real mountain, with the actors suspended in a real ski lift, and I can’t see anything that contradicts that. The film is wonderfully realised, well framed and edited with a deft hand. Green definitely has an eye for ramping up the tension, although occasionally he can drift into by-the-numbers directing. He also has a issue with referencing his showbiz mates, which in theory is fine but within this I found the fact that every single character was named after a director buddy of Mr. Green. It’s not a massive issue, but it can occasionally smack a little of self indulgence. While I am the topic of self indulgence, there is a shot of Green and Wrong Turn 2‘s director Joe Lynch on a ski lift cracking wise. While this did raise a chuckle, it appeared to be added as an afterthought and looked entirely out of place within the film. It seemed to be placed there for fanboys (such as myself), and may pull a viewer with little or no knowledge of Green out of the moment.

Without dropping any spoilers, I can say that the little bits of gore are excellently realised, especially when coupled with the incredible sound mixing and editing. It’s impressive that the same guy who showed us a new use for a belt sander can also show this level of restraint, I think it just goes to prove that this man know his genre, his audience, and, most importantly, his shit. Green gets good performances out of the three leads, particularly the regularly wooden Air Bud star Kevin Zegers.

Because the plot is so sparse, there isn’t an awful lot more I can say. I will say that Frozen is exciting, entertaining, gruesome in spots, and thoroughly well made. I have found myself being overly critical of the few weaknesses of the movie because I am such a fan of Green as a director and a person, as well as the fact that there really isn’t anything worth actually complaining about within the rest of the movie. Basically, you should see this film.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars

I arrived in Glasgow shortly after 4pm, met up with my old Dad for some fish and chips and then headed up to the GFT to hook up with the other fest goers. I was there for less than five minutes when some of the regulars showed up. It was dead good to catch up with some of the folks that I haven’t seen since last August.
I had to deal with some GoreZone related ribbing, but it was all good. I tried to avoid saying anything that might get me in trouble. I think I just about managed it. Throughout the weekend people were asking me if I was me (which I am) and congratulating me on being a man, sticking it to the man, and not bowing down to the man. I tried in general to not talk about it too much, but thanked everyone who gave me messages of support because I really do appreciate it.

So I saw a bunch of movies, some of which I will review, some I won’t. I’ve got to be honest; there will be no Amer review. I fell asleep, and I fell hard. I kept waking up and seeing how amazingly beautiful it was, but just couldn’t keep my eyes open. From what I saw, it was a giallo through the eyes of Gaspar Noe as a film student. The directors and producer, Helene Cattet, Bruno Forzani, and Francois Cognard, gave an interesting Q&A, and I will have to make sure I track down the movie to watch it again when I wasn’t up until 7am drinking beers and debating racism with my family.

I was a bit gutted that the uncut, fully restored showing of A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin was neither fully restored nor uncut, but either way, it’s always good to see Fulci on the big screen. Always. I can’t wait until the promised version hits DVD, which should be very soon.

Frozen director, Adam Green, didn’t manage to make it over. If you follow him on Twitter, you will know how gutted he was to be stuck on a static plane in the snow. So in his absence, 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams director, Tim Sullivan, read out an email from Green to introduce the film, complete with a rant about Avatar. Frozen played really well, and was easily my favourite of the festival. Also, Sullivan is one charismatic dude, and funny to boot. Especially in the 2001 Maniacs Q&A session, I didn’t get to interview him but I did get to ask a question during the Q&A. Obviously, I asked him about how Miles Dougal (Brian from Psychocop Returns!) got involved. He seemed pretty impressed that I even knew who Miles Dougal was, I felt good about myself all day.

There was a pretty fun short called Deadspiel, obviously Canadian, about a curling match between zombies and humans. Nicely put together, if a little slow, which is a pretty great punchline. Also they showed some excellent trailers, especially Stoner, which has made it onto my ‘Oh Shit, I Gotta Watch That’ list. George Lazenby and Kung Fu together, the idea just makes me so happy.
[REC] 2 blew me away, I really like where they went with the story. I may have preferred it to the original. Splice didn’t fulfil its promise but was still an admirable science gone wild movie, and yes, I would (when you see the movie, you will understand). It got pretty icky in parts too. Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre was a stand out, played straight with a few notes of comedy, it really worked for me. A couple of members of the young, pretty cast were about to introduce it, but didn’t come back for a Q&A.

Stag Night was a decent enough The Hills Have Eyes-style backwoods slasher type movie, but more interesting than the movie was the punch up that kicked off in the second row. You know you’re in Glasgow when a fight breaks out in the cinema. I don’t really know what happened; apparently a guy was being drunk and annoying enough to make some guy start wailing on him. He got about ten or fifteen punches in before security came, and kicked the pummelled dude out (which prompted a few quick people to dub the event “FightFest”). It was exciting viewing. Director, Peter Dowing, chatted a little bit about the fight after, and imparted the tidbit that he was an assistant animator on Raggy Dolls. I remember loving that cartoon when I was a kid, but don’t remember why.

Jake West popped up to show us some of the stuff cut from Doghouse, which apparently included more symbolism, some of which I caught and some that passed me by. Neil Marshall and his lovely partner in crime, Axelle Carolyn, also turned up with the first five minutes of Centurion. Anything with Fassbender and tonnes of gore will get me salivating good and proper. Also Chris Smith showed up to give us a taster of The Black Death, which didn’t hit me too hard, but I will definitely check it out when it hits cinemas.

I didn’t fancy queuing up for any of the freebies, so didn’t get any of the copies of Dr. Chopper or Mr. Halloween they were doling out like sweets in October, although my good buddy Frank did give me a copy of Sergio Martino’s The Violent Professionals. I didn’t get any of the t-shirts they were handing out either, mainly because I didn’t want a certain section of the horror community thinking I was under the employ of the FrightFest fellas (which I’m not, although I do throw the odd review their way for their site. I can think of worse things than working for living legend Alan Jones).

So I am now on the train home, after a massive Subway and my body weight in coffee, to sleep through until next week. Reviews of everything I actually watched coming soon, but until then don’t let the bed-bugs bite.

Love
Jamie.

Written, produced and directed by award winning filmmakers Paul Feeney, Ryan McDermott, & Sean Candon, Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders is a high concept independent short film filled with numerous memorable characters, laugh out loud moments, original creature effects and a taste of true British comedy with a sprinkle of horror. Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders has been the recipient of the Special Commendation Award 2009 at the Festival of Fantastic Films. Already hailed as “a British Hellboy” by Joblo.com, a “triumph” by the Salford Star and “a balls out out, eyebrow cocking horror comedy romp” by Filmrant, this thirty minute horror/comedy is proving to be a cult smash amongst audiences at home in the UK and across the pond in the US.

I met up with Mark Macready himself, actor/producer Ryan Mcdermott, along with Paul Newberry and Nathan Head, in a busy Costa coffee in Manchester city centre.

GP: So what are you up to then, guys?

Ryan: So we’re taking the short, and putting it online which is going to hopefully lead into making the feature film version, just getting it out there. It is going to be a really interactive experience as well, we’re going to let everyone watch the short and once we start making the feature we’re going to be live tweeting from the set, live cam and stuff like that. We’re going to give loads of opportunities to people to get involved, in a really groundbreaking kind of way. And what we’re going to do while making the feature is put together ‘webisodes’ that are going to include the characters which lead up to the events in the feature film. It’s going to be a real online cross platform universe.

How are you funding the feature?

Ryan: Private investors. We’ve been quite lucky with the short playing in so many places, we’ve got two investors. So we’re just waiting on their decision to see what they want to do. I’m going to go to Cannes, the short is going to be on the Short Film Corner. It’s probably going to be around the next twelve months getting the money together, and anyone who has got money, just seeing if they will invest in it. I mean there are some people who let the fans fund, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to get the money ourselves and give back to the fans, who then give back to the project by supporting it. So funding is coming on well.

The short is getting quite a lot of attention, I see its won some awards, how did the short come about?

Ryan: I met Paul Feeney, the writer and creator in college, we were given one of these projects. You know, to shoot a thriller, or to shoot a horror and he asked me if I like David Duchovny from the X Files and I said “I do indeed” so he said he had the British X Files right here and would I be in it. I said “yeah sure” and we shot it. It was horrendous. It was so bad. But there was a little bit of something in it and then Sean Candon who directed the short saw the tape and asked us to develop it because there was something in there. So Paul went away and wrote the short film…and then the three of us got together and said that I would produce it and star, Sean would direct, and Feeney would write it. He ended up being in it, and Sean did too as its hard to get actors who fit the style. We were very lucky with Nathan and Paul, as they really got the style, that Garth Marenghi-type serious delivery of the ridiculous. It’s very hard to play that straight.

How did you find the roles?

Paul: It was good, it was hard. Because it’s a horror parody there is a delicate balance between straight and comedy. If you imagine Julie Hagerty in Airplane when she is doing those serious moments, its a bit more that style, a bit more on the serious side of parody. It was about getting into these niches and levels of the parody, and it was difficult to get that balance.

Nathan: I think because some of the dialogue you got, like in the first train station scene, wouldn’t have worked if you had done it silly…

Paul: It wouldn’t, you’re right.

Ryan: The line when Paul’s character comes on is “Fuck me sideways and call me a cunt, what the hell are you doing here?”

Paul: And talking about vaginas as well…

Ryan: That’s right, the monster in the short, the Archangel, does nasty things to ladies parts.

Paul: It wouldn’t sound right if you were saying it in a silly way.

Ryan: It had to be said deadly serious, even though what is being said is utterly ridiculous. It’s getting that balance which is very tough. We shot ten days originally, and when we got that footage back it was neither serious nor funny. It wasn’t anything really, just bland. Nobody really knew the style, and what happened then was we re-wrote a lot of it, shot it and eventually it started to come out in the re-shoots. The script got a lot better, from watching that ten days worth of footage we could say where the comedy worked and the performances were working but the dialogue wasn’t complimenting the performance which had to be reworked. We discovered during the re-shoots that Mac is an extremely fast character, he doesn’t wait around. In the earlier version, we had Mac sat around saying “Where’s my wife?”, and we realised that this guy would never just sit there. From the minute you meet him, he is go, go, go, go, and that was something we really needed to get across.

Manchester is an important city for me, how important was Manchester to the film?

Ryan: So, so important. It really annoys me in these English movies where they are all set in London, and there is nothing else that exists outside of London. We wanted to do that with Manchester, and make it a huge character for the film. The branch where they work is called the Greater Manchester Paranormal Investigations Department, the GMPID. What a mouthful. But it was really. I think it was a fresh take on it, I don’t think anyone has really done Manchester. 28 Days Later had a bit around here.

Living Dead At Manchester Morgue shot parts at a hospital in Salford, which has been gutted out from the inside now which is a shame.

Ryan: Was that 70s?

I think it was around ’74…

Paul: It was up Pennine way, wasn’t it?

They shot a little bit in Manchester, and then everything else was done elsewhere. The shots of the hospital are just incredible, it was really good to walk around in Salford and find it. See a part of classic Italian horror in our own city.

Paul: I need to find a copy of that.

Ryan: I’ll have to get hold of that. We’ve got a shot of driving up towards McDonald’s in Salford by all the 70s flats, with Mac in his car. Whenever anyone sees it, they always comment on that part. I wish we had done more of that, but we didn’t really have a lot of time. In the dialogue Mac talks about how the city is key for him. He puts the city before his wife and that’s what begins the story, his job protecting the city comes between him and his wife and then when she is taken, it really hits home.

So the feature will be set in Manchester too?

Ryan: Definitely.

Are you going to take a bit more time to develop the city as a character in there?

Ryan: Already, in the treatment written by Paul Feeney and myself, it is kind of spanning every aspect. From suburban streets down to the docks, around Deansgate, and the forests and woods. Those really eerie parts of Manchester are a huge part of it. Also in the webisode series, it’s going to play a big role in there as well, in creating that world.

Paul: Manchester is definitely a huge part of it, the people too. That’s why Paul Feeney named it the GMPID, the Greater Manchester Paranormal Investigation Department. It’s just instantly recognisable.

Have you had any scary experiences in Manchester in general? I remember once I tried to walk to Salford Uni from Prestwich, I looked it up on Google Maps and it was a pretty straight route through the Albert and Peel Park. And I just got the most lost ever, I was walking around there for about three hours just not knowing where the hell I was and eventually I found a an old sewage plant and a road back to where I started. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life, I thought I was going to die!

Nathan: I get pretty scared when I’m under Piccadilly Station, under the bridge. You get used to walking under there, but it can be scary!

Paul: Once I was with my mum and it was that big football match, if you remember…

Ryan: Oh, with the riots! With Scotland?

Paul: Yes, and there was two cockneys, me and my mum, on the tram and it was full of football fans and they were jumping on the tram. It was really frightening. My mum was waving a red flag to try and pretend we were from Manchester.

Ryan: One thing that really scared me as a kid, which we were really to get into the movie, was the old train station in Swinton. I would go on the train to Manchester with my Grandmother, and it used to scare the hell out of me. It was so scary.

Nathan: They’ve modernised it now…

Ryan: Yeah, they’ve put in an electronic board. That won’t last the weekend… But, it was scary. It was always something that haunted me as a kid. We managed to do a big scene, a death scene, there which was something I really wanted to do.

Paul: And even shooting that, there was loads of drunks coming past the bridge all shouting over and it was scary.

Ryan: Really rough, yeah.

So the film has been to a lot of festivals, have you been going with it to gauge reactions and how has that been?

Ryan: That’s been probably the best thing about it, seeing the reactions. It’s really nice to get a review, but when you are in there and you see the actual reaction and feel it when you come out, people are looking at you. It feels a bit strange, but very nice.

Nathan: At Mayhem in Nottingham, they had this thing called An Experiment In Fear where they had this person strapped to a heart monitor while they were watching the film to see what the scariest moments were.

Ryan: That was really cool! We’ve been across Manchester, we’ve been to Nottingham, we’ve been down to London, Portsmouth. We flew to New York for a screening there. Every audience is very different. At Mayhem they were really primed for it, as it is a pure horror film festival. I think one of the most amazing reactions was where it was the last film on, and the films before it had all been very serious, very gory and realistic horror. Then this man with a silly eyebrow and a silly voice pops up, and they was like “ooh, what’s this?” I really miss it, and I can’t wait to hopefully get back out with the feature film.

Paul: It was all absolutely brilliant, I think one of the organisers of Mayhem is the director of Mum & Dad…

Stephen Shiels?

Paul: Absolutely brilliant guy. I had such a wonderful time. It was really funny because a lot of the audience were so used to just watching horror films, and you see them thinking “what the hell is this?” when it has just started but once the audience engaged with each other in the humour of it, that’s when it takes off.

Ryan: It takes that first five minutes to break the ice. In that first five minutes, it’s just Mac and his wife talking…

Nathan: At every festival we’ve been to, we have always sat at the back just in case…

Ryan: Just in case we have to get out quick…

Nathan: But it’s gone down really well everywhere.

Ryan: We’ve been very lucky, even in New York it went down well. That was a bizarre one because I’m sure they just thought “what the bloody hell is this?”, they were sat there just looking around. And then suddenly that first laugh came which broke it, by the end it got a really good reaction. For me, Paul and Sean, that was the most nerve-wracking one, because the American audience can be very difficult. Certain things that didn’t get big laughs here, got big laughs there. And certain things that got big laughs here, didn’t get big laughs there, very different sense of humour.

Nathan: One of the biggest laughs in America came when a character gets shot…

Ryan: A female cop gets shot and the Americans go wild…

They probably just saw the gun and got excited.

Ryan: Probably, probably… And it was a Texan who shot her.

British horror is going through a bit of a renaissance lately, what British horror flicks have influenced you guys?

Ryan: I like the Neil Marshall stuff. He updated it, he brought it back. I haven’t seen The Descent 2 yet, which I know he didn’t direct. He was just executive producer…

It was alright, not as good as the first…

Ryan: I need to check it out. I just really like what he has done, he is someone who has brought it back and in a cool way. It’s not just B movie stuff, although some of the plots are B movie, it’s good horror that looks big budget and I like that.

A lot of people were down on, uh, on, uh…

Ryan: Doomsday?

Doomsday, yeah! I loved it. It’s one of the best films to watch on the big screen.

Ryan: It was a great experience, and I don’t think it worked as well on DVD. I really liked the size and scope of it on the big screen, and I’ve seen it again on DVD. Seeing it on the big screen just made it. I really liked it. Neil Marshall is great.

What about you guys?

Paul: I really liked Mum & Dad, because Britain has this culture of things happening behind closed doors. It has that British Hostel feeling for me. I really liked that, and I loved the characterisation in it. It’s a great film.

Nathan: I know they technically aren’t British but the Hellraiser films. I know only the first two and a half are British but I love them!

Ryan: You’re a big Hellraiser fan, aren’t you?

Nathan: Huge!

Are you excited about the Nightbreed found footage?

Nathan: I’m looking forward to that! Apparently there is a scene in the cemetery with a giant stop motion cat with a women on its back walking around. I’ve seen the test shots in the studio, but I’m looking forward to seeing that. I don’t know if it’s going to get a DVD release, did they do a screening at the weekend?

I’m not sure, but I know a lot of people are lobbying for a DVD release of it. There is a lot of good being found lately, I don’t know where it’s hiding but it’s coming out slowly…

Ryan: Someone is digging into the archives aren’t they…Someone is going in and pulling the stuff out…

Getting back to Mac, was it a difficult shoot?

Ryan: It varied, those first ten days were very hard, very tricky. We were all learning so much. There were too many people, too many cooks.

Nathan: It seemed quite high pressure, it might have just been because it was massive production…

Ryan: Yeah, those first few weeks we different a bit too complex than it needed to be. Myself, Paul and Sean then sat down to talk about how we were going to do it differently. We decided it would just be the three of us, us holding the lights and doing everything. We got one person to do the make up, minimised everything so we could just work with the actors. That is when it became very fun, we really bonded at that point. We all knew each other reasonable well, but for me that was when I really got to meet Paul and Nathan and become friends with them. Which is what we have done really. I mean these guys are actors really, but they are sat here helping me push the movie which I really appreciate. Same goes with everyone, really, who worked on the second half of the film. We all stayed in touch and stayed really good friends, on the photographs from Mayhem we are all there together. We were lucky, it was a really good experience, the second half of it…

Nathan: I still enjoyed the first bit but I’ve got fonder memories of the re-shoots…

Paul: Especially the parts at the train station and the warehouse.

Ryan: I think out personalities came out, through the first half I was just Ryan, producer, not being an asshole… Well, I hope I wasn’t an asshole! I just couldn’t really engage with anyone or talk to anyone because my mind was in a million places. But the second time I got to get closely involved with everyone.

Paul: I was always happy with both sides of it. Obviously, it did relax. It was quite hard to come back and redo scenes, you get a bit paranoid. You think “what did I do wrong?” but actually they’d gone back and seen what was wrong and they knew how to make it right…

Ryan: You guys didn’t have a clue, did you?

Nathan: I could understand why things were re-shot, for lighting and things like that. I’m glad really because it was like a practice run, we better understood the characters during the re-shoots.

Ryan: We were lucky…

Did any of that initial shoot make it into the final cut?

Nathan: There is a bit in Korkinsky’s flat that’s part of the original shoot…

Ryan: Yeah. The raid on Korkinsky’s flat, that’s the original. The She-Snake sequence, and the train station sequence.

Nathan: Some of the actors were different, because they couldn’t come back.

Ryan: That was a shame, because we lost some great people. But we got, in a fate kind of way, people who are more suited to the faster paced version. Ashleigh Edwards Pitt now plays Friday, but originally she was played by a friend of ours called Lynsey Little. Lyndsey suited the very film noir version that we had, very calm, relaxed, femme fatale. But when we came back, we didn’t think Mac would interact with this kind of a character. I think it has to be a sexy demon, leather clad girl, when Lynsey couldn’t come back we then met Ashleigh who was perfect for that kind of approach. Ashleigh is a great example of what the re-shoots brought in. But mostly it was the pace of it, each scene had to end up with a punch, or with a gun. Each scene had to have a big moment.

Paul: I think there was a lot of good stuff in the first version. A lot of good ideas, and good creatures. But a lot just didn’t work for what we needed.

Nathan: I was quite disappointed that some of it didn’t make it to the final cut, like in the GMPID when you saw the other monsters. You just see a werewolf, in the final version, being interrogated, but there was a zombie prostitute and there was a mummy. I don’t know why that didn’t make it through, but I really like the zombie prostitute…

Paul: I liked her too…

Nathan: Her make up was really good, have you any of the photos?

At this point I’ve seen everything on the Facebook group page, I’ve seen the trailer and the make up is one of the things that really stands out…

Ryan: Thank you. We were very lucky with the girl that we had who did the make up, Lindsey Genter, who actually ended up playing Dr. Gish in the film just because we were out of actors. We were like “who the hell is left to play this role?” We were worried at one point that it might turn into a bit of a disaster project, like is this another Wolfman? Thankfully, it wasn’t. Lynsey stepped in to play Dr. Gish, she had never acted before, and she is a great talent. She saved our bacon on a lot of the stuff with the make up, and then we had a really great effects guy called Oliver Starkey come in. He enhanced all those effects, he gave it the look that it has… The grain, it was just shot on standard HD. If you see it without the grain, the colours aren’t as crisp because we didn’t have the money to light professionally.

Nathan: He added some really good effects on the swamp as well, didn’t he?

Ryan: He added all the wind, the lightening and the rain. CGI rain, it’s pouring and no one is getting wet…

So where do you guys stand on the CGI versus practical debate that’s obviously ongoing?

Nathan: I’m mixed, I like CGI if it’s not over the top. Sometimes you don’t even know when CGI has been used like when it is just used to touch something up… But when whole characters are CGI like Jar Jar Binks, I think it can cheapen it. If it’s done really well though, like in Jurassic Park, it can really work. I was worried about seeing Avatar because I was expecting it to be Jar Jar Binks: The Movie but it worked really well in that too.

Ryan: Coming from a producer point of view, it’s whatever is cheapest to do on the day. You have to go with it. But I love what Peter Jackson and [Guillermo] Del Toro do, how they integrate live action with that CG effect. Especially Blade 2, a great example of that, where they had the practical mouth opening and then had the CG. I love the puppetry side of it, we were talking about Gremlins earlier… I really want to own one of those gremlins. But I do like both, both have pros and cons. We had to go with a lot of CG to enhance stuff, but I think it works.

Nathan: It looks good.

Ryan: I just take issue with films that use it for blowing up heads and it’s really obvious.

That’s my biggest bone of contention at the moment, CGI blood. I don’t know how expensive corn syrup is… I watched a film recently with Dolph Lundgren called Command Performace. He plays a rock drummer who has to save the Russian Premier…

Ryan: He’s still working?

He is! But the blood in that is so obviously CGI, it’s almost like Roger Rabbit…

Ryan: It just looks animated…

Nathan: You don’t really need it, even if you can’t afford corn syrup just get some ketchup out of the cupboard. I know its the wrong colour, but you could do something…

Ryan: Spit Vimto out or something…

Nathan: It was chocolate sauce in Psycho!

Ryan: Was it?

Nathan: Chocolate sauce!

Ryan: I wish I worked on that movie. Nom nom nom nom.

Haha! So have you seen many other shorts on your festival rounds? Were there any you were into?

Nathan: Horrorshow!

Ryan: Treevenge!

Nathan: I loved Treevenge!

Ryan: That’s has got to be the best short I’ve ever seen at a horror festival, I love it so much.

Nathan: I liked Dr. Psycho’s Chamber Of Sadism too.

Ryan: Have you seen that one?

I haven’t, I’ll have to check it out…

Ryan: It’s the shortest, most insane thing I have ever seen.

Nathan: It’s quite wacky, isn’t it?

Ryan: It’s very quirky. Lots of girls, lots of gratuitous nudity. It features a really cool up and comer, Eleanor James, who has that horror, B movie queen quality. She is getting a name for herself at the moment, I hope we can get involved with her.

Nathan: That would be good…

Just picking up on Horrorshow, the Neon Killer short… I really liked that one and the Trannibal trailer he also did…

Ryan: He did Trannibal and he did Slash Hive…

Nathan: I’ve seen the Slash Hive one, it’s like a trailer?

Ryan: It’s amazing… Slash Hive was done for the Grindhouse Trailer competition, just like Treevenge last year. Ben Robinson did both of those, great guy.

Paul: Was that with killer bees?

Ryan: It was killer wasps, but it’s madness.

Ben Robinson has this excellent way of shoot that just makes everything look so authentic…

Ryan: I think Ben has been ready for a long long time for something big, I think he was cinematographer on most of the shorts for Horrorshow. I just feel really fortunate to know him, I hope we can get him involved.

Is it out on DVD yet?

Ryan: It’s not.

Nathan: I need to see it again, I haven’t seen it since last year!

Ryan: So Horrorshow and Treevenge are the big ones for me.

Paul: I love Treevenge too, the bit at with the baby. You think there is no way they’re going to do that…

Ryan: And they do it. It’s ballsy. So good! I couldn’t look at our Christmas tree the same this year…

Nathan: Did it talk?

Ryan: Like an ewok.

Paul: Horrorshow is brilliant though.

Norman Warren is obviously an icon, have you met any icons at festivals who weren’t as friendly as you’d hope?

Nathan: I wouldn’t say anyway, I’d get done for slander.

I’m just trying to illicit a little scandal…

Ryan: We’ve been really lucky, everyone has been really nice. The good thing about the horror community is that everyone is so open, it just shows on Twitter, and interested in knowing each other. You feel like you’re in with a nice crowd, I don’t think you could do that with any other genre. I don’t think you can engage with a drama community, how would you find them?

There’s nothing like a drama community out there, really.

Ryan: Sitting round, talking about Keira [Knightley]…

Paul: It’s harder to market too…

Horror fans are generally a lot more forgiving too. They tend to see past the bad parts and focus on the good stuff…

Nathan: I know what you mean, if a film has good gore or death scenes it can still be good. The Saw films have gone downhill, each one is worse than the last but I still enjoy them because of the interesting deaths and the gore is quite good.

Ryan: I like stuff like Evil Dead and Bad Taste because they aren’t perfect but still so cool… We have had with a couple of reviews people saying that the acting is a bit wobbly but it’s a parody, we’re deliberately doing it. Some people really get that, some don’t.

Nathan: People who are fans of the Evil Dead films do understand… Some people seem to be expecting a mainstream blockbuster, and they’re expecting it to be polished with a really obvious story. Some people just don’t understand that underground horror thing.

Ryan: We’re just lucky enough that there is something in it that people see that we can develop. It’s a kind of a high concept thing, and we want to do it big.

Do you have plans for a franchise or a trilogy?

Nathan: I hope so!

Ryan: Well the idea is that we do three, Paul has written the ending. It was written a while ago, a certain aspect of it was actually written in college years ago and it’s one of those surprise endings…

Is it the butler?

Ryan: Damn! You got it! We’re going to make this one and make it as good as we can, then see where it goes. Everything has been a blessing, I am glad we even made it this far. The night before the première I watched it with my brothers, they really enjoyed it and I thought it was the biggest pile of shite I’d ever seen. I genuinely didn’t think anyone would enjoy it, and then when we put it on the reactions… I was very surprised by it all.

Nathan: The thing was, at that screening we had special offers on cocktails on the bar…

Ryan: Everyone was pissed, basically…

Well that seems like as good a place as any to wrap this up, any final words?

Ryan: Thanks for coming down, we really appreciate it. We’re really grateful for everything. I think if you work hard, if you live it morning, noon and night, it’ll happen.

Paul: Follow us on Twitter, @MarkMacready

Thanks guys!

Ryan kindly gave me a copy of Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders for my viewing pleasure, so here is a bonus review of their short.

Mark Macready is a no-nonsense tough guy, living in an all-nonsense world of monsters, shape-shifters and demonic killers. When faced with the guilt of his wife being kidnapped while he was off pandering to his other love; the city, he goes on a rampage to find her and destroy all those who get in his way.

Mac is your basic anti-hero, a heady mix of Snake Plissken, Ash and Hellboy with a uniquely British lilt, and is excellently mis-played by Ryan McDermott. In fact, the whole cast is wonderfully bad. If acting like you can’t act is an art, this lot are the new Expressionist movement! Brilliantly shot by Sean Candon, there are some of the same flourishes that marked early [Peter] Jackson or [Sam] Raimi outings. The script pops and crackles with ridiculous, OTT, and some genuinely witty, dialogue. This short had me laughing out loud and making mental notes of what to say if my wife gets taken by a murderer. Although some parts were a touch over-scripted, to the point where the plot had to grind to a halt to make sure everyone got their lines out. The characters are clear cut archetypes from many films that have come before but all are played straight, without any winking or gurning.

It isn’t all rosy though, it is certainly a film marred by its budget. Through all Mac’s arrogance there is a likeability that isn’t quite exploited to it’s fullest. Despite the fact that the make up is excellent for the most part, some of the CGI is ropey, even for a parody, and some of the smaller roles such as Dr. Gish, Stone, Korkinsky, and even Friday, are under-explored. Although I can forgive the maligning of smaller characters in such a short running time, I really hope they are explored more in the feature version. Also there isn’t enough focus on the Archangel, I would love to see his particular method of murder shown in some depth, just to prove what a formidable foe he really is.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the ending, the lack of resolution left me wanting. I’m sure it was done deliberately to get both fans and investors salivating over the prospect of a feature version.
Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders is a competently directed and well written, short, with some moments of genuine tension, some fairly moving stuff, and a whole heap of laughs. It all bodes well for the proposed feature version, and I am already positioning myself in the queue to see the further adventures of Mac and the rest of the GMPID.

I would give it a solid 7 skulls.

Anyway, in the middle of all this excitement I had an excellent meeting with some of the folks behind Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders for a bit of genre chat and massive coffees. Those folks were top chaps, and the interview should be up very soon…

At the end of this week it is FrightFest Glasgow, and I am totally excited (despite the fact that I am worrying about a gang of GoreZone fans waiting for me with weapons), in order to pimp this very site, my girlfriend and I designed a t-shirt. Check it out! I had to edit my intense moose knuckle out of the picture for fear of the ladies going crazy (if you don’t know what moose knuckle is, then be thankful).

We used special t-shirt latex, the finest Florence & Fred t-shirts (£3 from Tesco), and an iron. It didn’t really take that long, and it was good fun to boot! We fluffed up a few, and so ran out of red latex stuff after we made Sarah’s, meaning mine had to be green. But I think it looks freaking awesome, even swathed around my fat gut! If you see me at FrightFest, chances are I will be wearing this and attempting to bother Adam Green, so come and say hello, tell me you agree with all my opinions, and ply me with alcohol.

If you want one of these, or any other t-shirts commissioning, drop me an email at: jamie@gorepress.com, and I will speak to the missus.

I have almost exclusively been watching Giallo this week, so prepare for an onslaught of Italian content in the coming weeks, as well as my FrightFest coverage!

See you all in court, and I love you all very much.

The plot follows a family, who visit the sleepy town of Nilbog to get away from it all but Nilbog is home to some pretty strange (and badly costumed) midgets. The most annoying little kid ever to hit celluloid has visions of his dead grandfather telling him to piss on the dinner table and get the family out of Nilbog before they eat some of that green gook, their heads bleed green and they turn into a half human, half tree which is a goblin’s favourite food. Obviously. Also visiting Nilbog are a group of horny teen boys, who are clearly just there so we can witness some goblin food before the family have to get there green on.

The script is utter nonsense, changing up on characterisations halfway through scenes. For example, one scene finds the young playboy boyfriend being told where to get off by Daddy, and in the very next scene he is “part of the family”. It also contains some of the most hilariously bad exposition, such as “Nilbog! Its goblin spelt backwards! This is their kingdom!” and “I don’t like this! Why don’t they show any sign of life?” or even “Please, lets talk. We’re all humans here.”

Cast with entirely non-actors so utterly inept that walking and talking seems like a distant dream along with unicorns and pixies, it only adds to the hilarity of this dialogue. To say these “actors” were mostly wooden not only leads to an excellent pun, but is the understatement of the century, these people were practically petrified. The kid, played by Michael Stephenson, is appalling and annoying in equal measure. The snotty way he laments over every syllable is like a speech therapist’s worst nightmare, his hideous teeth on display with every misplaced grimace. The father, played by small town dentist and Matthew Modine look-a-like, George Hardy, is hammier than a cartoon pig but so much fun to watch. I could literally list every cast member and talk about how god-damn awful they all were, but that would take forever. Just believe me when I say that the acting in here is so bad, it needs to be seen to be believed.

All that said, fairly well-known hack director Claudio Fragasso, under the pseudonym Drake Floyd (If an Italian hack uses a pseudonym then you know it has to be bad!), does whip out some interesting shots which I personally believe is just luck. If you make enough movies, eventually you will pick up something of worth. So maybe he should stick to being a hired gun and leave the writing to someone with a basic grasp of film narrative and cohesive written structure, or then again looking at these performances maybe he should have quit long before this ever saw the light of day.

Obviously, Troll 2 drips with green gore and was written like this to get around the bloody gore rules that were put in place to appease the Mary Whitehouse gang. But it really has some pretty decent effects. The final pay off is actually surprisingly satisfying and the half man, half tree stuff, while silly (why the hell is he holding a mug with some twigs in it?), is quite effective. Although the goblins do look suspiciously like they are wearing halloween masks from the cheapest shop you can think of, they still manage to exude some sort of creepiness. The real star of this film is the editor, Vanio Amici. So often these good bad movies survive solely on their pacing. Its not enough to have shitty acting and dialogue, its got to zip by from one hilarious cut to the next. And Troll 2 delivers that in spades.

If you were ever under the grand delusion that Troll 2 is a lost classic of the 80s then please get yourself to the nearest head doctor for a prompt and thorough reprogramming, but if you want a group of your most sarcastic friends around, a whole tonne of beers and something with almost no redeeming features to chortle at while chucking stuff at the telly, then Troll 2 is the movie for you.

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars

Ti West is a film maker with a bright future. Not too many people saw The Roost, but his note-perfect rendering of a grindhouse inflected, early 80s-a-like, satanic slow-burner House Of The Devil has got him all the attention he could ever want (That sublime looking VHS release? Woah mama!). So maybe if Cabin Fever 2 had been held onto for just a little bit longer, it might have been released just as West intended it. As it stands, the producers intervened and re-cut it to reflect what they thought the people wanted, they wouldn’t let West take his name off the credits either.

What these producers and investors released as Ti West’s Cabin Fever sequel may be an absolute abortion of an edit, but I’m pretty sure still catches the tone that West was shooting for. I do mean an abortion though, they managed to chop all sense out of the movie, turning it into a confusing, and confounding, four act Frankenstein-like creation which managed to shake off my attention for the last 15 minutes, after one too many gear shifts.

Plotwise, Spring Fever follows nerdy John as he pines for his best friend, Cassie, who is dating an asshole jock type, familiar right? All the while shipments of infected water are being tracked by partying deputy Winston (Guiseppe Andrews) who vaguely remembers some weird infected campers from a while ago. Spring Fever borrows heavily from other Prom Night horror flicks, most notably Carrie, Prom Night and the recent Dance Of The Dead, and is best viewed as a series of gory sketches in which people get sick and die either quickly or slowly depending on the prominence of the character. The opening scene in which the previous outing’s Paul gets a school bus to the face is sheer shock and awe, and it works. You know from right there that this movie will not be skimping on the red stuff or the grisly bits.

As gory as the first, but not quite so subtle (less subtle than an Eli Roth film? You betcha!), Cabin Fever 2 sits bow-legged over comedy and sheer grue with almost no horror to speak of. Although inducing plenty of wincing and audible gasps, it is never truly scary at all. Seeing nails getting broken or coming out of fingertips is a big gross out for me, and ever since All The Boys Love Mandy Lane I can almost taste the blood in my mouth when someone fully cracks the back of their head on a curb. Cabin Fever 2 : Spring Fever contains both of these things, making the film a fully visceral experience for me.

There are a few nice cameos in here too, Feast and 30 Rock‘s Judah Friedlander pops up doing his Judah Friedlander from 30 Rock schtick, Larry Fessenden appears, even Kill Bill’s Michael Bowen, but most surprisingly was Mark Borchardt‘s appearance. He of Coven (pronounced Coe-ven, not like “oven”) and American Movie fame, I almost spit up when I heard his voice.

Cabin Fever 2 is not a great film, but it is a million miles from the absolute disaster I had expected and, distracting cameos aside, thrilled me for a large portion of its 86 minute running time. Sure, the tone shifts are rough and there are a few too many endings, but Cabin Fever 2 : Spring Fever is a solid gore comedy that should light up Saturday nights all over the world. If you dug the first one, you shouldn’t be disappointed. If you hated it, I would still give it a go. The director is altogether more agreeable, and he shoots some splendid gore. Prepare to groan, grimace and gurn as the bizarre grossness just washes over in waves of blood and chunks.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars

Hi there reader types, it’s me, Jamie. I’ve been pretty quiet on the site these last few weeks, I did a bit of focusing on my personal blog, Lets Get Dangerous_, and a bit of work on a short film that I plan on shooting in the summer. Obviously, you lot will get all of the gossip as and when it happens. And uni too, I’ve been trying to focus on that, but films just keep getting in my way. Think about it, you can read up about a dirty politician suing a paper for saying something snotty about his wang, or you can flip on Kane Hodder belt-sanding someone’s face off. I know what I would rather be doing.

So even though I have been quiet, I have been percolating some ideas in my brain for features and other squee-inducing portions of the site. Sarah mentioned in her blogette that a podcast is on the horizon, and that it is, dear reader. If all goes to plan, Sarah and I will be all up in them ears with some talk of the bestest and worstest horror movies you can think of. Plus you get to hear Sarah’s lovely chipper voice, and my… well, my not-so-enthuastic drawl.

In other news, I have some stuff coming your way for Women In Horror Recognition Month. I have some interviews on the horizon, including one with those Butcher Brothers fellas, who brought you The Hamiltons, the April Fools Day remake, as well as the forthcoming The Violent Kind which stars my favourite former Super-Tromette Tiffany Shepis! Also, I’m heading north of the border to get me some FrightFest action up in Glasgow, so feel warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that I will be bringing back all the good words on Adam Green’s Frozen, Vincenzo Natali’s Splice, along with [REC] 2 and 2001 Maniacs: Field Of Screams. I might even try and have a bit of a chat with some of the good folks over to promote their movies for the site. Fingers crossed.

Also, I’m not sure if you folks are aware of this, but up in Edinburgh in March there is an extreme cinema season showing the likes of Gaspar Noe’s Carne, Robert Endelson’s Fight For Your Life, Deodato’s The House On The Edge Of The Park and Jacopetti’s Farewell Uncle Tom in all their uncut glory. I’ve managed to work out a compromise with the not-so-into-disgusting-gore girlfriend in which we spend a couple of hours watching Buttgereit‘s corpse fucking bonanza, while she gets a weekend in the picturesque city of Edinburgh. Good deal, right?

Anyway folks, I’m off to watch an Austrian pop punk band rip it up in a dingy little venue in the city. I hope this, my first Gorepress blog post, hasn’t bored you too much.

I will catch up with you all very soon, I love you all very much.

The story is simple enough, a troubled family inherit an Italian castle with a dark past, and then the shit hits the fan. The (almost) always wonderful Jeffrey Combs plays a former alcoholic racked with guilt for the death of his son and the blinding of his daughter with the usual liberal dashings of vigour, heart and intensity. This guy is one hell of a character actor when he channels his energies just right. The ladies are great too, particularly the young actress playing blind, which is pretty difficult, I’d wager. Barbara Crampton looks good and broods nicely although you can’t help think her character was thrown together a little bit too late in the day. She is such a bitch to Combs’s veritable anti-hero that it makes Gordon seem like he might have a touch of Chauvinitis. The Italian peripheral actors are fairly solid with the exception of the lawyer character; he was so hammy I expected him to say “That’s all folks” as the credits rolled.

There was something altogether Italian about the movie. I know the movie was set in Italy, had a predominantly Italian crew, and tonnes of Italian dialogue, so you may think this statement is a little redundant. But that’s not why. Watching Castle Freak really put me in the mind of watching The Beyond or any number of Italian classics. It is short like a Giallo, and has an ageless sort of blurry style that means it could have been shot any time between 1982 and the present day. Plenty of shot choices emulated those of Fulci, Argento and other Italian masters. I don’t know if this was intentional on Gordon’s part but it certainly helped shape the fantastic atmospherics and wicked tone, in the face of some quite clunky dialogue.

The make up effects are truly excellent, the creature looks so amazing you’d swear it were real. The actor inside the hours worth of make up moved so perfectly and scowled so incredibly that this character just came right to life, even if the cover and poster art do ruin his money shot. The way the character looks, just like the whole movie, is totally devoid of humour. There are no tongue-in-cheek nudges at the camera like in other Gordon/Combs collaborations, and it works all the better for it.

If I was to nitpick, I would talk about how the sound carrying through the castle seemed to be subjective to what the family wanted to hear. For example, when a young prostitute is having sex in the castle she is told to ‘shush‘, but when she is murdered she wails so loud that the folks two towns over should have heard her. That seems like such a little thing, but it tugged me right out of the movie as I pondered it for a while, and it niggled at me for way longer than it should have.

Overall though, the movie is solid, entertaining and fairly gruesome. Way better than Dagon, and I might even go as far as saying that it was almost as good as Re-Animator.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Everyone has that one movie that changed their life, that experience that completely altered the way they viewed the world. For some people it is Citizen Kane, for others it might be Twilight. For me, it was Terror Firmer…

I was 14 when I had my first Tromatic experience, Channel 4 were running Troma flicks late night on a Friday and I just happened to catch Terror Firmer this one Friday while I was dozing off (I would later find out that I missed Cannibal: The Musical the prior week and weep). I remember it so well, I switched to 4 and this movie was already some of the way through. A guy called The Todster was snorting coke with a mysterious lady who rips out a part of his brain and fries it. At that point I had only really known about zombie flicks and mainstream horror fare, so to see gore that extreme, sex that gratuitous, and some of the wittiest satire I had seen since Duck Soup, really struck me right where I needed it. Well that was it, I was hooked! I followed the Troma season on TV until it stopped and then tried to find every Troma video I could*.

If you don’t know about Troma, first take a run at the nearest wall, head first to knock some sense into yourself, read this and then hit the Troma site to buy the DVDs (http://www.troma.com/). Troma was started back in 1974 by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz and focused on sex comedies like The First Turn On. Later they hit the masses with a little movie called The Toxic Avenger. After their success was secured by that smash hit they continued making and distributing films of all genres, even though they are mainly known for their exploitation titles.

The thing about Troma and its movies is that they are ridiculous and fun but they almost always have plenty of subtext. They have something important to say, and if you can watch a blind girl fuck a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength while they whisper it to you, then all the better! When I was a kid it was just to watch the boobs, see the gore, taste the Bromo Seltzer, and hear the squelching. But now Troma works so well for me because of Kaufman’s staunch principles and dedication to independent cinema. He consistently refuses to compromise his artistic vision and keeps afloat the largest independent film company remaining without bowing to the pressure of the Hollywood machine. These ideals and their commitment to finding and showcasing exciting, new talent from around the world should be an inspiration to anyone with a vested interest in film and the industry that surrounds it.

Here is a list of some of my favourite Troma films, with a bit about why I love them so.

And so we have come full circle. There are literally thousands of other Troma releases, which differ in quality but never in message: Keep independent film independent.

Troma have recently re-released a few of their films on blu-ray, so if that is your particular poison then go and buy buy buy (There are plenty of DVDs still available to us technological luddites too).

*I remember the first being The Action Hunters, which starred this Ron Jeremy looking dude who gets embroiled in a scheme and has to take some beautiful girl on the run. I also remember having an Australian VHS of The Last Temptation Of Toxie that I guess used to live in a rental shop. It was in a box even larger than those of UK rental cases and was made of the flimsiest plastic ever forged by man. The video didn’t even work in my PAL player.

Most of the plot for this movie is entirely incidental, it is also a trip down a well-trodden path towards Yawnsville. Taking tropes directly from Con Air, a number of criminals are off-roaded by ‘Three Finger’ and his (somehow) adolescent daughter (who was born at the end of the second movie) who have set traps in the woods that are as ridiculous as those in Simon Says and as convoluted as those in Saw. The crims, along with a few hostages, are forced to walk somewhere whilst being hunted by the cannibals. You even have the same characters from Con Air: The ex serviceman wrongly imprisoned after a bar fight, the Latino undercover operative, the petty criminal there for comic relief, it really is a shameless rip-off. Factor in the Bulgarian shoot and a fully British cast whose idea of an American accent is low-talking and squinting like Clint or John and it screams of Z-movie rubbishness. Tamer Hassan is the most high profile actor in the bunch, after his few roles alongside Danny Dyer in some Brit-crime capers, but is at his worst here. He meanders his way through a whole ‘rogues gallery’ of accents, raging from Cok-er-nee wideboy through to Mexican bandido, whilst mugging and gurning like a child in a gory school play. I’m a firm believer that almost every film suffers from a severe lack of Henry Rollins, but none more noticeably than this movie. Hassan just doesn’t fit the kick ass, square-jawed glove.

Speaking of the gore, there are some really nice set-ups in here. If you’ve seen the second Wrong Turn offering, then you know that one of the high points of Joe Lynch‘s gore epic is when one chick gets sliced in half. Its a classic moment and a beautifully well done effect. Declan O’Brien attempts to emulate that moment here, but musses it up with cheap CGI, ripped straight from an N64 game. If you know me well enough then you will know how against CGI blood I am, sure there are times when CGI blood can work, but someone needs to reign this special effects dude in. Every major set piece that shows any potential to appease my bloodlust is caked in unrealistic reddish pixels. Is it really too expensive to splash about some corn syrup? Also, for some reason, there is no actual driving in this, every scene in a car is so poorly green screened it almost made me retch.

With only two cannibals remaining from the last outing, the ante is insufficiently upped. I sincerey doubt anyone is going to believe that a superhuman mutant with three-fingers who can’t even articulate speech, and has a predilection for jacking off in the bushes, can effectively take down a gang of armed badasses with shotguns. I just don’t buy it.

Sure, there are things to like in here too though. There is a nice scene in ‘Three-Fingers’ torture shack that doesn’t try to burden us with laboured explanations. The whole climax is excellent fun, as long as you aren’t a stickler with the suspension of disbelief and enjoy poorly shot, acted and choreographed scenes of OTT violence. A massive amount of the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious too, making Wrong Turn 3 a decent party watch with a few beers, if you have fully exhausted the previous flicks.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

Brainscan is a neat little flick that stars Ed Furlong in the ‘Ed Furlong role‘. You know, the snotty, rebellious kid with a leather jacket and no respect for authority. Remember John Connor? Well, that guy, except this time he goes by the name of Michael Bowen. He also has tonnes of material possessions and virtually no parents to speak of. And his friend is really fucking annoying. Ed Furlong is a bad dude, and also a video game obsessive as well as dabbling in being a stalker. He periodically spies on his schoolmate and neighbour through binoculars, and even goes as far as to take endless amounts of photos with his brand new telephoto lens. The kid seems like such a spoilt brat, he has everything a kid could want and the one thing that he probably shouldn’t have, he takes without his neighbours consent. It’s just not really cool, you know?

The plot follows Michael as he orders a new game, pitched as the ultimate in interactive technology, in which you have to murder people and then cover your tracks. After Furlong plays for a while, he hears about some deaths in his town that exactly mirror his game. Obviously pretty freaked out, he soon figures out that it isn’t just a game at all. Its kind of a cool premise that has a lot of potential for it’s viewers to discuss video game violence and whether people can mislay their ability to distinguish between reality and fiction. Unfortunately it eschews most of that pretty early on in favour of the standard lack of subtext that only 90s horror films can offer. It also allowed them to create some of the most ridiculous computer visuals this side of Hackers, which is always great to see in any movie.

The primary antagonist, played here by a Cenobite version of Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, comes in the form of ‘The Trickster’. He is the games main character and pops up from time to time to convince Michael to go and kill more people. ‘The Trickster’ would probably be a heck of a lot creepier if not for his prancing around and dandy costume. The make up effects are pretty neat, very similar to that of Hellraiser or Nightbreed. I do believe the artist responsible for ‘The Trickster’ also did a lot of the work on anarcho-side show classic, Freaked, which is interesting as the effects are almost nothing alike.

It does get pretty gory for it’s 15 certificate, and some of the kill scenes are expertly crafted. My favourite being the knife in the sleeping dude with foot removal, that was a neat scene. The movie has flashes of decent direction but too many clunky zooms, poor camera work and some awful framing make it difficult to fully enjoy the visuals despite some of the classy effects on display. It is a film that seems to have been saved by the editing room, the pace zips along so efficiently that you may only glance at the timer once or twice. There are a few saggy moments, but nothing that lingers well passed its due.

Performances are a bit of a mixed bag: Furlong is the same as he was in everything back them, T. Ryder Smith over eggs it a touch as ‘The Trickster‘, and Frank Langella seems to be having a riot as the cop chasing Furlong’s rebel. The only poor performances come from the other teen actors, in particular Amy Hargreaves as the girl next door. She ambled around like a barely re-animated corpse in a vest top, virtually yawning her way through all her scenes of peril.

Brainscan ends up being quite a fun flick. It isn’t anything special but it has a quality that definitely reminds me of that horror heyday when all movies seemed to be about people younger than the classification age as hero but everybody loved them anyway. It’s got tonnes of 90s charm, nifty murders, and fun one liners. Sure, its riddled with plot holes and the ending may well make you say “Really?! That’s they ending they decided to go for?” but it is an interesting and enjoyable way to pass 96 minutes.