In a small American police station, the unassuming skeleton crew question of young man who’s apparently just decapitated his girlfriend (whilst fucking her – real nice). A bit weird, but otherwise a routine night. Then a demon walks in holding a severed head. Yes, a demon. Then everything starts to go horribly, horribly wrong.

This particular demon is Inkubus (Robert Englund), an ancient monster who has cut swathes through humanity since the Middle Ages. Strangely he agrees to be incarcerated as long as they fetch him retired police detective Gil Diamante (William Forsythe), a man who has a past with the demonic killer. But they’re all pawns in Inkubus’s diabolical game, and this game is one full of blood, guts, madness and death. And a bit more madness.

Inkubus is great. It has some serious issues but, for a film contained to almost one location and a smattering of characters, it is surprisingly compelling. The main draw from many genre fans will be Robert Englund and William Forsythe and they certainly don’t disappoint – these veterans of gore shine throughout.

Forsythe is excellent as the troubled Gil Diamante, truly believable as a mind-cracked ex-detective seeped in past injustices and hidden pain. Forsythe is a hugely underrated actor and he proves his expertise in another complex role. A quality performance.

The demon Inkubus is Englund unleashed. In other films and cameo roles it feels he’s been hired to give a cheeky smile or a knowing nod, a reference to Freddy Kruger or simply to stand there and drag audiences towards the film like a giant horror-fan magnet. In Inkubus he is the character – incredibly dangerous, sly, funny, clearly brilliant and utterly evil. He is superb throughout. Watch this film for his performance, it is one of his best.

Yet it’s not just Englund and Forsythe that makes Inkubus work – the inclusion of stars does not automatically make a film awesome (I’m looking at you, Zombie Strippers). Writer / director Glenn Ciano clearly has talent, delving into character (before killing them brutally), ratcheting up tension and creating solid pace throughout. His focus on Inkubus’s use of madness and magic is what makes this stand out – it’s not just another kill-crazy chainsaw fest of samey deaths, each assault is different and brutally compelling. Ciano’s use of Englund is also excellent and you really feel the energy on the screen – fun, crazed and incredibly dangerous – and everyone involved seems to be 100% behind this.

Unfortunately Inkubus does suffer from some confused editing, a meandering mid-section and an awful flash-back / flash-forward framing device that simply does not work. These are major issues, but forgivable considering how good the majority of the film is.

Conclusion? Seek Inkubus out. Watch it for William Forsythe’s sharp acting and Robert Englund’s playfully insane turn as the title role. Watch it for the story and the direction and the brutal, blood splattering moments. Watch Inkubus.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

Six twenty-somethings piss off the wrong trucker by overtaking him on a road somewhere in America. This trucker happens to be dressed as a giant bunny and has an awkward tendency to kidnap, torture and murder people. Country folk, huh?  Soon the six some find themselves stranded and (mostly) alone in some woods, faced with a completely stoppable killer rabbit. Hijinks ensue.

The Bunnyman Massacre is literally the worst film I’ve seen in years. Decades, even. Why? Well – simply put – because it’s appallingly made on every single level. Below is a special Gorepress guide how NOT to make a horror film, based on The Bunnyman Massacre’s many many flaws:

#1 CHARACTERS:

Aspiring filmmakers should watch this to see how characters should NEVER be created. Here are some questions you might have after watching The Bunnyman Massacre:

> Who are these people?

> Where did they come from?

> Where were they going to?

> How do they know each other?

> Why did they leave each other to die horrible deaths at every possible opportunity?

Perhaps it’s the annual vacation of the Friendless Coward’s Club, where they drive around back-roads looking for trucks to overtake.  Whatever the case, they are personality-less 2D clichés and incredibly unconvincing.

#2 DIALOGUE:

The script is appalling. Every character sounds the same and rolls off classic lines such as “Let’s go”, “I think I hear something” and “What’s that?” over and over again. One scene featured this amazing moment:

Six people in a broken-down car. One climbs out and looks around.

Rachel: “What’re we gonna do?”

John: “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

End scene.

Boom! That’s a lesson on how to thrill your audience into a big fat coma. There are multiple scenes like this, where characters seemingly ad-lib and improvise shoddy dialogue that is witless and horribly dull.

# 3 ACTORS:

Unfortunately only approximately two people can actually act in The Bunnyman Massacre. This is another lesson for filmmakers – do not cast someone unless they can deliver your awful dialogue and make is sound convincing. These people can’t. Perhaps they were family friends or university chums – whatever the case, most of them were atrocious.

# 4 PROTAGONIST:

The protagonist. The hero. The person we root for. In this case it’s presumably Rachel (Cheryl Texiera) and her boyfriend John (Matthew Albrecht). And here’s another TWO lessons from this:

A.) Never have your hero run away and leave their friends to die, it stops them being a hero and makes them a bastardhole.

B) As you’re heading towards the climax, don’t have your hero disappear for over 12 minutes. That’s an eighth of your movie – which is how long Rachel goes missing for towards the end of The Bunnyman Massacre – and it no longer makes them a protagonist. An unforgiveable mistake.

# 5 SENSELESLESS:

Horror films feature extreme situations with unnatural occurrences hampering our heroes. Ghosts, goblins, dream-dwelling paedos and – in this case – serial killers. The extremity of these monstrous elements means that the human / victim characters should act naturally. Sadly The Bunnyman Massacre fails on this too.

Example A.) Their friend is crushed under a car, but none of them check if he’s alive – they just walk away and don’t particularly seem to care.

Example B.) They find a path flanked with upside-down crosses and bags of human bones, and when our hero suggests it’s probably not a good idea to continue down the path, her boyfriend says “There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation”. Yes, a serial killing nutcase did it, you braindead halfwit. Why not walk towards his HOME?! Bloody moron.

The filmmakers even have the audacity to say this film is “based on a true story”, which is amateur horror filmmakers slang for “inspired by something my mate’s brother saw in a newspaper once”.  Don’t use it unless your film is deadly serious and very good, otherwise you’re shitting on the graves of those people who might’ve died at the bunnyman’s hands.

# 6 A PLOT:

Have a plot. Seriously. A plot cannot just be “people find themselves in a place and they try n’ escape”. This isn’t a plot, it’s a sentence. The Bunnyman Massacre’s plot is this:

> Six people get stranded in the woods.

> Six people wander about aimlessly, often off the roads and into some dark & scary woods.

> Six people – by massive coincidence – keep running into psychotic murderers and / or hillbilly clichés (you know the ones – > they like shotguns, swearing, rape and chewing something brown).

> Six people slowly get killed off until two of them decide to fight back, waaay too late.

> Yawn.

This plot suffers especially from the “wandering aimlessly”. The group of moronic twenty-somethings have no plan. Their car crashes next to a road and instead of flagging down another car or walking up the road, they wander into the forest a bit. It’s ludicrous and pathetic. Lesson learned – have a plot, a goal and a direction otherwise the audience will be BORED.

# 7 THE MONSTER & THE VIOLENCE:

Intrinsically linked (unless you’re really doing something wrong) the monster must deal out violence in original and interesting ways. The Bunnyman’s uniqueness stops with his bunny suit. He is simply a man – he has no special powers or hyper intelligence or super strength. In fact, our “heroes” have many many many clear chances at killing the Bunnyman, but don’t take them (for literally no reason except for plotting purposes). They rip the chainsaw from his hands and then – insanely!  – leave it lying around for him to pick up later.

The Bunnyman’s “unique” raison d’être is this: he does blood-lust surgery on someone whilst listening to classical music (cliché!), he videos the violence (cliché!), he has a rapey gimp-like helper (for no reason!), he pulls teeth (cliché!), he nail-guns stomachs (cliché!), he stabs (cliché!), he chainsaws (cliché!), walks real slow (cliché!) and even drives a scary truck with tinted windows (Jeepers Creepers cliché!).

Boom!! Cliché to the max! Nothing here is original. Your originality cannot just be a costume; it needs to be so much more.

#8 SOUND:

Sound is SO important in horror films. It builds tension, it creates jump-scares and it provides momentum in some of the slower moments. Darren ‘Sunny’ Warkentin should be ashamed of himself as the sound mix is appalling – the dialogue dips from being super quiet to MEGA LOUD! And it is distractingly awful. Perhaps this is why most of the character information was lost on me – because I literally couldn’t hear it!

FINAL LESSON – BE ORIGINAL:

The Bunnyman Masscare’s originality stops at the title, and then moves on to liberally steal from Jeepers Creepers, The Hitcher, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (multiple times!), Deliverance, Wrong Turn, Monsterman, The Hills Have Eyes etc… etc… No one will remember your film if it plagiarizes so heavily from more popular / significantly better films. The Bunnyman Massacre is a clichéd mess.

Low budget is not an excuse. The Bunnyman himself is played by Carl Lindbergh, who also happens to be the writer / director / producer and editor of this messy cackbadgery. A case of being too close to a project, or maybe he wrote and directed the film whilst wearing a giant, eyeless bunny mask… that would explain a lot.

OVERALL:

The Bunnyman Massacre is a useful learning tool and a horrendously made horror film. Released in the USA in 2009 under the title of Bunnyman, this has taken four years and one name change to get to the UK and it’s a crying shame it didn’t drown on the way here.

Plotless, stupid, infuriating, dull, awfully acted, directed, scripted and sound-mixed, this is a senseless waste of everyone’s time. Avoid it or learn from it. Whatever the case, this film is one of the worst films ever made.

Perhaps worse news is that The Bunnyman Massacre has a sequel! Written and directed by Carl Lindbergh again, Bunnyman 2 is in post production now. I just pray he’s learned from his previous mistakes…

Rating: 0 out of 10 stars

In the deep cold of an Alaskan oil drilling facility, Ottway (Liam Neeson) works as a sharpshooter and camp protector, sniping wolves before they get too close (and consume the oil workers). These workers are the scum of the earth – brawling, drunken ex-cons who get their kicks from fucking whale sized, 53-year-old Eskimo hookers (apparently) – but, you know, they’re okay really. Kind of.

Ottway and a small collection of oil drillers board a plane back to the mainland, thoughts full of family and warmth and middle-aged Eskimo whores. But the plane crashes. Into the snow. In the middle of freakin’ nowhere.

Ottway and seven other survivors find themselves facing a terrible reality; they have no food, no shelter, killer weather and no chance of rescue. And then a pack of wolves turn up! Vicious, psychotic CGI monsters hell-bent on killing the beardy human scum that crash-landed into their territory.

The Grey then becomes a run-fight-hide scenario, not necessarily in that order. Not willing to “do an Alive” and chow down on dead man butt-cheek, the dwindling group of survivors trek South, either away from the wolves or deeper into their territory…

Coming from the writer of the underrated Death Sentence (Ian Mackenzie Jeffers) and A Team director Joe Carnahan, The Grey is certainly well scripted and directed. The first thirty minutes are certainly a compelling watch – the plane crash is superb – with more character work in half an hour than you’d normally find in 100 minutes of your average action flick.

In places The Grey is also terrifying (hence it’s appearance on Gorepress). The plane crash is superbly done and genuinely horrific; loud, panicked-filled, confusing and brutal. Then there’s the scenes at night – deep in the forest or exposed on the Alaskan tundra – which are haunting and nerve-jangling, with the sound of howling beasts lurking somewhere in the inky black. The wolves are brutal, attack at the worst moments and really provide a great threat. Scary as hell… until it the sun comes up.

The problem with The Grey is the latter half. Once Ottway and “friends” leave the wreckage of the plane behind and survive a night in the woods, the film becomes very generic and – although exciting – a little tiresome. In places it reminded me strongly of Ravenous (another seriously underrated film), The Edge and Alive, with cliff jumping, branch twatting and in-fighting abound. Nothing really surprises here.

Neeson is excellent as always and utterly believable as Ottway throughout. Originally the role was offered to Bradley Cooper, which would’ve simply been awful on nearly all levels. Luckily we’re given a cast full of mature, believable performers who all do well in their given roles. At times they can appear a little clichéd, but they all feel like multi-layered people and not just stock archetypes, which is testament to them and the Jeffers-Carnahan team.

If you love Liam Neeson’s recent foray into the world of bloody action flicks then this sits somewhere between the brutal awesomeness of Taken and the predictable nonsense of Unknown. The Grey is certain to divide audiences.

You might love it, you might absolutely hate it – I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, having enjoyed it but finding myself desperately wanting more. Overall The Grey is worth the watch. Just.

Oh, and DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER. If I could find the person responsible for taking the film’s FINAL FUCKING SCENE and slapping it into the trailer, I would throw them into a pit full of glass, salt and CGI wolves. Absolute fucking idiots. It’s worse than the spoilerific trailer for The Crazies, and that says something. So I reiterate – DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Internet entrepreneurs Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are having a tough time in Moscow. Their sensational website idea has been brutally nicked by clichéd slimy guy Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) and their dreams instantly shattered. The solution? Get drunk!

The American duo head into a Russian club and bump into Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor), another couple of statesiders kicking back in Russia. Naturally Skyler is there too – as Moscow is a very small place, obviously – and their evening goes from sad to horrendous when… ALIENS ATTACK!

This is not Skyline, despite the following description: weird lights suddenly come down from the sky and foolishly curious civilians get sucked up and obliterated by invisible aliens. This is not Skyline, this is The Darkest Hour, and it’s different because of two things:

1.) It’s set in Russia

2.) It’s not entirely without merit

Where Skyline failed was in character & purpose (a group of absolute wankers hide in building. Credits roll) and although The Darkest Hour doesn’t exactly excel in these things, it just felt less arrogant and hateful.

The Darkest Hour focuses on our lost Americans, stuck in a country they don’t understand, being hunted by things they cannot see. It’s a compelling idea but also very disconnected. The plot is basically this: go from Point A to Point B, do something, move from Point B to Point C, do something else, go from Point C to Point D etc… etc… and it quickly becomes tiresome.

How are the aliens? Well, at first they’re amazing; wisps of energy, lighting up anything electrical nearby, literally obliterating anything organic by touch. They’re incredibly dangerous, although a little purposeless and meandering. Mid-way into The Darkest Hour we discover there is something more to these extraterrestrials and it’s… disappointing (to say the least). The aliens are laughably bad and simply ridiculous. Seriously, someone explain them to me. Please. I mean, really? What’re they made of? Coal?

Is it well acted? Yes and no. Despite being an exceptional actor (see Into the Wild or Alpha Dog) Emile Hirsch merely happens in this movie, nothing more. He simply isn’t compelling. It is only when they join with some Russians (way into the film) that The Darkest Hour becomes genuinely interesting.

Veronika Ozerova is probably the best thing in The Darkest Hour, as Russian teenager Vika. Without a single film credit to her name, Ozerova out-acts the majority of the cast, who wring out every single scene with cloying sentimentality and false bravado. If the film had focused on Vika instead of a group of lost Americans, it would’ve been a lot sharper.

The main surprise is finding out who the creators of The Darkest Hour are. The direction is so rudimentary and the script so epically po-faced I had expected the credits to land in the laps of someone like Nelson McCormack or J.S. Cardone. But this is directed by Chris Gorak, the man behind the superbly slow-burning dirty-bomb thriller Right at Your Door, and scriptwriter Jon Spaihts who – perhaps worryingly – has co-written the Alien-prequel Prometheus! Their work here is not diabolical; it’s just mediocre and unoriginal.

Overall The Darkest Hour is entertaining, silly, awkward and ambling. There are moments of genius and it peaks with the introduction of the Russian characters, yet for all its build up and thrills this is a soulless alien-invasion flick with some awfully absurd aliens. The Darkest Hour is good fun and totally ridiculous, but sadly forgettable.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10 stars

Whilst The Woman – another recent “kidnapped woman” horror – is a compelling, sadistic character study that claws at the depths of the human psyche, Rogue River is just sadistic, and incredibly poor because of it.

Mara (Michelle Page) returns to the River Rogue in Oregon in order to scatter her father’s ashes. As she’s about to pour daddy’s charred remains into the water, a man appears and informs her that “littering remains is frowned upon in these parts”, telling her she needs a permit to scatter ashes.

Oddly unfazed by this stranger, Mara accompanies him back to her car… which is missing! Oh no! So – insanely – she accepts a ride from this random stranger bloke. Is this a good idea? Of course not. It never is.

The stranger is Jon (Bill Moseley) and he invites Mara to stay the night with him and his sister Lea (Lucinda Jenney). Naturally the couple are completely nuts and – when Mara accidentally slices her hand on a plate – they hold her down and sew the wound up themselves! No doctors, no leaving, very odd behaviour.

There are some greatly disturbing moments in the first half of Rogue River – Mara wakes up to find Jon at the base of her bed, naked, holding her father’s ashes – but these creeping moments of horror are all packed into the beginning, where we witness a decent portrayal of the uncomfortably insane. Sadly, once the violence begins it spirals into cliché and aggravating predictability.

It is written to shock – “Let’s get you fucked” – and the creators pull out every horrible idea they can think of. Kidnap, torture, sexual assault, incest, boiling water down the throat, gaffa tape, leg bonds, guns, blood, violence and a great place to stuff your dad’s ashes. Yawn. See it done better a hundred times (not in real life. Honest guv’nor).

Rogue River is simply very poorly constructed, with far too many questions left dangling. Why didn’t Mara’s brother help her scatter their dad’s ashes? Why did the police not investigate the missing policeman? These are all important plot points and it seems Haskin and Finnerty ignored reality in favour of “film logic”, but it simply doesn’t work here.

Despite the story being awful, there are some genuinely good things about Rogue River. Jourdan McClure does a decent job of directing what is essentially torture porn, knocking out some superb imagery and creating tension where the script clearly had none.

Our actors also do a decent job with inflexible roles. They’re two-dimensional and awkwardly dull in places. Horror veteran Bill Moseley (Army of Darkness, Carnivàle, anything made by Rob Zombie) and Lucinda Jenney are disturbing throughout, always close to mania, and Michelle Page does a fine job as the beleaguered, beaten and shattered Mara. Sadly their talents are wasted here and they never peak into excellence.

Rogue River is pointlessly horrible and completely ineffective as a horror movie. Yes, it gradually gets more grotesque and twisted, but it’s strangely dull in its execution. This is the bastard child of I Spit on Your Grave and Mum & Dad, but without the character or purpose. There are hundreds of films like this, some worse, many better. Rogue River does not require your attention.

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

Mike and Brent are dead. The zombie apocalypse has arrived and they’re victims of this shambling plague, turned into rotting, undead monsters. Strangely, though, they’re not Colin-clones – they’re coherent. They can speak. They can laugh. They can love.

Despite his death, Mike (Michael McKidd) has a mission: to travel across American and get back to the love of his life. He teams up with jackass slacker Brent (Ross Kidder) and a friendly – to them, anyway – zombie, who they name Cheese (Markus Taylor), all the time unaware that Mike is being hunted by a secretive government agency… with a link to his past!

It is a reasonable premise with potential for both comedy and intrigue, but tragically Deadheads never really finds its pace. Like the shambling masses of undead, Deadheads bumbles along from place to place, not really developing anything character-wise, and I think it’s this lack of direction that makes it hard to love.

Part slacker movie, part road movie, part zombie movie, part bromance – Deadheads never really has full focus on any of this. The zombie element is never developed or explained, the buddies don’t have enough conflict and the slacking stops the moment they decide to travel to find Mike’s old girlfriend.

It is perhaps the awkward comedy that stops this being a classic. Occasionally it’s very smart, sometimes slapstick genius and at others it’s Scary Movie awful. The fact Brent apparently joined the ranks of the undead during a failed autoerotic asphyxiation attempt speaks volumes…

The stand-out performance comes from the dialogue-less Cheese, which perhaps also says a lot about the level of comedy on display. Visually it’s very good, but the comedic lines often fall flat and fail to amuse, featuring some truly extreme characters (I’m looking at Benjamin Webster’s insane military moron “Mcdinkle” here). Markus Taylor is oddly lovable as undead lug Cheese and he’s – bizarrely – one of the more sympathetic characters!

You can tell that Deadheads creators Brett and Drew Pierce want people to say their film is “a future cult classic”, and although it does angle for that crowd, it’s a little too safe to cater for that marketplace. It might reference everything from The Goonies to Star Wars (surprise!) but this doesn’t make it cult, it makes it geeky. I have seen a lot of that recently – horror films begging to obtain cult status – but only time will tell if Deadheads manages that feat. My gut says no.

Deadheads is enjoyable and funny. It never reaches the heights of Shaun of the Dead but blows other zombie-comedies out of the water on sheer originality, surpassing the likes of Last of the Living and Boy Eats Girl with ease. Not hilarious, not genius, not terrible – basically, Deadheads is dead okay.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10 stars

A chance encounter with local serial killer “Tear-jerk Jack” leaves her with sliced hands and Prosopagnosia (or “face blindness”), a rare condition in which she cannot recognise people’s faces from moment- to-moment. This is especially inconvenient because she’s literally the only person in the world to have seen Tear-jerk Jack’s face… and she can’t remember faces anymore. Oh the irony!

Naturally this face blindness causes her private life to fall to pieces and Tear-jerk Jack to get very interested in her, so suddenly she’s confused, alone and being hunted by a serial killer who could literally look like anyone. Can she elude him? Can she survive? Will the police ever do their job properly in a horror movie?

Faces in the Crowd suffers from two major problems – leaps in logic and an obvious storyline. The film is absolutely packed with logic jumps. Having been attacked by a serial killer, Anna wakes up in hospital without a police guard! She sees doctor / specialist before the cops even decide to question her… by phoning her! She makes the front page of every newspaper, but again no one calls her for her story! No one in the media even tries to get an exclusive! Inexplicably people’s VOICES and BODY SHAPES also change, as well as their faces.

The police – like all badly-written thrillers – are once again incredibly incompetent. They set up an identity parade for a woman who can’t recognise faces! Reliable! They also have the DNA of the serial killer but his DNA is not on file, even though – SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER – the killer is a cop, so they DO HAVE his DNA on file! Did someone not look on the police database?! Sigh.

Perhaps these logic leaps seem so irritating because the story is so obvious. The premise is interesting – face blind woman is the only witness to a serial killer! – but it’s a premise that can only go one way, with only a finite amount of ideas / possibilities, and they happen as expected and at a slovenly pace. The identity of the killer is screamingly obvious, and symbolises the overall screaming obviousness of Faces in the Crowd. Nothing surprises.

If you’d like to play the blame game, then focus your annoyance at Julien Magnat, the writer / director of Faces in the Crowd. Bizarrely his previous writing work includes episodes of The Garfield Show and Iron Man: Armoured Adventures. His last major film project was 2002’s Bloody Mallory, which had this sterling plot: “Heroines Mallory, Vena Cava and Talking Tina fight the fallen angel Abaddon and his accomplices vampire Lady Valentine and succubus Morphine.” Despite his huge variety of work, Faces in the Crowd is sadly another piece of mediocre nothingness from Magnat. Perhaps next time Magnat will create something more engaging and compelling.

On a positive note, it’s nice to see Milla Jovovich in a movie where she doesn’t dive backwards in slow motion, firing two pistols. She actually acts. And like in A Perfect Getaway and The Fifth Element, she is excellent throughout. It’s just a shame the film isn’t.

Despite her enjoyable performance, even Jovovich’s character of Anna is horrendously unlikeable at times – when her boyfriend Bryce is unable to handle the face blindness and splits up with Anna, she shrugs it off and has sex with the lead investigator the next day! That may be the only surprising / shocking thing in Faces in the Crowd, even though it wasn’t supposed to be…!

Faces in the Crowd is a great idea drowned in the predictable. It is functional and interesting, but it is obvious where the film is going from the very beginning and takes a long time to get there. Milla Jovovich is great, but the film is not. Unless you’re easily fooled, I recommend skipping this one.

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars

The financially broken island of White Sands is in desperate need of money-making schemes, so when the Mayor’s idiot son returns and offers them a Spring Break festival, the townsfolk reluctantly agree.

Unfortunately for everyone, a festival isn’t the only new thing in White Sands. Sand sharks are!

What’s a sand shark? Well, I’ll let perma-tanned shark expert Doctor Sandy Powers explain – “It’s a predator that’s evolved to wear sand like a coat and travel through it like water.” Oh of course.

When the sharks threaten to destroy everything in White Sands, the local police team, doctor bimbo, the mayor’s son and one pathetic impression of Robert Shaw must team together to rid the sands of this horrific menace.

Sand Sharks is awful. For anyone who’s seen the recent swathe of monster-mash sea beast flicks, this is not much different. From Dinocroc to Megashark, the story is naff, the acting woeful and the CGI horrendous. For the most part, this is true of Sand Sharks, but it also has something the other films don’t – an open sense of humour.

The Asylum (creators of Transmorphers, Moby Dick, Megashark etc…) always seem to ignore humour in favour of creating what is, essentially, a shit rip-off of another film. The creators of Sand Sharks, however, knowingly homage, steal and parody their inspiration throughout – Jaws ­­­­– as well as a number of other films. One entire scene (the town meeting) is so obviously copyright infringement you’d probably have Spielberg fuming if it wasn’t so hilariously shameless!

Sand Sharks contains such “classic” lines as “We’re going to need a bigger beach”, “I love the smell of napalm in the afternoon” and the bimbo biologist even chucks out the ridiculous insult of “You sand of a bitch”. It is so bad it’s funny… as long as you’re clutching a beer.

Without the benefit of alcohol and friends, Sand Sharks is truly abysmal. There is some horrendous acting on display here, oddly mixed with some excellent, affable performances. Naturally the bad guys get all the best lines, with Corin Nemec’s Jimmy stealing every scene he’s in.

Then there’s the festival. The 1000s of teenagers are clearly about two dozen well spaced thirty year olds, wobbling by a sound stage and three crap tents. At this point the casting director should be shot or praised (depending on your point of view) for hiring a fat, topless, bearded extra in bright red shorts to run about in the background, because it makes a great drinking game. “Down a shot when you spot the teleporting fat bearded guy” – liver-damage awaits!

Sand Sharks also features quite literally the most fucking bat-shit ridiculous plan to kill anything, ever. Sod machine guns, sod the military or poison or – well, anything logical – their plan involves loud speakers, sand, electricity, a napalm gun and a raucous rendition of Row Row Row Your Boat. Completely insane, but oddly loveable because of it.

Sand Sharks pulls off what the majority of “giant monster” movies cannot – a self-knowing sense of humour that occasionally hits the mark. It’s absurd and it knows it, and although occasionally slipping into Scary Movie territory it’s more Larry Blamire than Wayans brothers.

Sand Sharks + friends + alcohol = winner. Don’t expect anything awesome, but do expect fun. Sand Sharks is lovably shit.

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars

Tommy Leary (Will Denton) is having nightmares about a demonic figure. They’re snappy and ridiculous and ultimately very disturbing for him. This is more worrying because he’s been packed off to Camp Hope, a Bible camp for suburbanite children, where “sins of the flesh” is strictly forbidden (along with rock music, comic books, wanking and basically everything else a teenage boy needs in order to survive his adolescence).

Naturally everything does not run smoothly and after a lengthy introduction to the camp and its people, naughty Tommy goes for a dry hump jean-jizz in the woods with one of the girls and unleashes a demonic force on the camp. This might sound exciting. It’s not. The demonic force is simply very irritating and massively random.

Possibly preachy, possibly anti-religious, possibly the most boring film I’ve watched all year, Camp Hell finishes of the 2011 horror calendar with a pathetic wet slap rather than a huge bang.

One of the main problems with Camp Hell is how it’s a giant sack of lying filth. IMDB claims it was made in 2010, but the Camp Hope banner and T-Shirt suggest it was actually 2007. Released almost 5 years after it was made? That’s a good sign! But that’s because the likes of Connor Paolo and Jesse Eisenberg are actually more well known now. Ah yes… the curious case of Jesse Eisenberg. Check out the posters below:

If you’re thinking “Hey, wow, Jess Eisenberg’s in it! The guy from Zombieland and Oscar-winning The Social Network! Awesome!” then prepare to be severely disappointed (as well as bored). Eisenberg is in Camp Hell for less than six minutes in two scenes, both of which feel superfluous and don’t affect our main character.

It is shameless stuff and the DVD cover is so incredibly misleading that Eisenberg is actually suing Lionsgate Entertainment for three million dollars! Apparently he was paid three thousand dollars – a fee significantly lower than his usual appearance fee, poor him – and was therefore rightfully surprised to find his face splattered over all the marketing material. Eisenberg fans should avoid Camp Hell. Wait, I mean film fans should avoid Camp Hell.

So what are the plus points for Camp Hell? Connor Paolo of Stake Land fame is superb, playing the roguish Jack, whilst Oscar-nominee Bruce Davison gives a reserved but otherwise excellent performance as Father Phineas McAllister. In fact, all the actors give decent performances, it’s just they have absolutely nothing compelling to work with.

The fault of Camp Hell lies directly on George VanBuskirk’s shoulders. The writer / director based this film on true events and then filmed it like a cripplingly dull documentary. There are moments of intrigue and surprise violence, but otherwise it’s a long trudge through boredom city, destination: nowhere.

Camp Hell is dullness heaped on lies. I might join Jesse Eisenberg in suing Lionsgate Entertainment, but not because they’re stealing my face for advertising purposes, but because they stole some of my life and I want it back. Avoid this unless you’re an insomniac looking for an instant cure. Camp Hell is not worth your time.

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

So… a prequel.

Here’s the shocker – it’s not terrible. It’s far from awesome, but it’s not the abysmal hunk of aggravated turd I had expected it to be.

Set a few days before Kurt Russell killed his chess computer (with whisky) this story is an origins one, not for The Thing itself, but for the Norwegian camp briefly seen in the original.

Three Norwegians hunting a lone distress signal somewhere in Antarctica are surprised when they fall into a glacial ravine… and find a crashed spacecraft. The first thing they do is call for all-American girl and super-biologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to help out the gruff and beardy Norwegians.

Within minutes of her arrival they take her to a second discovery – the corpse of the spacecraft’s pilot. Digging up the weird beasty, they take the ice-encased monster to their lab… and then have a party. Needless to say the “thing” in the ice isn’t quite as dead as the scientists thought and soon it’s loose, squiggly and really huggy.

For those who haven’t seen John Carpenter’s The Thing I won’t spoil the surprise, but this alien being isn’t just a mass of wibbly bits and claws… it’s the ultimate predator on an extinction level scale.

What’s right with The Thing 2011? Well it sticks closely to the original, ensuring Thing obsessives like myself can tick off the references (although some things are missing / just plain fucking wrong).

Marco Beltrami’s score is very evocative, mainly because it steals liberally from / lovingly homages Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack from the original. The cast also do a reasonable job, although none of them have anywhere near the charm of Kurt Russell and Keith David.

Also, surprisingly, The Thing 2011 is genuinely tense at times, scary as hell at others and – in places – actually very sickening. A detached hand inserting itself into someone’s mouth will always be horrible, even if it is CGI…

Ah yes. The CGI. Time for the negatives!

The original was brilliant for a number of reasons, but a major one was Rob Bottin (and friends)’s special effects. Lacking decent CGI meant actual craft went into making physical monsters that moved, crawled, attacked, whipped, wiggled and caught fire. It was believable and more disturbing because of this. The effects work is still superb today, standing the test of time where so many others have failed.

I remember the creators of The Thing 2011 emphasizing how important the practical effects were and that they’d used them liberally, but the only time they actually applied them was on the corpses, lying about on the floor or workbenches. Considering the woeful Shark Night 3D used more animatronics than The Thing 2011 does certainly say a lot about their mentality.

What the overuse of CGI meant was a lack of subtlety. The Thing was not always subtle (defibrillator scene, the dog kennel etc…) but it was never as brazen as the prequel. It was about tension, not screaming monsters exploding through ceilings.

Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s direction is far too bright and slasher-flick like, and it lacks the necessary claustrophobia needed to emulate the original’s tension and desperation.

Every other minute a man’s face would split in half or CGI tentacles would Urotsukidōji itself around the screen, slapping people with CGI blood. The prequel is the aggressive bastard child of The Thing 1982 – all noise and violence and modern technology and none of the nuanced intelligence of the original.

Unfortunately, not only are the “creatures” computer generated, the actual CGI itself is pretty dismal in places. Opting for in-yer-face violence means you see everything, and it’s pretty rubbish at times. The helicopter scene is especially bad (I actually laughed, which is never a good sign) and some of it reminded me of – dare I say it – Resident Evil: Afterlife. *shudder*

Let’s be realistic, though. It’s not all about CGI, but about character and plot too.

Tragically the characters just don’t matter. There are so many and they’re mostly fodder. This is undoubtedly the fault of screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who is responsible for writing Final Destination 5 and the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. His career appears to be the poaching of other people’s genius, and his latest is distinctly unspectacular.

Heisserer simply cannot write characters you care about. There is an absolute lack of sympathy / empathy with anyone in The Thing 2011, and this was compounded by the epilogue that plays out during the end credits, which shows the fate of two characters you’d literally forgotten about! Although a required and slyly crafted ending, it proved without a doubt that the characters we’re utterly forgettable.

Talking of endings… oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. There was one unanswered question from the original that was also unasked – “what’s INSIDE the spaceship?” Well, according to Heisserer and van Heijningen Jr., apparently the alien ship is full of cliché and confusion. Sadly this ridiculous ending is absolutely absurd and upends the tone entirely. Unnecessary and – quite frankly – fucking awful, it is infuriatingly bad.

Overall The Thing 2011 is a needless but reasonable prequel, which thankfully doesn’t 100% rape the memory of the original. It is disturbing, brutal, scary and exciting… but also confused, ugly, packed with unsympathetic characters and coated in a layer of shoddy CGI. The Thing 2011 is not as angering as I’d expected, but that’s not really a recommendation.

Conclusion: see the original.

So, is there any chance of a sequel to the prequel? Well there was mention of a “Russian base” 50 miles away, so we’ll see if the box office allows for one. Let’s bloody hope not.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

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

Bong of the Dead is the story of two wasters, pot-smoking their way through the zombie apocalypse. Pot curator Edwin (Mark Wynn) has made a startling scientific breakthrough, much to best-friend Tommy’s (Jy Harris) amazement -

“You’ve discovered ourselves some kind of fucked up zombie fertilizer… for growing fucking killer weed!!”

- Yep. By removing a zombie’s brain, drying it out and mixing the powdery residue with H2O, Edwin has created a super-fast liquid fertilizer that makes cannabis plants grow in a matter of SECONDS. Winner!

Sadly for Edwin and Tommy, however, they’re fresh out of cannabis and fresh out of zombie juice. Their only option is to head into one of the government-cordoned “Danger Zones” in order to find more zombie braaaaains. Ironic, huh?

Edwin is sceptical “We could die!”

Tommy checks reality “Yeah, and we could die if we don’t get any more weed.”

Well obviously. So the two stoners trek outside of their flat and into the most dangerous place in the world, in the hope they can capture, kill and steal enough zombie brains to keep them high forever. It’s a barmy concept, and – again – only sellable if you’re a little intoxicated yourself. It’s not one for Grandma, unless she’s a junkie or absolutely mental.

So is it any good? Bong of the Dead is difficult to digest. Clearly made with lots of love and one giant spliff jammed firmly in the gob, this is the budget equivalent of George A. Romero’s “Dude, Where’s My Car” with Jay and Silent Bob, and is certainly a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyable. With a character list including Robot Zombie, Vagina Face and Lesbian Zombie, there is little to be taken seriously, with no discernible message, themes or clear goals even remotely poking their heads out of the smoke-addled plot. It’s hugely stupid, but very hard to dislike – if you’re in the right mood, this is an absolute laugh-riot.

There are, however, a number of genuine faults. The dialogue has clearly been added in post production, and although it’s mostly in-sync, it just sounds wrong. It’s difficult to complain about considering Bong of the Dead was filmed with one camera, no sound and edited on a Mac Book Pro in creator Thomas Newman’s basement. A little sound awkwardness is probably irrelevant if you’re actually enjoying this film, but it’s worth noting…

The film also sags significantly in the middle, when a whole host of scenes surrounding a zombie-powered outdoor shower fall flat and are simply far less important than the characters make them out to be. Even for the most patient of viewers, this section might be a little tiresome.

Despite the occasional blip in interest, the best scenes are yet to come, especially once Edwin and Tommy have teamed up with kick-ass mechanic Leah (Simone Bailly) and built a zombie-killing truck complete with lawn-mowers and one randomly acquired gatling gun (where did that come from?!). Blood, torn limbs, CGI head explosions, blood, guts, more blood and one evil-looking zombie baby; the last twenty minutes are insane and gleefully gory.

Clearly made on a tight budget with perhaps too much reliance on CGI blood effects, this is not Hollywood glossy, so those who have a snobbish view on low-budget best avoid it. I have seen a worryingly large number of low-budget zombie films, but this is probably the best, and apparently made for a measly $5000. Most Hollywood films spend more than that on catering…

So who made this? Creator Thomas Newman cites himself as director, writer, composer, cinematographer, art director, foley talent, digital compositor, title sequence animator, camera operator, animation director, on-line editor and is also the voice of a TV & radio presenter. For a film made by one man and an army of friends and family, Bong of the Dead is excellent. Despite the film’s faults, Thomas Newman should be bloody proud.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Cannibal certainly has an original concept at its core and it keeps you intrigued and guessing throughout, mostly thanks to Helena Coppejans’s captivating and disturbing performance as cannibal Bianca. She seamlessly mixes alluring and dangerous, and her untrustworthy eyes flood the screen with dark suggestion.

Being a people-shy agoraphobic means Max is incredibly poor at relating to others, but you begin to realise exactly where this fear comes from when his shady past is gradually revealed, and how his colourful woodland house is eons away from the gritty horror that is the city he once called home. Pimps, gangsters, scum, whores and gun-runners litter the streets and Max must trudge back into that world to save Bianca… with horrifyingly violent consequences.

Benjamin Viré’s direction is always interesting, and as the film progresses it gradually gets grittier and nastier as we follow Max on his horrible journey back into a world he had long left behind. There are some bizarre artistic choices on offer here too; when Bianca is kidnapped the film turns black n’ white, as if the new-found colour in Max’s world has disappeared with her. It’s a strange choice, unexpected, but ultimately a thought-provoking one that works fantastically well.

Viré’s script is also excellent, the dialogue sharp and the story constantly surprising. It is an incredibly intimate piece for a film with such an in-yer-face title. Viré should be very proud of Cannibal – as a debut feature it’s exceptional.

The major overriding issue with Cannibal is the character of Max. Although brilliantly played by Nicolas Gob, Max is a strange man with a real fear of intimacy and poor communication skills, so he’s genuinely difficult to empathise with. Once he helps Bianca kill strangers, he also becomes hard to sympathize with. It doesn’t make the film less captivating, but it makes you care less about his journey and their fate. It is a tale of abnormal and horrifying love; enjoyable but not as moving as it could’ve – and perhaps should’ve – been.

Overall Cannibal is artistically excellent, very well acted and utterly watchable. Let down by some hard-to-like characterisations, it is still a superb debut from French filmmaker Benjamin Viré and definitely worth watching.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

It is a relatively simple tale, but one that is fantastically well executed. The direction, acting, score and script are gritty, serious and believable. Once the violence begins, it’s a thrilling cat n’ mouse chase that is brutal, bloody and incredibly tense. Director and co-writer Cosimo Alemà does not glorify the horror, but focuses instead on the characters and their own battles, physical and emotional.

Neil Linpow and Daniel Vivian are especially noteworthy as good guy Rico and not-so-good guy Vinnie, excelling in every scene. Sadly the film is slightly let down by Stephanie Chapman-Baker, whose range of emotions does not quite fit the taxing role of Monica’s doting sister Lara. It certainly does not ruin the film, but when she picks up a rifle and goes all Ripley on us, it’s simply not convincing.

A minor issue some may find is that Lutz Michael’s “Uncle” is very difficult to understand, with a rough, undetermined accent and you may miss half of what he has to say. I put on the subtitles when we first meet him, because I literally understood only the word “Flamingo” and that really made no sense in the context of the scene… This is a shame, really, considering Michael gives an otherwise excellent performance.

War Games shows how films of this ilk should be made. In 2009 a film called Paintball was released and it was a giant mess (see our review here) failing miserably to capitalize on the drama behind the situation by forcing American accents on a European cast and adding a needless twist. War Games uses the accents of the actors and is entirely twist free, and it benefits hugely from doing so.

With some excellent acting, solid direction and a genuinely great ending, War Games is definitely worth watching. It may move no boundaries or offers few surprises, but for a straight-laced, dramatic horror-thriller it is a superb piece of work.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

It is Sadie’s (Christina De Vallee) birthday and she’s pregnant. Rick (David Paisley) is taking her on a trip to the island of Amen, where a tiny community of serious weirdoes live. Coming along for the ride is their excitable friend Danny (Jonathan Keane), whose presence on this little trip is never really explained… until he starts fucking Rick, that is…

It takes nearly forty minutes for the storyline to actually kick in, and you finally understand why Sadie has come to the island; there is a twisted plot involving her finding her long-lost sister and the secret behind her recurring drowning nightmares. Some secrets, however, are better left buried, and Sadie soon finds out why her dead mother was desperate to get her off the island… and why she should’ve never come back.

Unhappy Birthday certainly has atmosphere, partially because of Mark Harriott and Mike Matthews’ solid directing, which lingers menacingly on everyday objects, giving them a sickly sense of threat. This is hugely bolstered by Lin Sangster’s excellent sound work. Sangster’s grating, disturbing score deliberately unsettles and distracts, ensuring you’re constantly unnerved by the quiet foreboding hidden in every shot.

What Unhappy Birthday has in atmosphere, it completely lacks in character. Despite offering decent performances from all involved, the characters are all ridiculous and unsympathetic and you’re more likely to relate to the crazy islanders than the trio of sex-mad, craven scumbags. The “outsiders” behaviour towards others is abhorrent and their treatment of their kindly host is absolutely disgusting, especially considering Corrine (Jill Riddiford) is Sadie’s long lost sister! Corinne tells Sadie their mother was an island outcast because “She put her carnal love before the word of God”, so Sadie decides to have a threesome in the house! I mean, couldn’t it have waited? All three of them deserve to die and it sadly makes for tiresome watching.

Unhappy Birthday is certainly unique and is pock-marked with decent scenes – from an in-car fumigation to every scene featuring Jill Riddiford (she is exceptional throughout), but the decent direction, great score and occasional moment of genius cannot make up for Unhappy Birthday’s failings. Unhappy Birthday is not awful, but it’s also not worth watching.

Rating: 4 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

In the Netherlands December 5^th is a special day. Sinterklaas and his army of Zwart Pieten (or black Peters, as they’re tastefully known) descend on people’s homes to deliver gifts, joy, music and happiness, as another variation of Coca Cola’s jolly Santa Claus. Unknown to many, however, the tale of St Nick is not so jolly.

According to Saint creator Dick Maas, Saint Niklas was an evil 15^th Century rogue Bishop who killed families and kidnapped children, ransacking villages with his cruel band of pirates called “Peters”. Eventually caught and burned alive on his galleon, many believed him to be dead, but evil never stays buried forever. Every 32 (or so) years he returns on December 5^th to wreck havoc on the residents of Amsterdam, bringing with him his black and charred Peters to unleash orc-ish hell. And in Saint, that night is tonight.

Sound insane? The premise is pretty bonkers, and due to a cultural misunderstanding, many other countries may be confused by the whole “December 5^th / emaciated Santa on a horse / slightly racist black peters” thing…

The main problem with Saint is the characterisation. Who is our protagonist? We originally follow teenager Lisa (Caro Lenssen) and her secret boyfriend Frank (Egbert Jan Weeber), but then we also skip to disgraced police detective Goert (Bert Luppes), whose wild belief that a ghostly St Nick murdered his entire family thirty years ago is seriously affecting his job. There are huge swathes of the film when each one of these characters just disappears – it’s disconcerting and makes it difficult to emotionally invest yourself in anything.

The plot, therefore, is difficult to describe. Basically the mad police detective gets to yell “I told you so!” very loudly as the psychotic, charred ghost of Saint Niklas wreaks havoc on Amsterdam, murdering the residents, kidnapping the children and racing across the rooftops on a burned-up undead horse. The not-so-crazy-anymore detective must stop him before he destroys the entire city… but how do you stop a ghostly psycho bishop from hell? Not easily, that’s how.

Saint is visually exciting and there is always something going on, even if you don’t quite understand it. Director Dick Maas proves he has a fantastic flare for visuals, with a stunning rooftop chase scene (check out the link below), some disturbing scenes in a children’s hospital and many other instances of dread and wonder in the streets of Amsterdam; dark, misty, foreboding and demented – Dick Maas proves he is a great director.

Tragically Dick Maas’s directing abilities are not matched by his writing skills. As mentioned above the plotting is awkward and the characterisations weak, but the script is also tonally awkward. Maas’s humour ranges from being exceedingly dark to lightly comic, but never quite sits right. Is it a comedy? Is it a horror? Whatever it is, it’s bizarre, but so lovingly created you can probably forgive it for its faults.

Overall Saint is a strange little Christmas horror. Awkwardly written but exceptionally well directed, Dick Maas has created a memorable black comedy horror that is enjoyable and compelling, but not quite right. Saint is a missed opportunity to make a classic.

Check out the Rooftop Chase scene here

Check out Scullion’s interview with Dick Maas here

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

In a brief prologue, we see adult Katie (Katie Featherston - from Paranormal Activity 1) dump a box-full of VHS tapes in the basement of her sister Kristi (Sprague Grayden – from Paranormal Activity 2) asking her to look after them. Then – in more found footage – we find out these tapes have been stolen following a break-in where nothing else was taken. Spooky. These tapes are what make up Paranormal Activity 3.

Initially I asked the question: where did the tapes comes from? Did the demon post them to Paramount Pictures?! Then – after 85 minutes – I wished they hadn’t been found at all. Paranormal Activity 3 is decent enough, with some superbly chilling moments, but the abysmally lazy ending made the entire film stink of stupidity and wasted time. This is a decent and scary horror, but the films before it are much much better.

Young Kristi Ray (Jessica Tyler Brown) has an imaginary friend called Toby. No one else can see him – including her sister Katie (Chloe Csengery) – whilst her mum Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her new partner Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) see it as “just a phase”. Being a freelance wedding video-er means Dennis has a lot of cameras, so when strange noises start occurring in their new home, he sets up “surveillance” to see what they are. Quickly Dennis realizes something odd is going on with Toby, and as he continues to film he witnesses some seriously unexplained phenomena surrounding Kristi…

Having flip-reversed the “sceptic / believer” roles from the previous two films, it was interesting seeing the man of the house setting up cameras specifically to catch the ghost on screen. It made it a much more believable dynamic from Paranormal Activity 1 and 2, where the man-folk came across as being absolute bastards. In Paranormal Activity 3 our unbeliever is the mother, whose scepticism comes from an inherent need to protect her daughters from harm – mental as well as physical. They make for a great family, believable and likeable.

Acting wise Paranormal Activity 3 excels all-round. The two girls (Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown) are excellent, the adults superb and even the bit part players – the unlucky babysitter (Johanna Braddy) and Dennis’s mate Randy (Dustin Ingram) – are pitch-perfect and work incredibly well within the dynamic of the story. Perhaps only the grandma fails to compel, but that’s the writers fault for making such a ridiculous and clichéd character.

Before going into the fundamental problem with Paranormal Activity 3, one of the very minor issues is that Paranormal Activity 3 never really feels like it’s filmed in the 80’s. Apart from the babysitter’s awesome 80’s get up and the creepiest Teddy Ruxpin you’ll ever see, the house and everything else seems modern – even the dialogue feels very now. Perhaps it’s the lack of 80’s music or the always-generic clothing the main characters wear, but I never felt I was watching something genuinely filmed in the 80’s. Where were the day-glo shorts?!

Paranormal Activity 3 is scary. Bloody scary, in fact, with some jaw-dropping moments of violence and suspense. The demon this time has a physical presence and it’s even more powerful and audacious than before; picking people up, writing on walls, destroying kitchens. The beast is malevolent and insane and it’s nerve-rattling stuff. Unfortunately all this fear and tension leads us to the final act, where a complete change of location ushers in what feels like a complete change of genre, from the paranormal to… well, I won’t spoiler it. The ending may be unexpected, but it’s awfully designed and feels lazily tacked on, making a terrifying horror into a laughably bad cliché.

Overall Paranormal Activity 3 is decent. The acting and characters are superb, the direction solid, but the final act is so woefully inept it spoils the whole experience. Enjoyable, bloody scary, but massively flawed. And where did the missing tapes come from?!

Additional side note: this trailer is a fucking LIE – LINK. There is literally no moment when both Kristi and Julie stand in front of a mirror and play Bloody Mary. This scene never happens within the context of the film. This is a really odd choice by the marketers as it dragged me kicking and screaming back to reality when I realized it wasn’t happening and I was – 100% – watching something Hollywood built.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Paranormal Inspectors is a small-time American reality TV show, which prides itself on debunking hauntings and paranormal activity, and we first meet them on their 49^th episode where they disprove a haunting based on faulty wiring and chemicals in the basement. But this is called Episode 50, not 49, and we swiftly move on…

Before they film their landmark 50^th episode, a cancer-ridden philanthropist approaches them to prove that “inhumans” do not exist, so that when he dies he knows there will be no hell to greet him. To do this, the team is allowed to visit the most haunted place in America – the West Virginia Insane Asylum.

The PI’s snap up the idea as it’s been off-limits for decades thanks to – you guessed it – a series of unexplained deaths, from teenage darers to weather-weary tramps. They will be the first people to set foot in West Virginia Insane Asylum for years. Things go immediately from awesome to shitty when they find out another team of investigators has also been hired – the Academia Spirit Searcher’s Club, a group run by true believers in psychics, Gods and ghosts. Talk about awkward…

The two TV documentary members agree to team together to tackle the asylum and – well – this is when Episode 50 starts to decline, rapidly, from decent to silly to absurd to appallingly bad and lands squarely at hilariously awful.

Episode 50 is a frustrating watch as it begins so damn well. The opening episode 49 is genuinely interesting and well created, and even the plot-heavy scene with our cancer-riddled millionaire bastard is cleverly played. Sadly when the “horror” begins Episode 50 becomes – honestly – a laughable mess. Why? Two reasons - Ghosts and “Found Footage”.

Ghosts are a tough subject to tackle – how much do you show? What do they look like? How do they act? Episode 50 doesn’t seem to know. Sometimes ghosts are visible, sometimes invisible, sometimes they wander about on the ceiling, sometimes they sprint down corridors, other times they communicate by whispering, other times with dead bees (don’t ask). Ultimately the ghosts aren’t scary and the reason for them existing is muddled and ridiculous. They blame this on an “inhuman” or demon, but this never makes a single bit of sense.

Found footage films need to be realistic. Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity work so well because you believe everything you see – it’s rare you question anything – and the “information” you receive on the screen could feasibly have been pieced together from actual found video footage. Episode 50 could not. At all. In any fucking way. I swear here because I’m so bloody angry the creators of Episode 50 could have audacity to think anyone would be fooled into thinking this “footage” is real. We see everything; ghost nurses, creepy ghost children, ghosts crawling on ceiling, a big horned fiery demon beast. Yes. A demon. Standing at a gateway to hell. It’s that fucking stupid.

Inconsistencies and continuity errors permeate the flaccid walls of Episode 50 and you’re constantly faced with bewildering decisions and creative failures. Apparently no one – including security guards – has been inside the Asylum for years, but when the film crews enter the floors are scrubbed clean, the lighting works perfectly and nothing has decayed. It makes for a frustrating watch.

Apart from the enjoyable opening sequence and cancer-riddled rich guy idea, there is only one other decent thing about Episode 50 and that is Kieron Elliott, the “special guest” on the show, who seems to be the only grounded – and only likeable – character on the film. Shame he literally disappears at the end of the film, when the creators thought that massively changing locations would be a good idea…

There is so much wrong with Episode 50 it’s difficult not making this into a giant rant. At one point one of the “Inspectors” is kidnapped by a ghost nurse, strapped to a gurney and given electroshock therapy over and over again. Then – inexplicably – she’s not being attacked anymore, and is happy to carry on with the TV show. And so is everyone else. It’s fucking idiotic.

Episode 50 is a broken rollercoaster. The build up is excellent but the actual ride is an abysmal, confused, aggravating mess. Kieron Elliott saved me from punching the TV in the face, I was that annoyed. Episode 50 is terrible. Please avoid.

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

Being noticed for quality in a market as rammed as the zombie subgenre does require something fresh and stunning, and The Dead provides it. How? It’s set in Africa.

American Lieutenant Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman) is having a bad day. Whilst serving as an air force engineer in Africa, a zombie outbreak turns everyone into brain-hungry cannibal psychopaths and he escapes on the last plane out of the undead zone.  Tragically the plane is low on fuel and the pilot low on competence and they crash into the ocean.

Crawling from the wreckage and onto a beach, Murphy finds himself on the edge of a continent freshly overrun with zombies, and his new mission is to escape Africa and get back to his wife and kid. Navigating Africa’s harsh terrain is difficult enough without a horde of ravenous undead trying to eat you, and Murphy is lucky to run into Sgt. Daniel Dembele (Prince David Oseia) a soldier looking for his son. Avoiding the rogue and ruthless army and thousands of African zombies, these two men from very different cultures must negotiate their way to nearest safe haven… which is over 100 miles away.

The Dead is exceptional. Despite re-treading very worn ground in plotting terms – a disparate group seek a mythical sanctuary during a zombie apocalypse – it is the setting and the characters that make this a truly original piece. It is worth noting that this isn’t the mildly racist Africa we see in Resident Evil 5, but a layered, believable and endless Africa full of believable people and a vastness rarely seen in a zombie apocalypse film.

Most zombie flicks confine us to a few locations (like Night of the Living Dead) or into a sprawling urban landscape (like Last of the Living) full of dark alleyways and houses to hide in. The Dead forces our protagonists into the open, into a vast nothingness of trees, rocks, mud, grass and the shambling undead, and this makes for a much more tense and unique experience. Nowhere is safe and it keeps a feeling of dread going that normally disappears at the midpoint of most zombie horrors. There is no safety, even in their clapped-out car, and as night draws near you realise exactly how dark the African wilderness can get…

What Africa also provides Howard and Jonathan Ford (writer / directors of The Dead) with is a beautiful landscape. The Dead features awe-inspiring silhouettes and breathtaking openness, almost like some shots were actually made for the African Tourist Board, albeit with zombies! The Ford Brothers should be proud of this achievement – a beautiful and horrifying zombie film.

This endless landscape is also tragically one of The Dead’s minor faults, as it’s difficult to fathom the scale of Murphy and Dembele’s journey, meaning there’s a lack of real escalation as the film goes on. It’s always bleak and always dangerous and always terrifying, but it never feels like things are getting worse or better, like a road trip without the mile markers. This is minor issue, however, and only one that really hits you on hindsight – all the scenes blur into one muddled experience, but it’s still an excellent experience nonetheless.

Acting wise it’s mostly a two-hander between Rob Freeman and Prince David Oseia and they do exceptionally well in their given roles. The acting is naturalistic, underplayed and full of hidden depth and strength. You believe them and – essentially – want to follow them on their journey from hell to salvation, and everything in between.

The Dead is a thoroughly enjoyable, exciting, interesting and compelling zombie horror. Brutal, tense and ultimately very well created, the Ford Brothers have revitalised an otherwise flagging genre. See this movie – The Dead is awesome.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars

Super is the sort of film that audiences will either love or hate. Some people will be disgusted at the slew of senseless violence on display, others just won’t get it, but some will adore it’s cockeyed tale of everyman Frank D’Arbo.

The only two worthwhile moments in Franks life are pointing a policeman in the direction of the criminal he is chasing and marrying the love of his life Sarah. When Frank comes home one day to find that his wife (Liv Tyler), a former drug addict, has left him for a sleazy dealer named Jacques (Kevin Bacon) he vows to get her back in whatever manner necessary. In his fragile state of mind he becomes disillusioned with the number of crimes going on around him and one day, after an hallucination in which Gods finger touches his brain (yes, really) and with an idea implanted by Libby, the girl from the local comic book shop, he decides that the best course of action is to become a real life superhero and change things for the better.

Donning a homemade red and yellow spandex costume and becoming The Crimson Bolt, Frank Vows to find Jacques and his henchmen, rid the World of their evildoings and get his wife back. Along the way he, somewhat unwillingly, enlists the help of Libby who becomes his enthusiastic, and occasionally psychopathic sidekick Boltie. The two of them then embark on a spree of vigilantiism that makes Kick Ass’s Hit Girl look cartoonish and tame by comparison.

Rainn Wilson is startlingly good as Super’s bumbling, Joe Average protagonist and one can only hope that he chooses more roles like this and Hesher than appalling comedies like The Rocker. He’s ably assisted by a cast of colourful supporting actors who all turn in memorable roles too, with particular mention going to Nathan Fillion’s TV evangelist superhero and Ellen Page as the maniacal but well meaning Libby. Movie veteran Michael Rooker is, sadly, a little wasted in a minor role, Liv Tyler is a tad underwhelming and Linda Cardellini is tragically underused in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a pet shop employee, but otherwise the performances are first rate all around.

The generous dose of explicit violence, morally ambiguous sex scene and the fact that the film is championing a character who is as violent, if not more so, as the people he doles out his vigilante brand of justice to, not to mention mentally damaged and borderline schizophrenic, will alienate many of the films potential audience. Those who aren’t easily shocked however, are in a for a treat. The script is smart and incredibly darkly funny in places and the pacing is perfect with absolutely no moments that drag or feel like they’re there to extend the running time.

With it’s snappy direction, colourful comic book-esque sequences, excellent performances and the fact that Gunn almost refuses to take a moral standpoint, Super is bound to become a cult classic that will be enjoyed for decades to come. Shocking in places, jaw droppingly brutal, funny, droll and thoroughly entertaining with an underlying mean-streak, Super is fantastic and surprisingly uplifting.

There’s nothing left to say except watch this movie. That, and “Shut up, Crime!”

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Shrk Nite 3D = Cliché charactrz. Lame plot. Not enough lolz. Not enuff blud. CGI WTF? MASSIVE FAIL. Avoid.

College loner Sara (Sara Paxton) is going back home for the first time in three years and invites some of her friends to her lake house in Louisiana. Along for the ride is medical student Nick (Dustin Milligan) and some other generic American Pie clichés destined for shark death.

Ticking off some local hillbilly stereotypes along the way, the ridiculously hot group of “teenagers” boat out to the house on the lake, presumably on its own little island. It’s beautiful, wonderful, super-smashing-awesome… until “generic Jock guy” gets his arm ripped off by a shark!! Oh no! Shark!

What follows is a plethora of ridiculous decisions, some sign-posted betrayal and a smattering of uninspired deaths. Shark Night 3D is one long misfire. Aiming for the Piranha 3D crowd via Deep Blue Sea, it misses completely by opting for blood-shy, gore-free, boobless mediocrity with no relatable characters. It is weak, wet and worryingly dull.

Perhaps this level of absolute cackbadgers should’ve been expected from the “talents” of David R. Ellis, the man responsible for directing the abysmal The Final Destination, Asylum and Cellular. His direction is tame, uninspired and – except for two or three shots – actually very boring. Perhaps the blame can be laid on first time writer Jesse Studenberg and TV writer Will Hayes, who serve up a script so brimming with cliché and obviousness it feels like they wrote it on the back of Rizzler whilst smacked up on some drug.

I honestly felt sorry for the actors, who meander through the film with little enthusiasm. After recently seeing Sara Paxton give an excellent turn as Claire in Innkeepers, Shark Night 3D is a terrible showcase of her talents and will tragically get more audience than Innkeepers ever will.

But what about the sharks?! We want sharks! We want sharks! Despite using animatronics for some scenes, Shark Night 3D is packed with hilariously bad CGI sharks, that move unnaturally and smile like Jack Torrance jacked up on speed. They look truly rubbish and often fling themselves at the camera for no good reason except to add value to your 3D experience. SHARK IN THE FACE! Well worth the extra few quid I spunked on this ugly warm turd.

Normally I wouldn’t do this, but here are some of the plot problems with Shark Night – SPOILERS!

1.) Why does Sara trust her ex-boyfriend? The last time they saw each other she sliced up his face with a speedboat after he tried to drown her!

2.) Why don’t the sharks attack the dog? Why do the sharks act like they’re genetically-altered insane superbeasts with a distinct hatred of motorized water-vehicles?

3.) Why did the tranquilliser dart have absolutely NO effect on Dennis?

4.) Where did these dumb hick morons get these sharks from in the first place?

5.) And how the hell did they transport them to a freakin’ Louisiana lake?!

6.) What happened to the store clerk who released the Great White? Has he gotten away with murder?

7.) Why on EARTH did they make this bloody awful film?

Seriously, this film is fundamentally flawed on so many levels its absolutely ridiculous. It has been a long time since Hollywood has taken such a large filmic crap on global cinema, and THEN had the audacity to make people pay extra for the mind-bendingly pointless 3D.

I can only think they created this chunk of faecal discharge so they can release a sequel next year, hoping to fool people desperate to see Nolan’s next Batman film. How? They’ll call it Shark Night Rises. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

Shark Night 3D is an absolute travesty. It is worse than Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus, worse than Shark in Venice and worse than Shark Attack 3. They didn’t even have the forethought to cast John Barrowman in it.

Shark Night 3D is absolute balls. Avoid avoid avoid.

Rating: 0.5 out of 10 stars

Gemma (Natasha Sparkes) wants to be on the Big Brother “gameshow” and she ropes in her boyfriend Danny (Jason Maza) and media student mate Nathan (Arnold Oceng) to film her audition video. After many failed attempts, the trio find out there’s a “swingers” party happening nearby, and decide they should film it to make a quick buck. Upsettingly the farm-house doesn’t contain sexy bedrooms but whips, chains and lots of religious iconography, and the trio quickly realize they’re about to become sacrifices for a cult of devil-worshippers…

Gritty Brit-flick regular Jason Maza (Anuvahood, Shifty) plays likeable fool Danny perfectly, channelling Danny Dyer and naturally rolling out some classic dialogue. Perhaps the most likeable of the trio, you believe everything he does. In fact, you believe everything they all do, it’s just what they do is absolutely idiotic…

Here lies the crux of problem with The Tapes – the character and story. Character first: where the dialogue is solid and brilliantly delivered, the actual characters are all massively flawed and completely ridiculous. They are difficult it sympathize with, especially when you spend the majority of the film laughing at them!

Whereas Danny Dyer in Severance and Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead are both, basically, a bit moronic, they’re countered by smarter characters in the guise of Laura Harris and Simon Pegg respectively. The Tapes has no such “straight” character to ground the more ridiculous / stupid characters. We have three fools doing something foolish – not noticing the ominous tarot cards and weird symbols littering the “swingers” farm, for example – and ultimately it makes you care less about them than you really should.

The story of The Tapes is one of two halves. One enjoyable and compelling and the other dull and predictable. Oddly, it’s not the way around you’d perhaps expect. It is the first half of The Tapes that is enjoyable, exciting and interesting and the second half – with the pig-headed weirdoes and the violent death dealing – that sags, slumps and eventually collapses in a boring heap.

As I mentioned above, the characters are loveable twits. They spend half the movie attempting to create Gemma’s big brother audition tape, from inside a fishmongers to a children’s play-park in the snow, glittery dress n’ all. When she agrees to do a more “unique” audition tape whilst hiding at a swingers party, it’s funny, sad and utterly believable. But then the second half confines the characters to a small dank room where they can’t really talk and all the energy and fun is replaced by… a crap cult. It becomes generic and unbelievable. It’s a real shame.

Some other things are off too; the interesting cut-away interviews with family, friends, police and local residents inexplicably stop when the scary stuff starts and this breaks the illusion that what we’re seeing is a documentary. Where is the reveal about the missing Farmer (if he’s missing – presumably the police would’ve questioned him!) or anyone else? The second half just doesn’t sit right.

The Tapes is a showcase for the talents of Jason Maza, Natasha Sparkes and Arnold Oceng, but little else. Their comedic first half easily out-classes the generic second half, which is a heap of “found footage” cliché and little more. If you hate the characters then you’re in for an appalling and difficult watch, but if you like their loveably-imbecilic personalities you’ll certainly enjoy half of it. The Tapes is wasted potential in a sub-genre bulging with failure. Avoid.

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

Has Del Toro managed to help make another superb horror / supernatural thriller? Kind of.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is enjoyable, amusing, scary, disturbing and surprisingly brutal in places, but it never quite feels like it’s its own film. There are small elements of Drag Me to Hell and Pan’s Labyrinth in it, with touches of Boogeyman and The Others, but it never really has a consistent tone. It is scary, but not quite as scary as it should be. It is a fairytale, but not quite magical enough. It is a family drama, but without enough depth. It is also deeply flawed on a number of irritating levels.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. What’s the film actually about?! Fallen-from-grace architect Alex (Guy Pearce) has bought and refurbished an ancient mansion once owned by the famous artist Blackwood. He lives with his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) and new resident Sally (Bailee Madison), his 11 year old daughter.

On her explorations, young Sally discovers Blackwood’s sealed off basement, which contains an old “ash pit”. From within the pit Sally hears hushed voices, asking to be her friend. They voices turn out to be – initially – mischievous little imps, content with whispering and rushing about, stealing things and cutting up clothes. But these light-shy little creatures gradually turn nastier and we quickly realize they don’t want Sally as a friend, but as a meal…

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is an enjoyable film, with solid performances from Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes and an exceptional turn from youngster Bailee Madison, who provides a very mature performance for an eleven year old. There is also some decent support work from Alan Dale and Jack Thompson, delivering caricatures with surprising quality and depth.

The cinematography is sublime and for his debut feature Troy Nixey does fantastically well with his direction. It feels like Del Toro has stuck his sizeable fingers into every part of it, though, which is no bad thing. It is a beautiful piece to watch, although not quite as terrifying as it could have been – it smacks of missed potential in the terror department.

The creature design in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is also excellent, as they little beasts scuttle about like miniature emaciated trolls, scuttling and climbing with horrifying results. The choice to voice the creatures also worked fantastically well, adding a constant sense of creeping threat and dread to the film.

The script, however, is possibly where the film falls down the most. Character wise scriptwriters Matthew Robbins and Guillermo Del Toro (him again!) jammed in one of my horror movie pet hates – the shit father. Pearce’s Alex accepts his estranged daughter Sally back into his life at a difficult time for him – career wise – and then proceeds to ignore her and all her clear psychological problems. He even gets her a psychiatrist but then never actually seems to care. I hate this in films. Honestly, truly hate it. They use the same method in Paranormal Activity 1 & 2 and Insidious and it’s becoming an irritating trend in horror – strong-willed women who believe in the spiritual world and terrible-fathers who are blitheringly stubborn about the genuine hell their family is going through. It makes me sad to be a man.

Anyhow, it’s not just shitty-father syndrome that bugged me about the scripting – it was the looseness of it. Things are mentioned which we presume are important but then we never see them again – photocopies of paintings, photographic proof (PROOF!) and corpses of the evil little monsters (MORE PROOF!) – and it feels the film was much longer then badly cut or simply not tightly written enough.

This scripting failure also relates to the characters actions – and inaction – which are incredibly frustrating; Katie Holmes is told explicitly to GET THE GIRL OUT OF THE HOUSE and then pops to a library to do a spot of research! A library is completely destroyed and no one really questions it. Katie Holmes packs the little girl’s bag, determined to leave the horror house and then proceeds to drop the idea when something even worse happens! These are small irritations, but they really began to affect my enjoyment of the movie.

Enough negativity!

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a decent film. It works on a number of levels despite never having a consistent tone, and it appears to be a children’s fairy tale for the over fifteens (!). With all round decent performances – and an exceptional one from Bailee Madison – and containing some solid scares, moments of brutality and levity, it’s an enjoyable watch. Not as good as it could be, but it’s certainly worth viewing when it eventually comes out on DVD / Blu Ray. Solid if uninspiring work.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Urban legend hunting siblings Christian (Cristian Valencia) and July (Clara Moraleda) are packed off on holiday to their old farm house in Sitges. Bored and frustrated, they check out local myths and discover the legend of “The Girl in the Garraf woods”. Apparently this red dress-wearing ghost aids lost travellers, although some say you should never turn your back on her because – presumably – she’s also a psycho bitch.

Deciding to pursue this legend as their next project, the duo wander into the labyrinthine hedge-maze that borders their property, where they get lost, see a figure in the woods and find a creepy old well. This bumbling-around continues for a long time and then – suddenly – their little brother goes missing in the middle of the night! Their mother runs, screaming into the maze and Christian and July are forced to follow. What’s in there? Where is their brother? Who cares?

Atrocious is unfortunately generic. It begins with a build up of character, a story, a potential threat, and then it begins to roll towards the inevitable shaky-cam sprinting through woods, weird figures in the dark, noises, blood, screaming and death. It is very effective and scary in places, and genuinely creepy, but it’s so mediocre in its execution it comes across as lazy rather than inventive.

The major issues with Atrocious come from this lack of originality; we have a creepy old house with a scary basement, we have a massive maze, we have a well in the woods that looks like Sadako might live there and we have two people with two cameras who are rubbish at operating them properly. There is a spark of originality at the end, but it’s so baffling and so last-minute that is cannot possibly make up for the preceding  70 minutes of expectedness.

This is such a shame because at the centre of Atrocious is an exciting and dynamic sibling relationship; Cristian Valencia and Clara Moraleda portray the Quintanilla children realistically and amiably so it’s unfortunate they never get to develop their characters beyond the friendly banter as – when the craziness begins – it’s all about splitting up and screaming a lot. Oddly, all the other peripheral characters almost have no character at all; their little brother is just a bit annoying, their dad mostly absent and their mum a little aloof. It makes it very hard to care about anyone but the two leads, which is ridiculous when you consider the story as a whole.

Ultimately Atrocious is a short film stretched to its limit. I have seen this in SO many found footage films, and it’s needlessly extended by adding something completely unacceptable in film: boredom. Atrocious sags significantly in the middle, when the siblings wander around the maze in broad daylight. It’s incredibly dull and long and a scene that sinks the movie entirely. Undoubtedly writer / director Fernando Barreda Luna will say “it’s found footage” and they can’t control what we see, but then according to IMDB the police found 37 hours of footage. Maybe an extended “insomnia-curing” edition is to follow then?

Overall Atrocious is not atrocious. It is not genius either, nor original or smart or inspiring. It is distinctly mediocre with an unflagged twist and two great central performances from Cristian Valencia and Clara Moraleda. This could have been awesome, but it’s not. Atrocious is simply “okay”.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10 stars