Paranormal Activity on DVD Now

A horror film in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project or Rec (the original Spanish version) which sees a young couple Katie and Micha after they buy a video camera to record the strange noises and bumps that seem to be happening in the night. Everything is unexplained until Katie confesses this isn’t the first time this type of activity has happened around her they seek advice and try to get help while the locked off camera in the bedroom records all of the nocturnal bumps and activity.

It is a simple premise – a young couple setting up a camera to get a record of what is happening in the night. The camera is all POV or from a set tripod in the bedroom and because of its simplicity and uncomplicated set up you as the viewer gets dragged straight into their dilemma. You find yourself watching for any changing shadows or unaccounted noises as the camera records the night scene and as the strange incidents add up your nerves become more frayed.

It worked for me, I have read criticism that Micha is insensitive or jarring and he is oblivious to his girlfriends dilemma but I can honestly say that didn’t occur to me as I watched it. Its simple but clever, there have been similar films (good examples mentioned above) but its still surprising that an apparently obvious premise still manages to get your nerves on edge.

Its not flawless but it is still very good and worth a view.

Director: Oren Peil

Cast:
Katie Featherston – Katie
Micha Sloat – Micha

For the official website click here

Doghouse – On DVD now

This British horror comedy twists the classic ‘battle of the sexes’ scenario to the extreme. We begin with Vince, soon to be divorced whose friends decide that what he needs to cheer him up is a lad’s weekend – booze and birds and testosterone. The group of friends take themselves off to the isolated village of Moodley where they hear that there are 3 women for every man – what could go wrong?

Unfortunately the village isn’t all that they expected as the female population has been affected by a classified military experiment that has turned them into flesh eating zombies – feeding off the men and guess who are now on the menu.

I came to this film with not many expectations, the only thing I knew about it was that Noel Clark and Danny Dyer are in it and it’s a British zombie film. I suppose that should have meant that I had nothing to loose by watching it which I guess is just as well as this film disappointed on many levels.

The male vs. female premise was flimsy and crude to say the least, for me I cannot understand why you would feel sympathy for a bunch of misogynists, admittedly some of the characters are not – token gay guy for instance but they are few in number and largely underdeveloped. As for the portrayal of women from the outset – even before the group hit Moodly they are portrayed as screaming harpies only good enough to be called ‘slag’ or ‘Candy’ and when in the village there are so many more stereotypes it just gets really boring.

The script to largely borrows from the superior Shaun of the Dead, or numerous other zombie films but falls short of being funny. You are much better watching Shaun or Zombieland – at least they deliver the undead and humour. Noel Clarke is also wasted in this movie - he deserves so much more.

All you are left with is a lot of gory effects and the loosest possible storyline – if that’s your thing by all means watch this film.

Director: Jake West

Cast:
Danny Dyer – Neil
Stephen Graham – Vince
Noel Clarke – Mikey
Terry Stone – Sgt Gavin Wright
Christina Cole – Candy

For the official website click here

Not Quite Hollywood - – On DVD now

The story of the rise of Ozploitation an era in which Australian cinema exploded with low budget films, which centred around sex, violence, horror and road movies. The film covers mainly the 70’s to the mid 80’s and details the rise of the low budget filmmakers whos film making paralleled that of US and European cinema at the time.

Firstly don’t watch this documentary if your of a sensitive disposition, there’s far too many tits, arse, blood, gore, splatter and car crashes in this film which Im sure would offend some, whereas if you’re a fan of the cheap low budget 70’s movies and want to see a best of compilation from the land of Oz – then this film is your bag!

Taken with the spirit in which the film was made it’s funny and also an interesting in how the Ozzie filmmakers went for the maximum shock for the minimum budget. Its fascinating to have a snapshot of films before health and safety took over, a look at how the actors and stunt men took life and limb into the maverick directors hands – its amazing people lived to tell the tale.

It’s a good picture of the time, funny at times, amusing but not necessarily very enlightening although it celebrates a lost genre of filmmaking.

Director – Mark Hartley

Cast:

Phillip Adams – Himself
Glory Annen – Herself
Briony Behets – Herself
Steve Bisley – Himself
Jamie Blanks – Himself

Click here for official website

Drag Me to Hell - Out on DVD Now

Drag Me to Hell seems Sam Rami return to the horror genre after directing the Spiderman franchise. Written ten years ago with his brother Ivan Drag Me to Hell centres on easy-going bank employee Christine (Lohman) who tries to impress her boss by refusing a loan extension to Mrs Ganush (Raver). Later that day when Christine returns to her car Ganush attacks her and places a curse on her. Christine then has three days to lift the curse before she is dragged to hell.

Rami has the skill and vision as a storyteller to lift a basic horror ‘curse’ story into something strangely enjoyable. Mrs Ganush is a suitably horrible, weird eye, claw like nails and false teeth whereas Christine is suitably put on as she suffers from ordeal after ordeal. Christine’s one flaw was to try to impress her boss but this triggers a series of horrible events that she is unable to escape from.

Lohman is great in the lead role, shes naive, insecure and definitely got my sympathies, I hope to see her in more roles in the future and Raver presents us with a suitably memorable horror villian. I didn’t find the movie scary but I did jump and cringe at some of the scenes, notably being when Christine’s habit of leaving her mouth open when horrible objects and liquids get poured in made my stomach turn.

It’s a good horror film, makes you jump, makes you cringe and keeps you guessing. Well worth checking out.

Director – Sam Raimi

Cast:

Alison Lohman – Christine Brown
Justin Long – Clay Dalton
Lorna Raver – Mrs Ganush

For the official website click here

Drag Me to Hell - Trailer

Dead Snow – Out on DVD now

A group of medical students go on holiday to an isolated log cabin in the mountains. While at the cabin they discover a box under the floorboards full of World War II Nazi gold. A battalion of Nazi zombie soldiers who are using the mountain as their base aren’t happy with the students taking their gold so they decide to hunt them and eat their intestines!

Excuse me if you have heard this before…there’s a group of young students isolated in a cabin when they start getting picked off one by one they decide to split up to try and get help for the others and in doing so surprise surprise they come to a nasty end.

Ok, so this is a B Movie, it is low budget and more of a disappointment is that it does nothing original at all. Its like a tick list of stalk and slash horror movies, group of medical students - check, one of the student doesn’t like blood – check, there’s a weird local man who drops in to fill everyone in on the spooky local history – check, have only one of the students knowing the way out – check, have a couple of the students die nasty deaths after having sex – check and so it goes on.

It’s not all bad though; the deaths are suitably gory and the blood runs all over the student group. The Nazi’s themselves were a complete disappointment though, the make up is 2nd class, they sporadically act like zombies – one moment they are stumbling like traditional zombies and the next moment they are sprinting across the snow. I found myself laughing at the zombies from time to time as they just looked like a bunch of bouncers, covered in talcum powder, hanging around waiting for a nod from the chief bouncer dressed in a weird uniform

There’s nothing original about this movie although it’s also not all bad, just don’t expect too much!

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Cast

Vegar Hoel – Martin
Stig Fride Henriksen – Roy
Charlotte Frogner – Hanna
Lasse Valdal – Vegard

Click here for the website

Ravenous available on DVD certificate 18 - although not widely available!

Cowardly Capt Boyd (Pearce) receives a promotion after a battle in the Mexican American war in the 1840’s – a promotion won despite his total cowardliness. He is posted to Fort Spencer, which is a remote and isolated place in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

It is here with the seven other inhabitants that a stranger Colqhoun (Carlyle) arrives with wild tales of cannibalism after loosing his wagon train. It is only when the majority of Fort Spencer’s inhabitants go off to investigate that Boyd realises the truth about Colqhoun and his taste for human flesh.

This for me was a film that had got away from me – I had heard about it, missed it on release and haven’t managed to get a copy on DVD – until now. I’m pleased to say it was worth the wait. It’s like a western with a macabre twist and it’s a lot more psychological than an average horror film with the eerie and dangerous Colqhoun wonderfully portrayed by Carlyle. It is Pearce though and the cowardly and haunted Boyd that provides the film with a human side as he himself needs to find his backbone and prove to himself that he isn’t a the coward people think he is.

I was left wondering why its never been re-released or isn’t more widely available which is a shame as viewers are missing out - it deserves to be seen to a wider audience.

Watch it – if you can find a copy.

Director – Antonio Bird

Cast:

Guy Pearce – Capt. John Boyd
Robert Carlyle – Col. Ives / F W Colqhoun
David Arquette – Pvt. Cleaves
Jeremy Davies – Pvt. Toffler
Jeffrey Jones – Col. Hart

For the official website click here

Eden Lake out on DVD now

This is a British ‘horror’ movie from the same team that made The Descent in 2005 it is directed by first timer James Watkins. Eden Lake concerns a couple (Jenny as Steve) getting away from it all with a romantic weekend at a rural beauty spot. Their idyllic weekend is spoilt by a gang of local kids hanging around the lake, Steve makes the mistake of confronting the gang and a struggle ensues, a gang member pulls a knife which ends in a pet dog being stabbed – the gang then decide to exact a revenge. This begins at petty thievery, they go onto steal the couple’s car and this then quickly spirals into extreme violence in which involve the couple being chased cat and mouse through the woods.

This film does have a lot of good points not just in the way it is shot; the couple loosing control of the situation as it slowly gets out of hand and the situation becomes more extreme, adults becoming belittled and over powered by a group of kids. I also liked the idea of a gang mentality – the dominant ringleader urging others onto more and more brutality – all recorded for prosperity (and blackmail) on a mobile phone.

I found the overall story though quite predictable and even the ending (which I
won’t describe) which has a surprise twist didn’t really work for me and although a premise for any film is needed the UK (overall) doesn’t have the wide expanse of woods or land to make this all together plausible – one thing about the UK is that more often than not you are close to a road, house village etc. This is not a land where you can run for days and not come across civilisation – although maybe I’m just being picky on this account.

I think that the major flaw in this film comes from the clunky and cartoonish stereotyping – the yuppies; lovely sweet, articulate, affluent (they even take scuba gear to a camping trip by the lake) and then the chavs; inarticulate, brutal, violent, knife wielding and rude (although they have the right mobile phones). It is a shame that all working class people in this movie are depicted as brutal, stupid and without humour or compassion. I can understand it being hard to stand up to a group when you are a child but the behaviour of the adult ‘chavs’ in the movie though does its best to go for the easiest shock tactics and I’m sure that ever Daily Mail will be very scared.

It isn’t a bad film; it’s just not a great one either which is a shame as it is well shot and acted but what a waste of the excellent rising star Thomas Turgoose – shame on you.

www.edenlakemovie.co.uk

Director James Watkins

Starring
Kelly Reilly as Jenny
Michael Fassbender as Steve