FilmMonthly » Steve Anderson

Halloween Shorts Special from iTunes and Shorts International

Steve Anderson — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 17:59:00 +0000

iTunes is offering a special collection of Halloween Shorts, courtesy of Shorts International, available October 19th in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. Over 25 shorts are packed with stars like Emily Blunt, Jane Lynch, Eric Roberts, and John Simm. The films are available for $1.99 each, and as a bonus, Roar, a subversive thriller starring Russell Tovey (Doctor Who) and Jodie Whittaker (St. Trinian’s), will be made free for a limited time.
Daniel Persitz’s Alex’s Halloween, starring Jane Lynch, is a playful romp in the Halloween adventure of an imaginative little boy named Alex (Robert Ochoa) who pictures himself as whatever fantasy figure he likes, be it a knight, a wizard, or a superhero. It’s reminiscent of the 90’s cartoon Bobby’s World, where a child’s imagination can conflict with real life. Lynch appears briefly as Alex’s mother, who pressures her teenage son Matt (Connor Gramme) to take Alex trick-or-treating, to his sullen displeasure. All Alex wants is to hang out with his cool older brother, who reluctantly accepts when Matt figures they can sneak candy past their mother’s health-food regime. But when Matt’s plans change otherwise, Alex’s world is shattered. The short isn’t so much about Halloween, but the relationship between brothers, and bridging the age gap. It’s a delightful short and enjoyable to watch.
Toby Spanton’s directorial debut Curiosity, on the other hand, is a terrifying nightmare. The film stars Emily Blunt (who starred in The Wolfman for which Spanton was a assistant director) and Tom Riley as a young couple who suspect that a murderer may be on the loose. Their strange suspicions prove accurate when the murderer begins to terrorize them. In just nine minutes, an ordinary couple goes from tucking-in for the night to fighting for their lives against a killer, a radical change of pace from the previous film. Curiosity paces itself with an ominous, haunting feeling, and the final tight POV shot on Blunt’s face is surely to stick in the brain.
John Simm (Life on Mars) stars in Devilwood, written and directed by Sacha Bennett, about a mysterious stranger in 1700s England, by the name of Dante (Dylan Brown). He enters a small town looking for “papers” from a local gentleman. At the same time, a beautiful young woman also arrives, named Rossetti (Kate Magowan), in search of Dante. Neither are really who they say they are, and their presence in the eyes of Gabriel (Simm) signals an arrival of the Devil. This evocative thriller won several awards, including Best Horror at the California Independent Film Festival.
Shorts International is a major short entertainment movie company, holding the largest collection of short films in the world. They also run their programs on several channels, including ShortsHD on Dish Network, ShortsTV UK, ShortsTV France, and on TTNET in Turkey. More information can be found at www.shortsinternational.com.

Psycho Ward

Steve Anderson — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:39:33 +0000

Ah, abandoned prisons. Clandestine party spot, raging kegger central, horror movie setting since time immemorial and of course, killing spree central. And that’s the central theme behind today’s horror movie spectacular, Psycho Ward.
Psycho Ward features a group of young people off to do a documentary about an abandoned prison, and some of the stuff that’s gone on there. But to their surprise, the prison isn’t quite so abandoned. In fact, it’s currently the domain of a massive, obese serial killer. And he will, not surprisingly, run amok on literally everybody he finds.
The end result is a scary, if somewhat standard, sort of slasher flick that combines all the greatest survival horror elements of a normal slasher flick and adds on the sheer creepy factor that is doing it all in a comparatively small space.
However, it is sort of a low blow that urbanstudd.com, which they advertise relentlessly in the movie, is NOT an actual web site. Oh, and when someone gets three nails jammed into their hand that’s not usually a call for a surly grunt. But then, this kind of thing has been going on in slasher movies since time immemorial, and can usually be chalked up to using a bunch of not-ready-for-prime-time players as actors. They’re fairly decent, as actors go, but they’ll never be mistaken for, you know, actual professionals. Even if they’re getting paid, which they likely are, they’re still not in the same caliber as, say, a lot of the folks you might see in theatrical horror releases.
The ending is a terminal downer on a patently epic scale. There’s just no other way to describe it. But I admit that the end credits are pretty nice.
The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, and trailers for Death Warrior, Shattered Lives, Summer’s Moon, the second Ghost House Underground collection (The Thaw, The Children, Offspring and Seventh Moon), an ad for Break.com and Fearnet.com, and Psycho Ward.
All in all, Psycho Ward is a bit–oh hell, a LOT–on the pedestrian side, but it’s actually a pretty good example of the concept. It’s a meatloaf movie, but it’s certainly one of the better meatloaf movies I’ve had lately. It won’t be mistaken for anything big, nor is it on the same level as, say, an After Dark Horrorfest title, but it’s certainly a decent quality piece that will do the job and do it passably well.

13 Teen

Steve Anderson — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:25:56 +0000

When a movie can start off with a line like “There’s a razor thin line between sanity and insanity, sometimes you don’t even know you’ve crossed it”, it’s a fair bet that something big is going to happen. And chances are, it’s not going to be pretty. But whether or not it’ll be entertaining remains to be seen, and that’s exactly what we’re tackling with 13Teen.
Any horror flick that can use Fur Elise as part of the narrative pretty much gets a little extra bit of credibility, as it makes such an excellent background for most any suspenseful scene. And you’ve definitely got to hand it to the writers for constant rain and thunder in the background, a definite extra boost.
There’s a vicious storm brewing in the town of Emeryville, and residents are being warned of troubles even worse than that. Seems a local serial killer is taking advantage of the confusion to run amok, and he always leaves his calling card behind–carving the number thirteen into his victims. So when Sera finds herself forced to let in not one but two strange men in one evening, it’s going to be one doozy of a night for her. Especially when you consider that she’s not quite right in the head herself.
And indeed, the first half or so of 13teen (also called For Sale By Owner, if I’m reading the IMDB right) is actually kind of dull and listless, as they try to build their plot and don’t manage to do a very effective job of it. But about halfway through, it’s as though you start watching a whole different movie that’s WILDLY more effective. I don’t know how they managed to pull it off–all I know is that they did.
So where does that leave us? 13teen is half of a really awesome movie, but the other half is a slow, sludgy mess. Can you sit through the yawnfest that is the first half to get to the second half, which is a terrific movie? That’s your call to make, but I can tell you you’ll be at least partially satisfied.
The ending is where 13teen really shines, and manages to be suspenseful and satisfying all at the same time.
The special features are somewhat limited and include only a photo gallery.
All in all, it’s like I said. If you’ve got the patience to sit through half a pile of garbage, then you’ll be rewarded with this really sweet half of a movie that makes the whole merely adequate.

House of the Devil

Steve Anderson — Sun, 30 May 2010 18:21:17 +0000

Ti West, if you haven’t been keeping track of him lately, has had sort of a strange sort of infatuation with retro fare. After seeing “The Roost”, I had an idea how he was looking to handle his movies. Turns out House of the Devil was going to be another example of retro fare.
House of the Devil features Samantha, a girl who’s looking to start making something of her life. She’s got an apartment, and she’s looking for a way to pay for it. She’s got a deposit to cover, and not much money left in her account. So when she gets a shot at a one night babysitting gig paying more than enough to cover her deposit, she jumps at the chance. But the job turns out to be a lot more than she bargained for…and she may not get out alive.
I’ll admit, right off, that the first hour or so of the movie is scary, but also a bit dull. See, they’re doing a terrific job of building tension here. But the problem is that they’re not doing a very good job of RELEASING that tension with an appropriate number of jump scares or anything like that. The end result is a strange combination of disturbing and confusing, as you’re left wondering just where the hell Ti West is GOING with all this.
And that’s the big problem here. They’re not doing anything particularly wrong with this movie–it’s eerie, it’s atmospheric, you could even call it a bit moody, but it’s not very scary. In fact, by the time the ending shows up, you’ll actually be a bit more confused than you will be scared.
The ending, in fact, is the biggest problem with the whole movie. Something horrible is clearly going on here but I’m not even all that sure just what IS going on. It’s like someone interspersed bits of other horror movies into the last ten minutes, like someone has replaced the last twenty, thirty odd pages of script with a big bold face print that says “RANDOM SATANIC STUFF GOES HERE”. It’s perplexing. And those bits of it I actually DO get seem to be just giant knockoffs of stuff I’ve already seen.
Rosemary’s Baby-sitter, anyone?
The special features include audio options, English and Spanish subtitles, cast and crew commentary tracks, a behind the scenes featurette and a bonus featurette, a trailer for House of the Devil (as well as a whole slug of them that weren’t accessible from the DVD menu itself but played on their own, a technique that never ceases to irk me) and some deleted scenes.
All things considered, I’m not really happy with how this one turned out. It’s a bit too retro and the ending is a bit too confusing for my tastes. However, if you’re into retro movies, then you might well enjoy this one. I say, stay out of the House of the Devil.

Home Movie

Steve Anderson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:58:19 +0000

There is nothing, ladies and gentlemen, quite so scary as the concept of children gone bad.
Children, you see, awaken certain instincts in us. In most of the population, these are instincts of protection, instincts that in most cases requires us to defend the children in question.
The thought that we may have to defend ourselves FROM children…this is a thought too horrible to contemplate. The thought that you may have to KILL A CHILD…to prevent the child in question from killing YOU…is a dark and sinister truth not easily contemplated.
And in Home Movie, that’s about what we’re dealing with–Jack and Emily, the children of a Lutheran minister and his wife, seem to be a little out of sorts. And the videos that our minister will take of his children reveal what looks to be a slow descent into homicidal madness.
Did I mention that Jack and Emily’s last name is…Poe?
The interesting part here is that this movie isn’t exactly…familiar. Nothing like this has ever been, that I can think of, done before. It’s unusual, and this unusual is what adds to the horror.
Though this isn’t without its faults–apparently David’s wife is a CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST. And she doesn’t seem to actually notice that her kids almost never talk and exhibit behavior that can only be described as “creepy as all hell”. Seriously, Jack and Emily Poe, even from their earliest moments, make the kids from Village of the Damned look like extras from the Barney set.
Oh, and it may well be a bad idea to teach these kids how to 1. pick locks and 2. tie knots of incredible tension.
If it were possible for people to deserve to die, then the elder Poes would qualify. It’s a wonder that they didn’t HAND their children knives, crack open a copy of Gray’s Anatomy and draw a charcoal line along their carotid arteries.
And yet, at the same time this is a commentary on how creepy the overall picture is, because the kids are incredible actors who are playing these roles to the absolute HILT.
It’s hard to settle on a strong feeling about Home Movie, because frankly, I’m horrified. I’m pretty scared. These children are horrendous nightmares packed into tiny little bodies. But at the same time, the elder Poes are thundering morons of such incredible intensity that it’s hard to feel for them. I understand that you never want to believe children are capable of evil, but this is evil on a grandiose scale.
The ending will prove to be all the more terrifying for its seeming resolution–trust me, they’re going to do some truly horrendous stuff through the last about half hour or so. It’s downright terrifying.
The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, a making of featurette, and trailers for Left Bank, Fears of the Dark and Home Movie.
All in all, wow. This may well be one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s also one of the most thoroughly unique horror films ever, without immediate parallel and only approximation to even try and compare it. It’s not without its flaws, but these flaws are actually swallowed up by the vast gulf of sheer horror that we’re looking at here.

The Hills Run Red

Steve Anderson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:53:32 +0000

Considering that the first five minutes of The Hills Run Red open up with some truly horrendous self-mutilation, I can see where you would think this would be pretty shocking. And giving me further hope for the movie is the surprise revelation that this is a Dark Castle film. Dark Castle has given me LOADS of jollies over the years, starting with House on Haunted Hill and going all the way to Orphan.
I’ll let the movie itself describe half the plot:
“In 1982, controversial film director Wilson Wyler Concannon released his only film, The Hills Run Red. Because of its graphic depiction of sadism and murder the film was quickly pulled from theaters. All known prints vanished and no cast member was ever found. Over the years, film historians attempted to find the film. But all that remained was a crudely made trailer…Director Wilson Wyler Concannon was never heard from again.”
Thus, the rest of the movie revolves around a collection of friends out to find Wilson Wyler, or the film, whichever comes first. They also discover that the film isn’t so much a film as it is a documentary. With lots of murder. ACTUAL murder.
Of course, considering that the killer in question is a guy with a porcelain doll mask named Babyface made me cringe somewhat, especially considering Twisted Metal: Black did the EXACT SAME THING with its character, Dollface, like six years or so ago.
The interesting thing about The Hills Run Red will be the sheer amount of twists and surprises involved. Several have been built in at the script level (David J. Schow really can do a fantastic multi-twist script, as evidenced by his turn at Masters of Horror, and if someone ever does an adaptation of Jerry’s Kids Meet Wormboy I think I’ll likely have an embolism in sheer glee), and while some of these interesting twists are interesting for their own sake, some of them really don’t come off the way they should. And that’s okay–not everything works in the end. For the most part, what we actually get is pretty effective and worth watching.
Especially the ending.
The ending, meanwhile, seems abrupt–because it’s not REALLY the ending. It’ll surprise you very deeply. Let’s put it this way; when you see the first set of credits, don’t shut off the movie. You might have that particular knee-jerk reaction like I do to walk out (or shut down, whichever) when the movie starts telling you who did what. That would be a huge mistake here, even if the extra ending is a serious downer.
The special features are pretty sparse, featuring language tracks in English and for some reason Portuguese, as well as English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese subtitles, a commentary track and a making of featurette, along with trailers at the beginning that are inaccessible from the DVD menu itself.
All in all, I’m slightly disappointed, but only slightly. For the most part, The Hills Run Red manages to perform as advertised, doing its job pretty well with a few minor hiccups.

Alien Raiders

Steve Anderson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:46:43 +0000

Sometimes that which you see is only the beginning. And sometimes it takes a team of heavily armed sociopaths holding you hostage in a grocery store to see the world for what it really is.
That’s the basic concept of Alien Raiders, our review target this go-round. And it’s a downright doozy too, kids.
In Alien Raiders, that team of heavily armed sociopaths I described before is touring the country looking for…something. It’s not exactly clear just what it is that they’re looking for, but it’ll steadily become clearer that what they’re hunting is a race of aliens that inhabit human bodies. They seize a grocery store, believing their quarry to be contained inside, and discovering that they’re quite right. The things they want ARE in the grocery store, and they’re not happy that they’ve been discovered.
I have to hand it to Alien Raiders for bringing a whole lot of intrigue into their proceedings. They reveal things just a little bit at a time, doing a pretty good job of tension building, something that’s entirely too rare these days. The entirety of the story won’t be revealed via exposition until almost the very end, and that’s not something that’s often done either.
Speaking of which, the ending features a pretty big surprise that’s downright out of nowhere. Seriously, it’s really something else and demands to be seen. It’s good stuff.
The special features include English and Spanish language tracks, English, French and Spanish subtitles, a making of featurette, a special effects featurette, a couple of small featurettes giving background on the various story bits like what exactly Spooky’s job is, a bit of fun called the Whitney Cam and trailers for Alien Raiders, Believers, Otis, Rest Stop, Rest Stop 2 and Sublime.
All in all, I’m pretty well pleased with Alien Raiders. It’s a great blend of science fiction and action with a few good thrills thrown in to keep things moving along. It’s hard not to be pleased with a movie that does its job pretty well, and keeps its viewers happy. For anyone out there who’s into anything I just listed, this one will be a welcome addition to your must-watch list.

Dead Air

Steve Anderson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:44:03 +0000

First off, for those of you expecting a zombie movie, you will be somewhat disappointed, but only somewhat. See, Dead Air isn’t really a zombie movie so much as it is one of those 28 Days Later-esque “rage virus” movies.
And this is directly related to the plot–in Dead Air, a handful of what I’m guessing is Arab terrorists as I don’t recall any specific mention of just where they were from, sets off a biological weapon at a college basketball game. In fact, it sounds like several of these were set off all over the United States, at large gatherings. The biological weapon in question works about like a kind of super-rabies, or even, yes, a “rage virus”, turning people into snarling subhumanoids who want nothing so much as you, dead.
Thus, it’s left to the uninfected to try and survive this catastrophe, including a handful of folks working the late shift at a radio station, to not only survive but also try and get word out by keeping their call-in show on the air during the crisis.
This isn’t just an excellence in journalism sort of movie, folks, this is a good old fashioned flesh ripping dystopia romp that’ll make you want to run out and buy a gun lest your neighbors end up just like these guys. There’s plenty of action here and loads of fun besides. Bill Moseley has always been good in whatever he should happen to land in–he may well have been one of the only good points about both House of 1000 Corpses and Repo: The Genetic Opera, and he’ll go on to be one of the many high points about this.
Okay, sure, it can be a little formulaic in that it’s yet another movie about Arab / Muslim / whatever terrorists, kind of like Die Hard meets 28 Days Later, but it’s still pretty entertaining and there will be some great and worthwhile twists going on here to keep things running nice and smoothly. Once you get past a couple of plot elements that really aren’t worth anyone’s time or effort, you’ll find a pretty solid film lurking underneath. And yes, most of the cast is actually kind of unnecessary, as the solid core of Moseley, Moscow and Tallman are pretty much keeping things running all by themselves here, but those three are so good that you hardly notice that everyone else is pretty much just along for the ride.
The ending is actually a pretty big surprise, though not necessarily a well explained one. I’ll let you catch that for yourself.
The special features includie a commentary track, a trailer for Dead Air, a behind the shot featurette explaining some of the better shots, and a featurette called “fly on the wall” where you’ll get to watch Patricia Tallman and Bill Moseley talk shop between takes.
All in all, Dead Air is a pretty sweet little package–maybe not as good as it could have been, but still plenty of fun to go around.

The Planet

Steve Anderson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:03:05 +0000

Do you have any idea how rare good science fiction is?
Conversely, do you have any idea how even more rare good direct to video science fiction is?
And by the time I bring in “imported” to “good direct to video science fiction”, well, I’ve just blown the scale of possibility wide open to the “you really should look into good psychological help” level.
The Planet will definitely qualify in that latter category, as amazing as it sounds, this is good imported direct to video science fiction.
It features a group of mercenaries on board a ship carrying cargo of a prisoner back to charted space when they’re attacked from out of nowhere by a group of space fighters. The ship acquits itself bravely, but a suicide attack on the main drive forces the massive vessel down. What they find when they hit dirtside is a monster they weren’t expecting, and that was just the prisoner in the cargo hold. What the planet is holding secret, meanwhile, is much, much worse on a downright galactic scale.
It’s impressive to find a purely CG space battle that’s believably staged–and that’s what you’ll get with the first few minutes. The rest of the movie, meanwhile, at least manages to hold its own thanks to some excellent performances on the rest of the cast’s shoulders.
Oh, sure, there are problems here, some fairly weak explanations and a somewhat secondary sense of plot development. But with some suspension of disbelief, you should actually come off all right here.
The ending may well be the strangest thing of all, as the massive poorly explained beastie emerges and is defeated by equally poorly explained means. But it is still a treat to watch, so I won’t hold that against it.
The special features include a making of featurette, cast and crew bios, audio options, Spanish subtitles and trailers for The Planet, Displaced, Magus, and Death on Demand.
All in all, The Planet is a pretty big surprise, for taking on an ambitious prospect and doing fairly well with it. You’ve got to respect a movie that tries as hard as this one did, and so respect is definitely what it’s getting.

Razortooth

Steve Anderson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:00:56 +0000

Well, folks, if you’ve been hungering for a monster movie–and these days, monster movies are pretty much the exclusive province of the steadily more horrible SyFy Channel (I still personally resent typing that title. It literally hurts to type it.)–then you might be happy to see Razorteeth, a monster movie quite a bit unlike many you’ve seen lately in that, one, the monster looks somewhat lifelike and two, the effects aren’t a complete joke.
Seriously, one guy got bit in half about five minutes in and it looked like someone used blended cow parts for the effects on that one. It was that gooshy.
The plot, of course, is monster movie standard–there’s something roaming around down in the Florida Everglades and it’s a NASTY little package. It’s big, it’s quick, it’s hard to see, especially at night–thing looks like nothing so much as an enormous fusion of an eel and a piranha(as it turns out, eels are involved!)–and it’s chewing up people in the area left, right and center. Now it’s up to an animal control officer, the local sheriff, and a bunch of college kids to take out the beast before it renders the Everglades permanently uninhabitable.
I don’t know whether to laugh or be horrified that the diner in Razortooth is called “Kormann’s”, just like Roger Corman, the guy who did this kind of thing on a regular basis. But what I do know is that there’s a surprising amount of humor involved in Razortooth, and there’s nothing like a few laughs to help an otherwise odious monster movie go down smooth.
Razorteeth is actually a pretty entertaining experience; this could have been a lot worse than it actually was, and I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out. Me and monster movies are not good friends–I don’t get very scared of monsters that are suffering from a terminal lack of feasibility–but while this one wasn’t scary, it was sufficiently entertaining to be worth a rental.
The ending, much like the rest of the movie, is a little shorter on the laughs than what preceded it, and pretty short on believability, but still kinda fun besides. Seriously, it’s quite possibly the single most outlandish ending I’ve ever heard for a monster movie.
The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, a music video for some reason, and English and Spanish subtitles as well as a collection of trailers that can’t be accessed from the DVD menus themselves. For future reference, I REALLY hate that.
All in all, keep your expectations low and your funnybone primed, because this isn’t a great horror flick, but a few decent chuckles will be had.