The film opens near the end of the Hell Wars, when the armies of Hell rose up and took over the planet and enslaved humanity. A soldier (Matthew Kennedy) sees his brother killed by the commander of Hell’s army, Count Draculon (Adam Brooks). He attacks Draculon but is quickly dispatched, despite his bravery. The soldier’s body is dragged away and rebuilt by an unknown party as Manborg: part man, part robot. Some time later he awakens to a world completely under the control of Draculon, and is quickly captured by demonic police along with prison escapee #1 Man (Ludwig Lee). They are returned to police custody, where #1 Man is reunited with his former resistance colleagues Mina (Meredith Sweeney) and Justice (Conor Sweeney).

The prisoners are forced to do battle in an arena for the bloodthirsty legions of Hell’s minions in order to live, their fights orchestrated by The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie). While in the arena, Manborg attracts the attention of Dr. Scorpius (Adam Brooks), a human scientist working with Draculon and The Baron. Scorpius pits Manborg against a fierce creature in the arena as a test, and Manborg manages to control his newfound cybernetic powers to pull out a victory. Shortly thereafter, Manborg and his fellow prisoners manage to escape and flee to the wastelands outside the city. Here Manborg learns the secret of his creation and his ultimate destiny, leading his new friends back to the city for a showdown with the armies of Hell and Count Draculon himself.

If all that sounds mostly straightforward, rest assured that Manborg is packed with surprises, not least of which is how well its characters are drawn in such a short running time. Kostanski and co-writer Jeremy Gillespie manage to make the viewer empathize with what are essentially cartoon characters, helped along by solid performances from all the cast and some truly inspired choices for the characters. Shot almost entirely against green screens, the world of Manborg looks like a cut scene from a Sega CD game. It’s a gleeful sugar rush of no-budget action: anime fight choreography, claymation monsters, the inexplicably Australian guy, etc. etc. Kostanski and his Astron 6 teammates pack Manborg with more laughs, action and heart in 72 minutes (including the amazing faux trailer for Bio-Cop that runs after the film’s end credits) than any dozen Hollywood action blockbusters. It’s absolutely required viewing, both because everything Astron 6 does is essential by definition and because it’s a true testament to what committed, passionate filmmakers can create with the barest minimum of resources.

Dark Sky Films released Manborg on DVD on 30 April 2013. Special features include two full-length commentary tracks (with director Steven Kostanski, actor/writer Jeremy Gillespie, and producer Peter Kuplowsky), deleted & alternate scenes, a blooper reel, behind the scenes featurette, stop motion & vfx montages, interviews with cast and crew, a Q&A session from the film’s premiere, and another stop motion short by Kostanski entitled “Fantasy Beyond.”

Which brings us, conveniently, to Nobody Gets Out Alive. This is a film in which a bunch of “teenagers” go into the woods to party and get killed. There are two bros, three girls, and one weird guy who everyone hates who stands in for the “nerdy guy” type who always (inexplicably) tags along for these kinds of weekends. This is all very familiar territory. What makes Nobody Gets Out Alive interesting for its first half is the fact that it feels like a computer was fed parameters for making a horror movie– character types, story beats, etc.– and then given basic rules of speech and grammar, which it then used to spit out the film’s screenplay. Our heroine is a young girl named Jenn (Jen Dance) who, as the film opens, is being released after an extended stay in the hospital for some undisclosed illness; this scene serves no purpose other than to give Clint Howard a few lines as her doctor. Jenn’s parents bring her home and immediately demand that she get out of the house and spend time with her friends so she doesn’t become an agoraphobic. This does not follow, say, a montage of Jenn hanging out, isolated in her room and lonely. It is established in the dialogue that Jenn is literally brought home from the hospital and her parents force her to go on a camping trip with her friends the same day.

Thus the film starts with its characters already behaving completely unlike human beings. Every conversation in the film sounds like the randomly generated dialogue between non-player characters in a Grand Theft Auto game. One person talks, the next person responds with something that may or may not be related, repeat. The word “retarded” gets trotted out repeatedly. For quite a good chunk of time, it really seems like Nobody Gets Out Alive may be some sort of performance art prank or a particularly weird satire of slasher films. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Once the “teenagers” start getting knocked off, Nobody Gets Out Alive turns into another mean-spirited slasher and settles into depressingly comfortable formula very quickly: People run around dark woods, people get killed, repeat until inevitable rote “surprise” ending.

The old “kids in the woods” trope can still be an interesting place to start for a film. There are any number of small films that take this concept and do something really interesting with it– Wilderness Survival for Girls always comes to mind when discussing this– but it is no longer worthwhile to just go through the same motions from countless other slasher films and expect the horror audience to accept it. People can always just go back and watch Friday the 13th again. Is it possible to make a genuinely good slasher film by “going back to basics?” Almost certainly. But Nobody Gets Out Alive isn’t the best argument for it. It may have been a good exercise for its filmmakers to learn the filmmaking process and how to do effective practical effects on a budget, but there’s no real reason for anyone else to watch it.

Image Entertainment released Nobody Gets Out Alive on DVD on 26 February 2013. Special features include a commentary track and behind the scenes featurette.

A group of seven fans from a horror convention are invited to a remote farmhouse for a party. The next day, they all wake up in different clothes and scattered in various locations. After nerdy Russell (Taylor Piedmonte) and abrasive blonde Karen (Jana Thompson) are attacked by a zombie in a graveyard, Karen finds her way back to the farmhouse where Russell’s friend Duane (Allen Maldonado) wakes up in a pickup truck. When they meet up with the others, it quickly becomes apparent to hardcore horror fan Keith (David G.B. Brown) what is happening: they are all dressed as characters from Night of the Living Dead, trapped in a farmhouse exactly like the one from the film, surrounded by shambling zombies.

The predicament is driven home by the fact that the television in the house periodically shows Night of the Living Dead either to echo what is happening in the house or to taunt the characters as tensions mount and nerves fray. Despite all the characters presumably being horror fans, only Keith has actually seen Night of the Living Dead, so several of the characters stumble blindly into unpleasant ends that could have been easily avoided if they had seen the film. Keith becomes a de facto leader of the group of survivors, intent on discovering who has put them all in this situation, and whether it’s really happening or if things are not quite what they seem.

The biggest persistent problem with Mimesis is the fact that it continually reminds the viewer that they could just be watching Night of the Living Dead again. There’s nothing really much interesting or unique going on here, and when the mystery behind what is really going on is revealed, it’s almost embarrassingly anticlimactic. There are some nice practical effects in the film, and the production values are solid. The trouble with Mimesis isn’t that it fails where other independent horror films typically trip themselves up (bad effects, acting, etc.), it’s that it just isn’t anywhere nearly as good as the film to which it spends its entire running time paying tribute.

Anchor Bay released Mimesis on DVD and Blu-ray on 5 February 2013. The disc includes a commentary track by director Douglas Schulze and co-writer Joshua Wagner.

Christine and Michael (Rachael Blake and Tom Butcher) are a married couple in their early 40s and parents of high-schooler Sebastian (Tom Kane). Michael comes home one evening and has an uncomfortable dinner with Christine. Their relationship problems seem to be nearing a boiling point: Michael keeps wanting to turn the TV on to avoid discussing anything of importance with Christine. Their dinner is interrupted by the sudden appearance of three young thugs looking for Sebastian, and before they know it they find themselves taped up and held at knifepoint.

The teens are led by Rian (Jumayn Hunter), acne-scarred and reptilian, who keeps Christine on the couch with him and makes increasingly invasive demands of her. Keeping Michael on the floor is Asad (Ashley Chin), much less tightly wound than Rian and obviously uncomfortable with the way Rian is handling the situation. Once Michael and Christine are subdued, Rian sends Teddy (Sonny Muslim) out into the rest of the flat to find Sebastian’s room, and then out to empty Michael’s bank accounts after they find his wallet. The trio are waiting for Sebastian to come home, and a ticking clock is constantly running– the film opens at “7:52 p.m.” and Sebastian is due home at 9:00, and the events of the film are played out in roughly real time.

Williams makes the interesting choice of shooting Cherry Tree Lane in 2.35 aspect ratio, a very wide screen image typically associated with Spaghetti Westerns and John Carpenter films. This is particularly unusual given that the entire running time of Cherry Tree Lane takes place in a single interior setting, and Williams rarely uses any close-ups or tight compositions to give the film any kind of claustrophobic feeling. Instead, the film uses wide shots with its characters often at a distance, giving the early scenes a tone of dispassionate observation that carries over into the home invasion. Williams seems to be interested in the concept of “the banality of evil,” giving his cruel teenage antagonists little more to do than talk on the phone and watch television.

Unfortunately, this does not exactly make for compelling viewing. There’s little tension until later in the film when the time is nearing 9:00, as the three teenagers make short work of Michael and Christine. Thirty seconds after they’re in the door, the kids have both adults completely tied up and helpless. The characterizations of the couple and the teenagers are also vague, giving the audience very little to empathize with on either side. Despite Asad trying to treat Michael with some kind of decency, the teenagers are basically faceless monsters. This makes Cherry Tree Lane a generic “home invasion” thriller without much to differentiate itself from any number of other similar films. Worse yet, the film ends at what feels like the point it should be moving into its climax, making it feel unfinished. Fans of recent UK horror will want to check it out, but compared to other genre efforts from the UK, Cherry Tree Lane comes up short.

Image Entertainment released Cherry Tree Lane on DVD on 29 January 2013.

20. Manborg (dir. Steven Kostanski, Canada, 60 minutes):

This was, all things considered, a pretty great year for Canadian comedy collective Astron-6. They released two feature films– Manborg and Father’s Day– which helped raise their profile beyond a tiny, dedicated cult. The reason for their popularity is obvious to anyone who has watched their short films, often as unsettling and bizarre as they are hilarious. Manborg is a tribute to 80s and 90s straight-to-video sci-fi/action films made on a reported budget of about $1,000 by Astron-6 special effects genius Steven Kostanski. Shot almost entirely against green screens, the world of Manborg looks like a cut scene from a Sega CD game. It’s not as funny as Father’s Day, but that’s not the aim of Manborg, which is a gleeful sugar rush of no-budget action: anime fight choreography, claymation monsters, the inexplicably Australian guy, etc. etc. Still, Manborg manages to be one of the funniest films of the year based almost entirely on the strength of a seriously amazing, perfectly-timed punchline near the end of the film.

19. Killer Joe (dir. William Friedkin, USA, 102 minutes):

Hands-down the funniest movie about an idiot redneck trading his brain-damaged sister to a hired assassin as payment for killing his own mother made this year, probably any other year as well. There’s a lot of very unpleasant stuff in Killer Joe, but there’s also a lot of really damned funny stuff, and Matthew McConaughey is brilliant here.

18. The Sword Identity (dir. Haofeng Xu, China, 108 minutes):

The setup is familiar: a roaming martial arts master arrives in a town to defeat the heads of its four schools to establish his art as one worth teaching. After that, The Sword Identity veers off in a completely unexpected direction, playing almost like the Coen Brothers remaking the Shaw Brothers. After the opening fight scenes, there’s not much action in The Sword Identity; the focus here is on the interplay between characters. It’s an odd approach to take to a period “martial arts” film, and it pays off. There’s nothing out there remotely like The Sword Identity, and that alone would make it worth a watch. The fact that it’s also uniquely charming and often very funny seals the deal.

17. Headhunters (dir. Morten Tyldum, Norway, 100 minutes):

Daaaaaamn Norway! A slick, noirish thriller about a rich headhunter for a major corporation who has a side gig of stealing and reselling paintings, until a series of very bad circumstances threatens to bring his whole life down around his ears? Nicely done. There are twists and surprises aplenty throughout Headhunters, but its neatest trick may be making its obscenely rich criminal protagonist a genuinely sympathetic character. Part of that is the fact that he pretty thoroughly gets put through the wringer and keeps coming up with ways to prolong his misery just long enough to maybe find a way out of it. I would not be surprised if a U.S. remake was in the works, but it’s going to be impossible to recapture the particular brand of magic on display here.

16. Cloud Atlas (dir. Tom Tykwer, Andy & Lana Wachowski, Germany/USA/Hong Kong/Singapore, 172 minutes):

You have to give it to the Wachowskis: they never half-ass anything. They committed to three lumbering beasts of Matrix movies, tried their damnedest to drag sci-fi out of its dreary gray rut with the vibrant, goofy Speed Racer, and now they’ve teamed up with another director to make one of the most ridiculously ambitious films in recent memory. They’ve done a pretty fantastic job of condensing David Mitchell’s fantastic novel down to three hours, and the conceit of having different actors playing different characters throughout time was a stroke of genius, suggesting interesting and unexpected ways that the characters’ fates tie in with each other. It’s huge, unwieldy, and kind of a mess, but it’s also beautiful, stirring, and poignant.

15. Rowdy Rathore (dir. Prabhu Deva, India, 140 minutes) / Khiladi 786 (dir. Ashish R. Mohan, India, 141 minutes):

This was a pretty good year for actor Akshay Kumar, who starred in 4 or 5 films, including these two. I’ve lumped them together for a few reasons: first, they’re both really, really fun, but in different ways. Rowdy Rathore is more consistently entertaining through its entire running time, whereas Khiladi 786 starts to drag a little in the middle but then rallies with a seriously hysterical, jaw-dropping final 30 minutes. Secondly, Kumar may as well be playing the same character in both films. In Rowdy Rathore, he pulls double duty as badass ex-cop Vikram Rathore and a slick grifter who looks exactly like Vikram (only without the moustache), while in Khiladi 786 he plays a badass fake cop who has problems finding a wife. Both films feature lengthy scenes of Kumar beating the hell out of tons of goons in Bekmambetov-style slow motion, as well as the requisite song and dance numbers and plenty of comedic relief. Kumar looks like he’s having a great time in both films, willing to look absolutely ridiculous but also putting forth a commanding physical presence when necessary– like Michael Jai White in Black Dynamite, he really seems to be a credible physical threat to anyone who comes his way, although it’s still tough to buy that he could blow up a car just by pointing at it. Regardless, these are hugely entertaining and charming in a way that American blockbusters never are.

14. Paul Williams Still Alive (dir. Stephen Kessler, USA, 87 minutes):

My favorite documentary of the year, not least because it packs in a ton of Paul Williams songs, which is always a good thing. In addition, director Stephen Kessler is willing to put himself forward as an example of a fan who gets a little too close to one of his favorite artists, and Paul Williams deals with it all with surprising grace and hilarious openness.

13. Klown (dir. Mikkel Nørgaard, Denmark, 90 minutes):

Absolutely hilarious. The American remake is going to be so terrible.

12. Berberian Sound Studio (dir. Peter Strickland, UK, 92 minutes):

The best film about making films, recording sound, and going insane because you’re recording sound possibly ever. Obsessed with the minutiae of sound recording and design, Berberian Sound Studio is bound to frustrate and infuriate horror fans waiting for something to happen and anyone not particularly interested in spending a lot of time looking at the inside of a dark recording studio. If these are things that appeal to you, however, Berberian Sound Studio is going to blow your mind.

11. Moonrise Kingdom (dir. Wes Anderson, USA, 94 minutes):

Had the pleasure of seeing an actual film print of this and nearly wept at its shot-on-16mm/blown-up-to-35mm beauty. This is Anderson’s A Serious Man or Inland Empire, a complete summation of the themes and obsessions; in other words, the film he’s been working toward his entire career.

10. Extraterrestrial (dir. Nacho Vigalando, Spain, 95 minutes):

Nacho Vigalando drops a small cast of characters into a romantic comedy situation set against the backdrop of an alien invasion. A lot of people found the film frustrating because there wasn’t enough sci-fi action (read: little to none), but that’s obviously not what Vigalando was aiming for. If romantic comedies rely on people acting insane anyway, where could the limit possibly be in this kind of situation? The tiny cast is excellent across the board, giving the audience real characters to engage with. The ending is heartbreaking perfection.

9. Detention (dir. Joseph Kahn, USA, 93 minutes):

Joseph Kahn has said in interviews about Detention that he believes the internet has put us in a post-genre world, and to prove it he created this insane Frankenstein monster that stitches together slasher movies, Saw-style modern horror, teen comedy, romantic comedy, sci-fi, prom movies, and just about anything else you can think of in one manic, exhausting, glorious package. Detention demands careful attention even while its structure seems to reject the very idea– you’re going to need to see this one at least twice just to start processing everything going on here. Some audiences will doubtlessly be put off by the film’s dialogue and tone before the opening credits even roll, but anyone willing to stick it out will come out the other end with a new (and possibly terrifying) idea of where filmmaking is headed.

8. Sound of Noise (dir. Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson, Sweden, 102 minutes):

Just watch the trailer and realize that the film is a full 102 minutes of that. Seriously. Anyone who loves music or is in any way musically inclined owes it to themselves to track down this film immediately. Despite its dour color scheme, Sound of Noise explodes with the sheer joy of making weird sounds into music and the giddy fun of making art of any kind.

7. The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 144 minutes):

Very possibly the weirdest film released by a major film studio since the 1970s, Paul Thomas Anderson’s astonishing follow-up to There Will Be Blood is this beautiful, confounding beast. Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman both turn in career-best performances, and Amy Adams proves herself every bit their equal. What the hell is going on here is never quite clear in The Master, and its maddening ambiguity is either going to hook you and draw you in or have you heading for the exits before the 30-minute mark. I’m anxious to see the film in 70mm.

6. The Cabin in the Woods (dir. Drew Goddard, USA, 95 minutes):

Dear horror filmmakers: If you’re ever going to use the word “woods” in your titles ever again, you better be doing something spectacular, because if you’re not you’re just embarrassing yourself. The Cabin in the Woods takes the meta-horror of Scream and takes it from simple “horror films are goofy and we totally know it” to “horror films are goofy and we totally know it and here’s why they still scare people and it’s time to stop making the same damn thing over and over again.” It also works as a slasher film and an office comedy, thanks to typically great work by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

5. Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax, France, 115 minutes):

Seriously, did you see this? You should see this. It’s pretty amazing, and then Kylie Minogue shows up for a musical number and it officially becomes ridiculously amazing. This film would have made my list for the accordion scene alone; the fact that it seems to offer endless avenues of analysis and interpretation cemented its spot as my top “art film” of the year (previous #5s: The Tree of Life, Enter the Void). Unquestionably the best “guy riding around in a white limo” film of the year.

4. Keyhole (dir. Guy Maddin, Canada, 94 minutes):

Maddin finally dives head-first into film noir with Keyhole, which also marks the first time he shot in high definition digital video. Or at least the first time we can tell he shot in high definition digital video. While I was initially skeptical about the switch, Keyhole proves right away there was nothing to be concerned about– the sharp picture quality actually enhances the weirdness on display. Jason Patric is, surprisingly, a perfect fit for Maddin’s surreal noir universe.

3. Looper (dir. Rian Johnson, USA, 119 minutes):

Rian Johnson expands upon Shane Carruth’s concept of time travel being “the last revision is the one that counts” in his brilliant Looper, a film so self-assured that its director has no problem derailing its action-movie momentum halfway through to more or less change the film into something entirely different. As great as Joseph Gordon-Levitt is here (and he is great, no mistake), the real find in this cast is Pierce Gagnon as Cid, a small boy with terrifying powers that he doesn’t fully understand. This kid should have been nominated for an Academy Award, too.

2. Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, USA, 165 minutes):

I’m not going to be shy about being a Tarantino fan, and with Django Unchained we finally get the real stuff. Completely unable to rely on any sort of pop cultural references in his dialogue (if not in style and content), Tarantino proves that he still writes insanely compelling characters defined thoroughly by the words that come out of their mouths. Christoph Waltz literally seems as if he was born for the specific purpose of delivering this dialogue, but everyone here has moments to shine. Massively entertaining, Django Unchained serves as a powerful reminder of why we go to the movies in the first place, and why we go to Tarantino movies in particular.

1. Father’s Day (dir. Astron-6, Canada, 99 minutes):

Unquestionably the funniest and most ambitious film of the year, Father’s Day is an exhilarating blast. It’s the only film of this year that I watched seven times, and I’m still excited to see it again. Father’s Day effortlessly runs the gamut from gloriously goofy to seriously creepy, all the while pushing its sex and gore to ludicrous extremes that make even Hobo with a Shotgun look like a Merchant Ivory production by comparison.If Troma specialized in jaw-dropping offense at the height of its VHS-era popularity, Father’s Day represents an updated version of this same sensibility that originally put them on the map, colored by Astron-6’s jet-black, anarchic sense of humor and unpredictability. That sensibility is most pronounced in a surreal third act that goes beyond any “grindhouse” inspirations and is sure to sharply divide audiences looking for a quick and dirty fix of sex & violence and those willing to follow Astron-6 down their hilariously macabre rabbit hole.

Divorced couple Clyde and Stephanie (Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick) have been separated for a year and are still working out the details of their new situation. Clyde gets their daughters Emily and Hannah (Natasha Calis and Madison Davenport) on the weekends, while they spend the rest of their time with Stephanie and her new boyfriend Brett (Grant Show). One weekend, Clyde takes the girls to a yard sale held by a man whose mother has had what he believes to be a serious accident, but might in fact be something more sinister. Emily finds a large wooden box with ornate carvings all around it, and Clyde buys it for her. Shortly thereafter, Emily starts acting strangely and a swarm of moths appear in Clyde’s house.

When Clyde asks her about the box, Emily explains that she has an invisible friend who lives inside it. Clyde attempts to get rid of the box, but Emily– now in full-on creepy little girl mode– makes it look like Clyde is abusing her and runs out of his house, directly to the place where he discarded the box. Frustrated and scared, Clyde takes it upon himself to research what might be happening to his daughter, whereupon he discovers an online treasure trove of videos of exorcisms. He also learns that what he had purchased at that yard sale was something called a “dibbuk box,” a mystical object that imprisons an evil spirit. Clyde drives to New York to meet with a Hasidic Jew named Tzadok (Matisyahu) who believes he may be able to help Emily.

The Possession ticks down the boxes of the standard exorcism film dutifully, down to keeping all the actual exorcism action contained to the film’s final twenty or so minutes. Despite its unique concept, the film never does anything particularly surprising or interesting, and is painfully predictable. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a solid lead as the harried, terrified father, but most of the rest of the cast barely makes an impression, especially unfortunate as Kyra Sedgwick is certainly capable of better, but the writing hamstrings her with a one-dimensional character. The Possession is as uninspired as its title would suggest.

Lionsgate released The Possession on Blu-ray and DVD on 15 January 2013.

Elissa (Lawrence) and her mother Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) are moving from Chicago into a new home in what seems to be a rural town. They learn soon after moving in that the house next door was the site of a double murder: “brain-damaged” daughter Carrie Anne (Eva Link) murdered her parents late one night and then disappeared into the surrounding woods, where she presumably drowned in a nearby lake. Town rumors say that Carrie Anne still lives in the woods, and her brother Ryan (Max Thieriot) is fixing up his parents’ house in hopes of selling it and getting on with his life. The kids at Elissa’s new school treat Ryan like a monster, but Elissa sees another side of him.

Unfortunately for the budding couple, Sarah is also creeped out by the idea of college-age Ryan who lives in the house where his parents were murdered dating her high-school age daughter. Despite the empathy of local police officer Weaver (Gil Bellows), Sarah is uneasy about Ryan. She has a right to be, although explaining why would spoil some of the film’s (exceptionally predictable) surprises. Suffice to say that when Elissa starts sneaking around and seeing Ryan without her mother’s knowledge, things are bound to end badly.

House at the End of the Street is presented on Blu-ray in both PG-13 theatrical and “Unrated” versions, although after watching the “Unrated” version it’s pretty tough to say what must have been cut to get that PG-13. Characters are stabbed, shot, and bludgeoned all without a single drop of blood appearing on-screen. Elisabeth Shue is good as the concerned mom, but she’s mostly playing the same part she played in Piranha 3D– not that this is necessarily a complaint. Lawrence is fine, but she’s saddled with inane “teenager” dialogue. Still, she comes across better than Max Thieriot, who appears to sleepwalk through the entire film. There’s nothing much to recommend House at the End of the Street to anyone but hardcore fans of the cast, as even the most indiscriminate horror fan will likely be bored to tears long before the film’s final twists.

20th Century Fox released House at the End of the Street on DVD and Blu-ray on 8 January 2013. Special features include a behind-the-scenes featurette.

César (Luis Tosar) is the doorman in an old apartment building. He lives in a tiny apartment in the basement and spends his days sitting at the front desk, opening doors for the tenants, delivering mail, and doing small repairs and pet-sitting when they need it. While he is always courteous and friendly, this is a facade: César is a sociopath whose only joy in life comes from making other people unhappy. He uses his position to dig into the lives of the people who live in his building and cause them misery. As he reports back to his hospitalized mother (Margarita Roset), this is all too easy for most people, but there’s one tenant who won’t crack: Clara (Marta Etura), a cheerful young woman who always wears a smile.

Naturally, César takes her happiness and optimism as his ultimate challenge. He makes Clara his special project, but complications arise thanks to a nosy little girl who lives across the hall from Clara’s apartment and, even worse, Clara’s boyfriend. Still, César finds ways to make Clara’s life difficult, although doing so begins to threaten his job as he spends more and more time away from the front desk and the building’s owner threatens to fire him. Eventually César finds himself in a race against time to bring Clara down before the little girl, Clara’s boyfriend or his boss find him out or put him in a position that would make his project impossible to complete.

Sleep Tight is certainly not a feel-good movie. César is an unsettling character, but expertly played by Luis Tosar. Director Balagueró hits exactly the right tone, and wisely saves César’s worst for last. Throughout the film, César finds himself in situations where Balagueró wrings considerable tension from whether or not César will be caught, and the audience is likely to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of hoping he doesn’t, if only to see what new miseries he has in store for the tenants of his building. Sleep Tight ends with a devastating final move on the part of César that leaves no question what kind of person he is, and once again the audience is forced to consider what it means to empathize with him. Sleep Tight is one of the best horror films of the year, and Dark Sky Films deserves thanks for taking a chance on releasing yet another excellent horror film that had not found a home in the States.

Dark Sky Films released Sleep Tight on DVD and Blu-ray on 8 January 2013. Special features include a behind-the-scenes featurette and the film’s trailer.

Deputy Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King) is drafted to work the Christmas Eve patrol in her small town when one of her fellow deputies fails to show for work. Bradimore tries to talk her way out of it– this is her first Christmas after the death of her husband– but Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell) won’t hear it. Unknown to the police in this small Wisconsin town, a serial killer dressed in a Santa Claus suit has already started knocking off naughty locals, and shortly after her patrol begins Aubrey is involved in the most action her little town has ever seen. Too bad the number one suspect is a guy in a Santa suit, considering that the town Christmas parade has drawn dozens of Santas from all over, and while only one of them is a killer there are certainly a few that seem to have some serious issues.

Once Cooper realizes how dire the situation is, he becomes intent on locking up (or shooting down) a suspect as quickly as possible. A visiting Santa from out of town (Donal Logue) seems to be a likely suspect, as he has been terrifying the local children enough to have the cops called on him. Evidence at the scene of a slaughter at a motel points to local Santa Stein Karsson (Mike O’Brien) who recently lost his job, lives at the motel and spends his break time from the Santa gig downing booze. As the bodies pile up, Aubrey becomes sure that the killer is someone else, someone unfamiliar, but Cooper is more interested in making an arrest than being right. If she hopes to find the killer before he finishes running through his naughty list, Aubrey is going to have to do it on her own.

Silent Night is not a direct remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, although it does take the 1984 film’s basic premise (a serial killer in a Santa Claus outfit) and repurposes some elements of the original storyline. Mostly, though, this is its own beast, which is the best way to approach this kind of remake. The tone is somewhat comedic without being too goofy, although Malcolm McDowell goes over the top and then some as the blowhard Sheriff and Donal Logue has some great lines as the bitter career Santa. Director Steven C. Miller (The Aggression Scale) keeps the pace brisk, and the inventive kills are effectively portrayed with some great practical effects. While Silent Night may not be the weirdo classic that the original film was, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun and well worth checking out.

Anchor Bay released Silent Night on Blu-ray and DVD on 4 December 2012. Special features include a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes.

Nicola (Gianni Garko) staggers out of the woods and collapses in a stream, where he is discovered and taken to an institution. He is unable to speak, and the doctors and nurses have no luck figuring out where he came from until the sudden late-night appearance of Sdenka (Agostina Belli). Sdenka speaks to a doctor and tells him what little she knows of Nicola: that he is a businessman who lost his way in the woods where she lived with her family, and that after a car accident he became lost and ended up at the house. Soon after, Sdenka disappears, leaving the doctors scrambling to find her and learn more about Nicola, who begins to have flashbacks of the strange events that occurred in the woods.

After Nicola’s arrival, the curse that afflicts Sdenka’s family comes to full fruition as Nicola falls in love with Sdenka yet is powerless to help. As each member of the family disappears, they return as vampiric monsters to take another member along with them. If this sounds familiar, it is because The Night of the Devils is based on the same story that formed the basis of the last segment of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath: Tolstoy’s “The Wurdulak.” In the present, a frantic Nicola searches the hospital for Sdenka, while the parallel flashbacks tell the story of his confrontation with the evil that cursed her family.

The Night of the Devils may not be quite as visually captivating as Bava’s take on the material, but it’s still a powerfully creepy tale, and director Ferroni gives the story a very unique style. The pacing is a bit on the slow side, but that’s not necessarily a complaint; this is a textbook slow burn punctuated by moments of shocking violence and unsettling imagery. Raro, true to form, has given the film a gorgeous transfer and interesting extras. An especially nice touch is the fact that the film has completely different artwork on the O-card in which the case is packaged than the artwork in the case itself. The 12-page booklet included with the film features an essay by Chris Alexander and an interview with the film’s composer Giorgio Gaslini. Well worth seeking out on its own merits, The Night of the Devils becomes a must-have for any fan of 70s Italian horror thanks to Raro’s exemplary presentation.

Raro Video USA released The Night of the Devils on DVD and Blu-ray on 25 September 2012. Special features include a video interview with composer Giorgio Gaslini and Chris Alexander.