Review: Mutants (2008)

FLEUR’S RATING: 1 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

Directed by Simon Hunter. Starring Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki.

Something finally happens

Mutants – I had been waiting for the release of this film for a while – it’s French and there are zombies, what more could you want? Well, a decent plot and something to SAY would be an idea!

Slow and boring, this is a vacuous film, with good FX and acting, but nothing to bring to the table. It’s not particularly scary, there’s no tension and none of the characters are particularly likeable, in fact most of them are just nasty people and you don’t even get the satisfaction of seeing them dying a particularly appropriate death. They just get bitten. Yawn.

Proof (if any were needed, which it isn’t) that Romero is King when it comes to the genre.

Review: Baby Blues

FLEUR’S RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

 

 

Directed by Lars Jacobson, Amardeep Kaleka. Starring Colleen Porch, Ridge Canipe, Sean Johnson.

Jimmy realises it's down to him

 

Baby Blues – Loosely based on the case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five children.

The mother here is very put-upon; she has a son of about 11, young twins and a new baby. Hubby comes and goes as he pleases with his job as a truck driver which he won’t leave and find work locally because “I like my job”. Well, great for him, but what about his poor missus? Stuck at home with the kids and endless chores.

I was hoping this would treat the subject with a little humanity as I do feel a lot of sympathy towards Ms Yates and how she was psychologically ‘pushed’ into her crimes. But, sadly, this just becomes your usual run-away-from-the-killer scenario. But don’t let that put you off. A slasher-film it may be, but it IS a rather superior one. The young protagonist gives an excellent performance, as does the mother. Some dark humour also emerges from characters’ not understanding and totally mis-reading the situation, and the viewer genuinely cares about these children.

Tense at times and well-made, but I would have preferred a little more character in the mother.

Review: The Dark Hours (2005)

FLEUR’S RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

 

 

Directed by Paul Fox. Starring Aidan Devine, Gordon Currie, Trevor Hayes.

The doctor, her husband and her sister are caught

 

The Dark Hours – Kate Greenhouse plays a doctor in a psychiatric institute whose job it is to review the patients’ progress and decide whether they are fit to be released back into society. We see her interview a man who has been committed for an horrific murder, and witness her cold, calculated approach to her job.

Discovering that a tumour she has carried for years has begun to grow, she takes the weekend off to see her husband and younger sister and tell them the bad news. Just as she’s trying to explain her situation, an intruder breaks into the lonely cottage and threatens them with a gun. And so begins a terrifying cat-and-mouse game.

The acting here is top-notch, especially the main ‘baddie’ character who is many-faceted and rather fascinating; as the plot moves on we begin to discover just how cold this doctor can be.

Absolutely gripping throughout with many twists and turns until you wonder who you can trust.

An absolute lttle gem!

Review: The Collingswood Story (2002)

FLEUR’S RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

Directed by Michael Costanza. Starring Stephanie Dees, Johnny Burton, Vera Madeline.

Rebecca is beginning to grow afraid

I keep recommending this film to anyone who’ll listen.

The Collingswood Story – When Rebecca leaves home to attend college, her ex-boyfriend John sets up web cameras for the both of them so they can stay in touch. She is alone in the house on her birthday, when he calls her and directs her to other web cams for her amusement. At the suggestion of a friend, John then suggests she visit online psychic Vera Madaline.

Using an alias, she speaks briefly to Vera, who calls her by her real name. Frightened the hangs up and reports back to John, who himself visits the psychic’s website and confronts her. Vera Madeline tells John that Rebecca is in great danger as Collingswood was once the site of a cult responsible for many child murders and the subsequent disappearance of its leader.

Shown completely through web cams, although it looks a little amateurish and odd at first, once you settle into the unusual format you’ll be hooked!  This is very subtle; crime scene photos viewed online that seem to alter, rumours of strange cults and their rituals, and a young woman alone in a strange house.

If, like me, you like independent non-Hollywood films and enjoy a well-told story with a well-rounded plot, likeable characters and charming performances – give this one a go. It’s not a blood-and-guts, axe-in-the-head type film, but if you like your chills subdued and cerebral, this is the one for you.

If you do watch this and like it, please tell your friends. I think it’s a damn shame this is not more well-known, but some people like to be spoon-fed their films. I prefer to use my brain.

Review: Exorcismus (2010)

FLEUR’S RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

 

 

Directed by Manuel Carballo. Starring Stephen Billington, Tommy Bastow, Sophie Vavasseur.

Stroppy teenagers ...

Exorcismus – “From the Producers of REC” proclaims the cover blurb. I love REC and REC2, so I knew something different would ensue when I sat down to watch this. I was surprised to see it was set in England with an English cast. It’s an interesting take on the whole exorcism sub-genre, all others of which I’ve seen have been American.

Don’t expect a big effects-laden show; it’s a quiet and sometimes slow film, but it has a point to make. The small cast is filmed fly-on-the-wall style, so it’s a rather intimate portrait of this family. Usual teenage sulks and battles with parents begin to change into fits and hallucinations, blackouts and eventually psychokinesis and levitation.

The mother’s brother is a disgraced priest who takes it upon himself to try and help his niece, even though her parents are completely sceptical of the entire situation. So she’s manacled to a chair and undergoes daily exorcism sessions, none of which she has any recollection of whatsoever, but the uncle is filming them all for “proof”. As time goes on and the parents witness things they cannot understand, their attitudes change from disbelief and incredulity to acceptance and fear.

Then the story takes a different turn, and others begin to get hurt, and a secret is uncovered near the end that knocks everything onto its head.
If you want gore and action, don’t watch this; but if you like an actual honest-to-god plot (and they’re few and far between these days) and to use your brain from time to time, I would definitely recommend this.

Review: The Baby’s Room (TV 2008)

FLEUR’S RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 CAT BISCUITS

 

 

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia. With Javier Gutiérrez, Leonor Watling, Sancho Gracia, María Asquerino

This film is part if the box set Six Films to Keep You Awake which was a TV series produced for Spanish television.

Alternative DVD cover

A couple with a new baby move into an old house. They are given a set of baby monitors, through which they hear a voice screaming. Concerned, the husband buys a high-tech monitor complete with night-vision camera and screen. Turning over in bed that night, he glances at the monitor and sees something in the baby’s room, he grabs a knife and runs in, only to find nothing there that shouldn’t be. Finding him standing over the crib with a knife, his partner believes he’s a danger to their child and leaves for her mother’s.

Left alone, the husband installs cameras all over the house and sets up a whole bank of monitors in the living room. He soon discovers that it’s not just the baby’s room that looks different on camera.

Very original and thoroughly horrifying, once this has you in its teeth it runs away with you. Guaranteed to scare your pants off. Watch it alone in the dark for maximum impact!

Why don’t we get TV like this in the UK? Even with the US TV series Masters of Horror, the TV networks in America refused to air Takashi Miikes’s episode Imprint because of its subject matter (abortion).

In my humble opinion, the Spanish are the ones to watch for future scares.

THE SEARCH IS ON!

If you recognise these two gentlemen, you're in the right place!

 

Recommend me some films!

As a feline horror connoisseur I have had an atrocious run of bad luck – every single film I’ve bought or rented has been a complete failure; from The Ruins and its pointless plot and none-ending to Shutter Island‘s complete lack of tension and Wake Wood‘s disappointingly un-original plot. So disgusted was I at this last film’s blatant ripping-off of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary I was compelled to do no less than lay a large stinking log in my litter tray in protest!

After the joys of [REC], Inside and Frontiére(s) I was on a roll – now it seems the market has dried up like the milk in my bowl (*HINT*HINT*)

Seen something that scared, intrigued or puzzled you, made your tail fuzz up? Would you recommend it to a friend? Are you Gore Hound, an Art House Lover or a Weirdness Freak? COME ONE COME ALL!

Tell me what to watch and I, Fleur ‘Miss Naughty Knickers’ Molloy shall endeavour to view and review it.