Category: 3/10

I’m a huge sucker for the original Silent Hill 1 on the Playstation. Its direction, soundtrack and wealth of ideas set the bar for supernatural horror, merging fantasy, madness and the obscure to create an obscene simulation of bewilderingly surreal terror. The second and third ones are fantastic entries too. Not so keen on the forth. Yeah, now that’s a controversial opinion.

Its greatness is also its flaw, sadly; the 2nd installment, Silent Hill 2, is an incredible achievement and arguably one of the greatest video games made, so consumer expectations are incredibly high, hence the hostility and outcry when inferior sequels are produced, not to mention the infamous Pachislot machine. For fairness and to prevent myself writing an essay, this reviewer would try and give a purely neutral review, as if it stood by itself. (Not an easy task.)

Initiating with her banal existence in college, Heather Mason is suddenly sucked into a nightmarish realm of hellish creatures and extremist cultists. Lost in a world of warped darkness and fearing for her own life, she begins her adventure to find her father while trying to survive within a labyrinth of unreality containing all manner of wicked abominations whom possess a curious desire to wear a vast amount of leather.

This starts out dumb as fuck and it doesn’t get any better. The insistence on a style of action and quick thrills rather than slow suspense or construction is poorly arranged and constructed. The fan service is everywhere, the constant need for jumpscares is miserable, the actors fail to deliver, with Adelaide Clemens looking the part but they sure can’t play it, radiating a pitiful meekness and dependency which thwarts her image as a heroine.

That’s not to say there’s nothing new. For a horror, everything is about the monsters, and there’s a fair grab here. The monstrous evil dimension is suitably demented, diverse in corruption and impressively executed, with generally competent special effects. There’s a few moments of shock which are alright, and the Hellraiser inspired creations are interestingly designed. By far the best scene is the cruel nurses at around the 65-minute mark which perform an excellently robotic yet organic coordination and could well have been utilized further to produce more mayhem.

Still, it’s a mess. So much is unfaithfully borrowed or directly facsimiled with little in the way of originality or watchability, with the viewer spending their hour treading upon jumpscare after jumpscare, ever meandering through an unsatisfying plot and questionable acting which altogether fails to pass the grade. A very poor incarnation of a good, well used to be good series.

3/10

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent_hill_revelation

It’s the weekend, and you feel depressed and lonely. Do you spend some time with your family? Call up your friends? Or perhaps do those chores and sort yoursef out ready for the week ahead? Hell no! You drive to the cheapest, most low-down piece of shit watering hole and get completely hammered. Alcohol: solving all your problems for 5,000 years.

Unfortunately, broke ass bar owner Leon is going through tough times and can’t afford any reliable liquor anymore. With patrons continuing to attend but his stock and supplies rapidly dwindling, he resorts to picking up less than reputable brand tequila which brings with it the invariably deadly results when the larval turns out to be a lethal parasite.

While the production standards are okay, the premise is alright, and the general setup is fine, the sheer length of the flick is not, leaving my immediate impression that it could have been shortened by a third. Or up to a half. Easily. The direction is too amateur to take seriously to prevent the evaporation of interest which begins to occur around its mid-point, which is an amazing stretch to reach in itself.

The jumps and horror scenes are pretty good and generally entertaining, the shoestring shooting conditions are acceptable, and the attempt at social realism is totally cool – 100 minutes is just simply way, way, way too long for its material and content. The lack of tension or suspense and the insufferable insistence of long-winded character-building is especially offkey, helping to exasperate the frustratingly slow pace.

Further to my complaints are the humdrum soundtrack, sloppy sound design, and the poverty of sets or environments. A positive note is that the actors blend well with their scripts; Jeremy Owen (Leon) is immediately likable and makes for a surprisingly strong lead, and the rest work well to build a relationship with the viewer, even if their script is so poorly directed.

Yet it’s so damn long. So little excitement between each major event for attention to be sustained. A film needs to have an agreeable amount of momentum generated to be viewable or enthralling, and with such head-popping violence at the start, more gore, tension and gruesomeness would have gone a huge way. Very very average and stale.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1900967/

More ghosts ‘n ghoulies in this average flick based on an average indepedent comic book made by a bunch of independent creatives. Hey, hold on a second. If a small town comic like this can make a feature, why isn’t Judge Dredd getting another? Can’t Transmetropolitan break into cinema? And shouldn’t Crossed ever get the big screen, is raping someone while tearing their face off in the midst of the apocalypse that taboo?… wait, don’t answer that.

Penny Palabras is about, well, Penny Palabras, their ventures of the supernatural, and her alarming ability to communicate with individuals inhabiting other dimensions. Some forces are benign, others are crazy, but the worst is surely the dark and menacing Straw Man, and their whisperings of torment and hardship upon the pressured student teen, leaving to Penny find herself reaching for extreme solutions as her misery expands.

There isn’t much of a decent introduction or explanation and without reading the comic book, it’s tough to reliably gauge what is going on because the film lurches in movements that leaves you with the feeling you should have read something before watching. No narrative or lowdown is offered despite its obvious absence. Even though there’s this missing link, there’s a hint of general watchability, although it’s really very poor and stretched due to the badly arranged production and plotline.

It’s a nice idea at first. The characters themselves seem alright – and they’re definitely designed well. Along with the adolescent stereotypes, and struggling with the relationship with her and her mother, Penny interestingly finds herself speaking to the dead better than the living. The directives are pretty good at times too, especially the decision to keep the style black and white, which enables scenes to fulfill this sense of strange intimacy.

What doesn’t work is the woefully amateur acting which crashes so hard thanks to the cameras and productive decisions, and the incredibly tacky soundtrack that destroys the emotion and authenticity of each scene. Clearly there’s an ambition to connect with the undead in an advanced way, and that’s certainly admirable, but the cheap instrumentation and two-bit design coupled with the poorly framed settings could have demanded serious editing and second thoughts.

And it doesn’t help that the movie just plain sucks. Even with its heart in the right place, it’s tediously difficult to plow though and just seems too comic book-inspired for a serious release. Save yourself some time and give Donnie Darko another watch.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6628386/

Curses! Yet again an tantalising and twisted-looking DVD cover leads this intrepid reviewer into another crushingly uninspired pile of drivel and nonsense. (Not this one, it was this and couldn’t find a larger version of it). And if Wikipedia defines this is a legitimate slasher, you may as well call Love Island a survival horror, and come to think: that wouldn’t actually be a bad redefinition.

Neverlake is a daft and completely forgettable snore about a girl who encounters ghosts and evil secrets. Little really happens and what does isn’t scary. Initially, however, its fairytale approach seems somewhat alternative and almost stylish, promising a potentially intriguing fantasy atmosphere with hopes for a dash of intelligence.

Jenny is a well-spoken young woman on holiday. Their father is loving but distant, more focused on his obsession with relics of the ancient Atroscon [sic?] civilization, yet her stepmother is generally atrocious and awful to her in comparison. With the remote location and the activities tormenting her, Jenny turns to curiosity and exploration, which proves to be deadly when it unearths horrible familial truthes.

Though the beginning is appreciatively theatrical and oddly immersive, the ride rapidly disintegrates, dropping the speed to an insulting crawl, wretchedly drifting through developments so sluggishly that any twist or dynamic was already expired before its introduction. For a presentation intended to be classy and upmarket, the irony is that its unbalanced focus between thiller and drama appears only brutalist and crude.

What weakens the narrative – and especially the spoken word poetry, perhaps one of the finer events – is the lazy sound construction. While similar to Mark Snow in personality, the lack of instruments or variety coupled with the predictable and blithering execution is lame and pretentious, sucking and trampling the life out of the emotion it tried to capture. At the same time, the cinematography is excellent, controlled and distinguishable, capable and effective in portraying feelings as well as whole landscapes.

A shame that it sucks. There are scarier kid’s books if you want to look for them, because this is just messed up unstructured crap which never deserved a cinema production. A play or poem would have been a stronger choice. And on this subject, why not try Black Death: it is a superior display of horror infused with the dramatic, and there are better actors.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3301196/

How many of these cabin in the woods flicks exist? Five kids from suburban USA are up against a mutated monster in the middle of a forest and wouldn’t you guess, there’s no escape, no one to help and no phone signal. Don’t people plan in advance anymore?

In this plain and predictable drama horror, a bunch of schoolfriends find themselves discussing the technicalities of survival and fight to stay alive from a man-eating predator which doesn’t simply hunt with instinct but threatens to display some apparent intelligence. Sadly not like this film, which suffers from hardly an abundance of ideas or talent and lacks the muscle to be interesting or satisfying.

The guys are okay; Keke Palmer and her cute smile is a forgiving piece of eye candy, Paul Iacono tries to perform a cringeworthy comic act while Elizabeth Gillies seems more interested in flashing their cleavage than doing any acting. Perhaps it’s strongest point is the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere conjured by the tight lighting setup: its average sound design its deterred with a below average soundtrack however, and a curious need to use the zombie stock effect from Doom whenever the creature is encountered.

By only a third to halfway into the show, it becomes obvious that the characters aren’t going to develop, the special effects are minimal, the gore is restricted to fleeting moments of brief violence, and it’s gonna take years to see them eventually get chewed up. The effort put into the writing is especially poor; even the scenes where the survivors are trying to make sense of their situation seem artificial, made to please, and were probably ripped right out of The Walking Dead or similar.

This is far from great and pretty basic stuff which could have used a good dose of inspiration and imagination. If you’re looking for something sticks to the beaten path and follows the orders barked at it, you’re in for a treat. For those that want a meatier meal on their plate, don’t stop here.

3/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_(2014_film)

Oh…. kay. Sometimes you just don’t exactly know what to make of something. These are the kind of crappy thrillers that end up somewhat strangely curious and interesting despite their ineptitude – or possibly even directly because of their ineptitude.

This unusual teen shocker begins with an uncomfortable amount of dialogue which briefs the viewer on the apocalypse, announces it was all about a girl, and includes a hilariously overacted return to consciousness at a kitchen table. Following a misadventure which leads to a murder, the offending students are left in a state of shock, seeking ways and stories to cover up the killing.

Cheaply filmed, crudely edited, and clearly on a low budget for its thrill-seeking, its desire to discuss the armageddon exposes a respectable modicum of ambition. The scripting is workable and the actors are okay; though the fight scenes are a little pathetic, you generally get the message, as with the rest of the amateur ability level of acting.

Waiting for any brilliance to show however is mostly a miss. Starting with an initially and enjoyably demented presentation, the plot soon sinks into a masculine mess on teenage life and young adult relationships. It’s difficult to take a film seriously when it is so adolescent, obsessed with status, and sex-crazed; climaxing, so to speak, with a threesome – and the desperate lust of one friend trying to sleep with his counterparts’ mother.

That’s not to say there’s no creativity at work. Claire makes for a half decent discussion for the subject of corruption, managing to create the tragedy, and becoming extremely competent in ruining pretty much anything she touches. And the men around her fall like dominos the same way, prompting a door to into a larger topic.

Its handle never gets touched, and the humanity-destroying infection celebrated in the introduction turns out to be a false lure too. That lie is unforgivable. The fuck outta here! Go play football and make forgettable movies somewhere else.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329768/

Oh boy another lame mystery TV thriller. Summoned is about the chronicles of a woman facing a murderer from beyond the grave as strange deaths begin to mount following the execution of a criminal. See, this is just another reason that capital punishment isn’t a deterrent, and how the prison system needs a serious overhaul.

Plagued with flashbacks and fearing for their life, painter Laura is harassed by bizarre events which suggest the evil killer she condemned to death on jury service is still killing and decides to research the supernatural in order to find a way to save herself when the unconvinced police seem reluctant to help her or resistant to get involved. Guess she lives in the hood.

This isn’t offensively terrible, it’s merely rather dull and unexciting. The lazy idling pace of the story and its lack of material or development is unimpressive and tiresome. The soundtrack, while neatly arranged, is badly designed and coordinated, effectively removing the suspense in the drama, along with the power to the tedious jump scares dotted around.

Ashley Scott doesn’t do a bad job as the lead; her smokey demur and seductive room-pacing makes it watchable, if only the character she was playing wasn’t so feckless and vulnerable all the time. The detective however is horribly miscasted, appearing brutally incapable, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch to have let Scott played each part, as both the investigator and the persecuted victim.

Then there’s all the silly ghostly nonsense that the film insists on. Violins churn and drums crash as house lamps flicker and spooky apparitions appear. Opening curtains which were closed and shitposting on the laptop for attention? C’mon, that’s not scary. And by towards the end they’ve resorted to drawing threats on mirror steam. It’s so unimaginative and laughably dismal.

There isn’t much more to say; other than it’s for the teen adult market at best. If you’re into romance or television soaps but are looking for a change of scenery, Summoned might be worth a shot as well. Also, the astute viewer will notice the stock sound of Doom doors sliding open at the 50 minute mark. 50 minutes well spent? ……No.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2429870/

It’s incredibly frustrating when you see a sci-fi flick with astronauts on the moon platered upon the front cover, run the video and are immediately betrayed by being transported into the banality of someone’s ordinary life. Where’s the planets? Or the spaceships? Where’s the outer space horror? And the astronauts, you lyin’ fuckin’ overmarketed bullshit piece a shit?

Cold and tough Agent Wade (ugh) with cool and flamboyant Agent Smith (double ugh) are here to smoke cigarettes and make sassy putdowns at each other while you sit reading the DVD blurb wondering if anything’s going to happen. The agents aren’t alone however, and are soon teamed up with a small group of similar oddfellows in their task to hunt down and recover a missing satillete.

This is another one where a tripod was seriously needed. The freehand approach is best used in short spurts for action scenes and car-chase theatrics, not constantly and for portraying human emotions or intimate conversations. As much of the flick is dependent on creating an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, and also using cheap film, it soon starts to look very primitive.

For instance, in the derelict housing, there’s a surprisingly intimidating sense of oppression, and within the strange mystery, someone attacks the protagonist with a weapon. Even a competent student could storyboard a series with a series of framed scenes. The shaky-cam-view with its unreliable focus is so inferior. It’s like filming a serious detective story as if it was an ad hoc porno.

There’s also a serious missed opportunity for political differences and cultural clashes which could have enhanced the authenticity of the story. Such as, not filming in a strictly American style while it’s apparently supposed to be in Eastern Europe. And it’s not just that; the whole deal is full of Western tropes. This may as well have been set anywhere in the world given how bland the delivery is.

Katarina Čas plays the lead, and does a roughly average to poor job of their role. It’s probably not their fault considering their lines and directions are so bad. They also manage to outshine the rest of their crew, which isn’t saying much, considering how crude and superficial their presentations are. “No more lies professor!” Yeah… what can you do with that on a budget.

This is really ridiculous: the awful camera work, the terrible direction, the substandard acting, and emptiness of talent in the editing department. Yet there’s a genuine curiosity in supernatural science fiction and an achievement of ability somewhere within the storywriting which manages to offer the occasional surprise. This would be alright as spoken word. And with a less dysfunctional crew and a more able controller, this could have been a much more impressive horror.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4509840/

Within our dungeons filled with criminals, there are scores of endless thieves, scammers and murderers crying out for a second chance. Society would like to throw away the key once and for all. Silent Retreat is a prison with a different deal; you get the second chance – you just don’t get to cry out at all.

In this ridiculous drama, exclusively female prisoners are to embrace the cruelty of silence under the heel of men. Women condemned to jail are granted this option so they can avoid hard time. It’s a curious thriller where the impact of quiteness itself toys with the theme of power and how humans negotiate under tyranny, suggesting a deeper and potentially interesting exploration of psychology.

And then it disappointingly reduces itself to two-dimensional stereotypes. Baby-faced Jenish, who is clearly far too weak for the role and could have easily been replaced by a stronger and more fearsome actress, is thrown into the camp after committing an act of violence. They must face the crummy Hannibal Lector knockoff which misses out the part where there’s the masterful and cunning, and merely appears slimey and manipulative.

The women who universally make up the camp against their male guards are treated mercilessly. They’re marched everywhere, spoken down to like children, with scenes suggesting they are routinely molested, while simultaneously demanded to be good wives; and it is also hinted they haven’t even committed a real crime to be there. Also there’s an insane monster on the loose that eats people at random.

Yeah so this is absolute crap. It’s a shame, because the initial setup is legitimately interesting, and offers a landscape where people could be exploring their darkness through an intimate secrecy under a fearsome oppression. Instead it devolves into a bunch of bullshit about punishment and payback. Disappointing and not thrilling.

3/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3563892/

Discovering themselves in a strange version of purgatory, a small group of people work to extrapolate and unlock the meaning of their surroundings in this spiritually themed soul-searching drama which begins with admittedly an interesting presentation, but soon ultimately becomes a rather boring affair.

This is kind of a survival horror except no one ever survived and it’s not a survival horror. Instead, the show is about souls – lost ones, that didn’t really make it anywhere in life, and seemingly couldn’t cut the mustard to actually make something of themselves in the afterlife either.

There’s a lot about this intriguing idea which is potentially appealing and sadly all the elements it discusses are only touched upon in a very superficial way. The mystical and supernatural realms explored are mostly boil down to special effects or theatrical showdowns. It’s hardly a unique or groundbreaking concept either – not too dissimilar from an atrocious flick called Collapse reviewed in the beginnings of this project.

Though the graphics are doable, what grinds the whole view down is the terrible relationship between the camera and the characters. The amateurish performances are bad enough (and not helped by such an overblown script), and then comes along the sloppy editing and consistently shaky camera. Did the company really have to choose an active earthquake fault to film the production?

Another difficult pill to swallow is the dull and drab lighting which permeates every scene. There’s something here which is missing – to a non-professional as myself, all it can be described is an incompetence of establishing meaningful contrast. This setup would have been good for perhaps a relatively brief flashback maybe, being used against a foreground of excitable acting and rapid-pace cutting was most curious.

Finally, the insistence of having stupid twists at the end has to stop. C’mon, they’re so goddamn obvious! Again, there’s some surprisingly exploitable science fiction ideas here which could certainly be expanded and built upon to build for a more worthwhile watch instead of the use of these pretentious overdramatics.

3/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfterDeath