Category: 4/10

What’s the worst thing we can find in the snow? Aliens? Diseases? Ancient Gods? No, it’s man himself in the questionably written Antarctic Journal, where a group of intrepid explorers from South Korea become almost as lost as the plot they’ve been left stranded in.

Initiating with smiles and laughter, the ordeal of stress and isolation doesn’t take long to impact upon the crew, and once the deaths begin, tension, distrust and madness is only around the corner. Also they discover a diary of other voyagers who went crazy too, so that’s definitely not good.

The well established and graceful cinemotography is a nice feature. This is where its production budget spends its money most wisely, utilizing a clever and creative diversity of shots and compositions which are well designed to illustrate psychological environments as well as practical hardships in the Arctic wasteland of the story.

Shame there isn’t much of it. The protagonists are stunted and thwarted from their humanity, hardly appearing filled out enough for a drama and more built as pins to be casually knocked over. The tentative suggestions of the supernatural leave a bad taste in the mouth when they’re revealed as elaborately dishonest and intentionally misleading deceptions. And the score is on thin ice, comprising of drab synths, unimaginative strings and hollow drums.

A partial recovery is down to the performances. Apparently this held a fairly well-known cast on its release, hinting that the intention was possibly to sell the film based on their names and acting qualities. It’s not a bad move, as their confidence and ambition on screen is bold and assuring.

Does this make up for the dry and underdevelopment of the script? Nope. The cold and uninspiring journey with its uninteresting characters is half an hour longer than it really needs to be; and doesn’t land on a very solid or impressive ending. If you’ve survived that far though, you’re a fool for expecting anything else. (Fooled me too.)

4/10

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

Chiller Films again? These guys seem to be becoming popular in the low budget scene as of late. My first taste of them must have been the awful Dead Souls and the subpar Animal, while SiREN looks a little more promising. For now, let’s try out an older release, Deep in the Darkness.

Upon relocating to a idyllically isolated town of Ashborough to get away from the pressures of city life, Doctor Michael Cayle (Sean Patrick Thomas) is to ponder on the consequences of his choices. The locals are crazy, his kid’s seeing ghosts, there’s ritualistic murder, but these all pale in comparison to the real nightmare: no internet for miles. You sick bastards – you’ve gone too far this time.

The truth is, it’s a rather feckless horror – a better description is a dramatic thriller with paranormal overtones and the occasional drop of gore. Most of everything is revealed to be focused on Cayle’s dwindling relationship between his career, family and sanity. Thomas isn’t bad; maybe somewhat passive and secondary, he definitely fits the bill as a permanently bewildered outsider, as does his counterpart (Kristen Bush).

Two points of interest stand out. Number one is the warmly immersive score and resourceful sound design. There’s a sense of balance and control of the medium, with moments of silence, tension and explosion which are handled quite evenly, gluing with the action and suspense, and dressing formidably against the smoothly professional camera work.

The second is how incredibly shallow and weak the story turns out to be. Though its motor is usually running, characters are lame, their delivery is dry, and developments are infuriatingly predictable. And its novel adaption can’t be the culprit to blame for the hilariously silly suggestions and hints, such as the doc discovering a vial of bubonic plague left casually on the table of his opulent office. C’mon, please.

At 2 and a half hours in length, Deep in the Darkness is also vast. Who thought it would be a good idea to be so long? Yet there’s hardly any serious mistakes or outright errors which would deserve the wrath of a particularly poor conclusion, even if it does reveal itself to be too timidly unoffensive to be engaging or thrilling. Average and standard stuff – and that’s being nice.

4/10

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

So: how did you spend your time at college? Studying? Blackout shitfaced? Or constructing a transporter that sends you directly to the underworld? Accept my apologies if that last suggestion seems absurd; we all know it probably isn’t much less plausible than the first.

The students in this flick aren’t satisfied with mere hard partying though, and after experimenting with their newly invented teleportation device, they accidentally summon gigantic fiery rifts into a bizarre dimension which manage to capture their friends, leaving the unfortunate classmates fighting to survive against nightmarish monsters in a twisted labyrinth which defies space and time.

A normal sci-fi at least attempts an introduction. Or a believable plot. Here the formalities are strictly abandoned and it leaps right into the fray, living for the “woah” moments dotted around. These are certainly effective and most are refreshingly unexpected, yet such a bare minimum of story is a real limitation.

This leaves the visuals alone to deliver, and they’re not that bad, mostly. The landscapes and creatures perform from suitably deranged to uninspired and dull. Some are interesting, for instance the ax-wielding maniac with several faces, or the horrible parasite things; yet other areas of the film are left disappointingly featureless, including the surprisingly plain and empty sets, and the unconvincing makeup.

And this soundtrack! While the quality and range of sound is okay, its coordination and direction is so interfering. Do you really need to repeat thunderous strings and Battery 3 kicks every 5-10 minutes? The occasional aspect of silence would have also been very welcome in the interest of building atmosphere and suspense.

Overall this is a straight up braindead teen slasher with a few punches up its sleeve but nothing particularly memorable and couldn’t be more average if it tried. The cardboard script doesn’t exactly bring the best out of the inane acting, and the lack of serious gore is another minus. Still, a doable and generally edible example of TV trash.

4/10

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

Some men have dreams. They want to be a doctor. They want to be a scientist. They want to be President. My dream is just as large, maybe further beyond – resolve myself to review every one of these stupid fucking films in the ridiculous series that is Sharknado.

Initiating with an expectable premise, party-loving teens are on the beach and minding their own business when suddenly they are torn into pieces by a living wall of deranged sharks. And when combined with the power of hurricane, they turn into a force of sheer destruction, chewing on everything that owns a head and a pair of arms.

What is most appreciable is that the story moves at an agreeable pace. Rather than waste time with suspense or attempt to weave a tapestry of tediously incompetent dialogue, Sharknado delivers a relievingly predictable round of cheap and entertaining nonsense. Discussion parts are rewardingly short with bursts of thriller moments usually around the corner to keep the interest active.

Credit is also due for the special effects. Buildings are mangled, waves crash, creatures writhe and limbs are expectantly amputated with a fair sense of computer ability. Good audio arrangement and extra coordination help to build a somewhat believable atmosphere.

It’s let down quite badly by the amateurish and sloppy actors. They’re dull, inexperienced and uncomfortable; even for a crappy disaster flick which never had a great deal of ambition or seriousness in the first place, there might have been a little more effort or talent available instead of these plastic recruits.

So without convincing material in the way of characters or anything especially appealing, its routine of diving into bottomless pits of farcical and repetitive survival idiocy is hard to put up with, though it’s kind of saved by the generally tolerable action scenes. Well, that’s about it. Hopefully the next few of these won’t be too much worse.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2724064/

The state has no place interfering with the lives of its citizens. Taxes? NO! Abortion? NO! Twisted abominations that reproduce endlessly, feed on human beings and kill without discrimination? Hmmmm…. now you got my interest.

A strange and deadly organism spells the eradication of all life as we know it in this tight budget sci-fi thriller. A rogue scientist has unwittingly threatened the end of the world and a team of innocent teen paintgunners are left not merely to survive against the terrible mutation, but government guns hired to leave no witnesses alive.

One thing that intensely lets this flick down is the bad acting. It doesn’t necessarily fail when it needs to step up, and eventually becomes bareable if not comedic; however nothing especially shines, as everyone displays a very amateurish and talentlessness which really shows.

This is made up for the somewhat surprisingly decent writing and ambitiously supernatural themes, making for a fair amount of action, chaos and activity. There’s enough to keep the viewer involved with the survival horror scenes, dramatic twists, science fiction influence, and the… agreeable female protagonist.

The makeup and SFX aren’t great. Yet they do their job, and it’s not the quality which is at fault; it’s the visual coordination. It’s so sloppy, cheap and undeveloped. While the script is alright, there’s not a relative engagement in balance focus. And the cackhanded sound production is also grating, particularly the repetitive reverse crash.

Additional mayhem, carnage, bloodlust and destruction would have been relieving. And with the props, it seemed as if for moments: was something held back by poor imagination or was there a restrictive authority somewhere? Either way it just needed more gore and more tits.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835419/

Kids: who wants them? Not for me thanks. They’re loud, irritating, expensive, and potentially the spawn of Satan themselves. Do you really want a child that can conjure up flame in a second like Stephen King’s Firestarter? Actually come to think of it, that would be kind of cool.

Such is the case in Case 39 when a social worker stumbles upon the supernatural in this twisted thriller, which is mostly average, yet unsettling and well-produced enough for at least half a view. It’s not great, and suffers from from poor story structuring, but it isn’t that bad either.

Zellweger stars as a hip young breezy urbanite who effortlessly crawls the modern world (again) until their job lands them in hot water. After saving what seems as if they are an abused child, and condemning their supposed terrible caretakers to an asylum, they’re soon searching for their own sanity.

The chilled lighting and strong camera configuratrion are instant wins. The lower class environments have a peculiar amount of money pumped into them, yet they’re convincing. Zellweger doesn’t feel exactly right for the part at first; they somehow came across as loose and sleazy, though they eventually pull through with their delivery.

Fortunately, she’s not all the flick has to offer, with the evil bits which sit in the fat of the film. The sequence in the bathroom and the hornets is extremely uncomfortable and especially well directed. And there’s one area where the parents are trying to cook their child alive in an oven. Holy fuck!

The bad guy (guy?) is not overwhelming sadly, and by the end, everything has descended into an eventual farce of action and explosions which is pretty disappointing. But the professional coordination and set equipment make for a superior watch to your everyday trash. It’s just Renee. Stop talking already and put my dick in your mouth.

4/10

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/case_39

Don’t you just hate the lucky high-functioning types? Healthy, young, fit and educated, with a warm family, a close circle of friends and even an office at work where they can hang up their degree. Then they turn out to have a serious chance of early Alzheimer’s. Ha! Take that and smoke it, fucker.

Such is the case for doctor and researcher Taylor Briggs who unwittingly stumbles across a psychoactive substance which appears to transfer the power of memory itself. Starring two actors you’ve never heard of and Dennis Hopper (best known as Frank “I’ll fuck anything that moves” Booth), the medical practioner falls into a wild conspiracy of murder, kidnapping and torture.

Mostly an inferior a crime thriller with little in the way of excitement or terror, Memory plods along at least at a fairly appreciative pace, tempting the viewer with somewhat workable if perhaps primative servings of secrets, and solving them in a generally standard and predictable way even though they weren’t particularly interesting in the first place.

The well crafted production is also a double-edged sword. With its firmly controlled lighting and meticulous set design, scenes are usually a little too inviting and friendly for their own good – even the nasty parts. This is okay for the thriller zone, not so much for horror, and neither for thrils. The smiles and winks while characters ruminate on comfy sofas as slow guitar plays; it’s all so damn comfortable.

What captures your interest almost immediately however are the surreal twists that the doctor encounters. Initially seeming to be tears in the fabric of reality, they later prove to be clues unto a wider mystery. Although their resolution is hardly captivating, their execution is rather surprising and definitely the highlights of the flick.

4/10

Hypnos is the Latin word for sleep. And we use the language of Latin to call all kinds of bullshit. Who knows why, it has nothing to do with it. Olympus sells expensive cameras. There’s a gigantic software company called Oracle. Did you know that there is a whole section of Pluto named after Lovecraft? The moar you know!

Doctor Beatris Vargas doesn’t nor themselves in the twisted world of Hipnos. With her new assignment as a psychiatrist in a distant and isolated sanitarium, the Doctor finds their life entranced and disarmed by their strange counterparts. Even reality seems against her, and they must alone face a decent into a madness of mystery, deceit, suicide and betrayal.

Beginning with a somewhat strong start, Hipnos pretty much fucks off to the land of sheer average as fast as it can get with its amazingly underwhelming story. While there’s some superficial play of the substance of mental illness, and a little discussion of sexuality, the mature viewer is only going to find themselves chewing on regurgitated stock shock no better than the last horror crap you watched, plus a flash of european tits this time.

There’s art to be appreciated in the captivating and excellently crafted camerawork which comfortably handles its scenes. Work was put into the planning of this production, and it shows. The direction has a professional approach; coldly precise and effortlessly human. And the soundtrack may be minimal, but it’s well designed and inputted, efficiently balancing out the various moments of drama and ease.

The acting is solid; perhaps too so. Though each actor presents formidable skill and ability, their presence leaves an artificial taste in the mouth. A perfect case would be the lead and their primitive range of emotions. For a medical practioneer, dashing around from room to room in heels and skirts, it’s obvious they’re more interested in the wardrobe than the front lobe.

The unrealistic and overdramatic portrayal of the mentally impaired is also distasteful. Although sets are clean, cared for and clinical, this is hardly the truth for those with difficult conditions, whose options usually exist within the polar opposite. There’s an opportunity to explore this harsh aspect, by the way, if anyone feels like taking it instead of making these shitty mediocre pulp thrillers.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376650/

It’s well known that the Soviets didn’t just stop their evil with fixed planned economies and brutalist housing. Secret underground cities, bases on the moon, plans to nuke the earth and even spreading social ills such as gay rights and feminism are among their crimes. Wait a second, weren’t the communists against that? Who understands these right-wing talk shows these days.

Terrible renegades in a region of war-torn Europe are on the loose however, with ideas to carry out worse atrocities, and only a team of brave soldiers can save the day. Beginning with an ominous introduction, the scene then leads to the killers packing an arsenal of weaponry with an intent to infiltrate the enemy and destroy them from within. (This was also released as The Hybrid).

Words cannot describe the relief at seeing John Lynch again (Black Death) and his ability to look well blimmin’ serious, like. His gritty realism sends a great presentation, and his crew of grim-looking vagrants do likewise, including the skinhead, the hairy hippie guy, the young woman with a chip on her shoulder and Doug, a kind of chain-smoking badass version of Thom Yorke.

Though everyone’s dressed up and ready for combat, there’s surprisingly – and disappointingly – little of it. Despite the expensive production, this one takes its sweet time going anywhere, spending a third of its life building up the tension for a tiny moment of action. And as the mystery claws its way deeper, bringing its intelligence and science fiction elements, it’s too wet and soppy to be wildly interesting or attention-grabbing.

This reveals to us the real star of the show, which is the set design. There’s an excellent competence of arrangement, with the harsh grey wastelands, the grim stone dungeons and the almost unreal laboratory so different in nature and caliber, yet coordinated and displayed with detail and precision. It’s probably legitimately where the production’s strongest efforts were made, and its brief brilliance. The soundtrack, in stark contrast, is dull and lackluster, pale, lazy and completely unmemorable.

Apart from that, there’s no awful faults or defects, and the story is gently intriguing, evolving in complexity and depth in its later chapters; nevertheless, it’s hardly a groundbreaking rollercoaster into the of world of mad scientists gone wild, which forms its element, and honestly, it’s all been chronicled before and better in your average Star Trek or Outer Limits episode. For a film that’s about the dangers of experimentation, it could well have used some.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798456/

Not tired of being bled dry enough? Fancy having some of your energy and hard-earned free time stolen? Because that’s what Leeches! promises, and boy does it certainly deliver, becoming the perfect compliment to all your other bad life choices – college, your ex-girlfriend, your career, well at least you have a job. You DO have a job, don’t you?

Lakecrest College is being invaded by predatory parasites, and its swim team are the prey. Ben, Steve, and the rest of the swimming athletes are in hot water as they encounter deadly monsters with a taste for human blood. Small and vulnerable at first, the species has developed into a monstrous size; and alarm bells begin to ring when an an athlete turns up dead.

This is alright in terms of production. For a trash reviewer, it’s a relief that the crew invested in a tripod, and additionally learned how to use it. Though the editing and construction isn’t anything special, for the most part it makes for watchable viewing, crudely but effectively telling the tale of a disastrous invasion rapidly expanding undetected within the confines of normal society.

The flick is total teen thriller material, and if there wasn’t enough testosterone pumped into the show, there’s an unusual fascination with the masculine body, with an uncomfortable number of frames focusing on the male buttocks. The incubation sequences are legitimately unsettling and foreboding: yet the cheap props are an exceeding let down, falling short of convincing or acceptable, despite insistently edited to appear so.

Leeches! also threatens to reveal a little intelligence with its awareness of drugs. Dabbling with chemicals as rampant mutants are on the loose, the teenagers are up against two enemies at once, and there’s a brush upon something larger. For a generic slasher, there’s no room exactly for deep philosophy or wisdom of course, but it’s still a miss. The attack/death scenes are a real drag too, and are pitiful at best, proving that action is not the quality of the film either.

So this is bad – but not THAT bad. While the tropes and stereotypes are obvious, it’s far from terrible, and though its content is poor and minimal, there’s a level of competence in horror which proves for a mildly satisfying watch. Especially if you like looking at man nipples – lots of it here.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339288/