Category: 5/10

The next time you have a bad day, spare a thought for the unfortunate survivors inhabiting the world set in Rakka. Ranking somewhere in crappiness between Terminator and the Matrix, the odds on humanity’s future are slim to none when invaders take over the planet and begin to terraform it into their personal vacation space.

That’s until the few soldiers left suddenly discover an opportunity to turn the tide. And with the last of earth’s forces reduced to a measly handful of fighters versus an endless supply of mind-controlling lizards who are turning the remaining population against itself, they could use every chance they get.

With a premise so bleak and dire, the glimmers of hope are what suck the viewer in – and it’s a great strategy. Mostly driven by cool and dry narration upon busy action scenes, Rakka is a visually powerful no-nonsense apocalypse flick which is criminally too short at only 20 minutes yet a worthwhile view all the same.

It’s such a relief the story skips the inane romance or relationship crap that contaminates so much sci-fi, and dutifully concentrates on the despondency and insignificance of the human opposition to their oppressors. Weaver is another thankful addition, perfectly filling the role of leader and commander by doing what she’s always done best – saving the world from aliens.

More positives are the strong production setup and superior SFX. The gruesome landscapes of bodies and bones are fantastically presented. Some of the costumes and makeup are impressively original, most especially the man with half his body replaced with an imaginative combination of futuristic machinery and evil alien goo.

This is pretty darn good! A pity it’s finished before you know it, and the many loose ends aren’t ever tidied up or resolved. And although technically stunning, Rakka is turns out to be hardly anything you’ve never seen in the past. Still, definitely worth a watch.

5/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6990734/

Iceland is the perfect setting for a horror movie. Cold, remote, filled with icy wastelands and treacherous mountains, yet tentatively close to civilization. Why doesn’t it get used more? Is Björk the only thing it’s ever going to produce? Kind of disappointing, not gonna lie.

Rift won’t disappoint however with its dark and gripping tale about two troubled lovers stalked by a strange and mysterious power that won’t seem to let them leave. And their clashing ideas on how a relationship works take a back seat, when something worse than merely their difficult past threatens to haunt them.

Most of the discussion is the strained bond between the fallen outs Gunnar (Stefánsson) and Einar (Óskarsson). Initiated by a bizarre phone call, Gunnar rushes to his ex-partner’s aid, just to discover everything is strangely okay. Is Einar simply acting up to snare Gunnar’s attention or are there larger things afoot?

The visual composition is excellent and technically impressive, laced with scenes of carefully maintained balance, fresh hues and tones, and takes advantage of Icelands natural beauty by capturing anything from Iceland’s wild landscapes to the smallest drop of water, even occasionally utilizing them as elements in the story. (Show-offs.)

While there’s rarely any overt terror or scares, the subtle buildups and the brooding score deliver a genuinely unsettling and creepy environment. Stefánsson and Óskarsson serve a faultless and confident performance, comfortable with their roles as characters struggling to find out who they really are.

The plot is also pretty decent. Gunnar is at a loss how to deal with his beloved or the ghostly supernatural forces that appear to be involved. And it may move at the pace of a stunned hundred-year old turtle at times, but its developments and revelations are nonetheless intriguing and satisfying.

My main complaints would be is single-minded fixation on the singular relationship which is a real limitation, and the production’s distraction with the perfection of its own aesthetics instead of breaking the rules. And what the hell was with the ending? Still, it’s a hearty watch, and certainly recommended if you’re willing to try an indie which knows what it’s doing.

5/10

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

The change of views to what’s considered acceptable in cinema is incredible. 30, 10, even 5 years ago, what was extreme then, is normal now. When August Underground was released, especially the second installment Mordum, it was panned for its disgusting and revolting nature. Nowadays it would be equally lambasted – for being boring.

Let’s re-invent our media. Headless is a retrospective flick set in the 70’s chronicling a cruel and demented killer carving out a bloodthirsty life of torture, mutilation and rape upon the weak and defenseless, while stalked by a peculiar hallucination. It’s horrible, sickening, depraving, and you’re here to enjoy it all.

Launching with an wild and brutal intro, the story then deviates into the meanderings of an unnamed psychopath who goes on to soak himself in the blood of drifters and outcasts, tear them into pieces, and fuck their skulls. This seems to be the only way they can feel any intimacy or get off thanks to their upbringing of crushing abuse.

Generally the production is okay; The murder and execution (literally: execution) of characters is satisfying. Gore is thrown by the bucket, throats are cut like they had zippers already there, and limbs are crushed or severed with the ease of breaking lego. It’s fun and exciting to see a shocker that doesn’t give a shit about anything or take so much seriously.

The acting is sub par at best. With no real leaders or personalities, it’s amateurish as shit. More points are lost for its drab narrative which suffers from a lack of intelligence and a dependence on plastic stereotypes which destroy every kind of suspense. The poor props are handled okay yet will often make for a laborious than torturous watch.

And despite the innovative direction, nothing really beats the fact that a tripod could have been used sometimes. It wouldn’t be a stretch to control the image on occasions. This isn’t an easy thing for trash makers to accept; how do you convince this to a crew that want to film someone spooning out of eyeballs and eating them? When you put it that way…

5/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3922350/

According to the ancient proverb, breaking a mirror equals several years’ bad luck. My question is: does this accumulate interest? And will it affect my pension? Coming up next on the Dave Ramsey show.

Oculus is an intriguing thriller concerning a peculiar object: a single, innocent, ornate pane of glass. Siblings Kayleigh and Tim threaten to believe otherwise, and after suffering what appears to be a terrible loss, they set out hatching a plan to annihilate its evil once and for all.

It’s not going to be easy. The story weaves inside desperation and paranoia, sliding unreliably through the past and the present, and ruminates upon choices, fate, and family, leaving the truth of the matter a mystery, stranding the reality of the characters between the supernatural and psychological.

Gillan (Kayleigh) is certainly the star. Her deep voice, crude elegance and wild intelligence make for a great watch. The smooth cameras, gentle music and cool visuals capture her excellently, and pretty much every performance is enhanced by the superior sound design.

The lack of sets or visual ideas are a negative. The stupid jumpscares are definitely a miss, which immediately ruin what apparently sought out to be a clever drama. There are moments though, such as the juxtaposition of the apple and lightbulb scene which are alright.

And the ending is atrocious as well. It’s quite surprising considering the general competence of the flick up to this point, its rough engineering of storyline and the possibility of expansion to the capabilities of the central antagonist. And then this shit. Well, it’s shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_(film)

5/10

Times are tough for young mom Karla. Broke as hell, stressful job, partner overseas, and living in a crappy apartment on the wrong side of town. Guess she really shouldn’t have spent all her money on that netbook. But everyone else has one and Apple is cool and the finance option was so so so tempting.

Angry bill collectors on the phone are the least of her worries however, as the struggling mother discovers a strange thief within her midst in this unsettling 15-minute spine-tingler. Initially believing her mind to be playing tricks, she uncovers the sinister truth behind the bizarre events inside her home, and finds that it threatens much more than simply her sanity.

This was alright; for a one-off, it’s not bad. Although its soundtrack is disappointing, the visual production is strong, and the acting is pretty tight, which must face the limitation of the shaky earthquake style of camera recording which is roughly patched up with the solid editing. (There’s definitely a video game stock effect of a cupboard opening at the 6 minute mark which I just can’t quite nail.)

Its limited writing isn’t captivating or show-stopping exactly, and could certainly have benefited by being fleshed out with additional elements such as an expanded cast, alternative perspectives of the story, and/or background/textual narration. The territory to explore the emotions of a threatened parent is endless. So perhaps stretched in imagination, yet a convincing execution.

5/10

https://letterboxd.com/film/urban-myth-nest/

What do you do when you’re desperate to create an industrial punk sci-fi movie but have almost no money? Easy: hire the cheapest actors you can find, get them to run around in a green room for 2 months and spend the remainder of the year working on the editing and creating the techno-atrocity called Manborg.

Suffering from memory loss, a cybernetic abomination discovers himself in a strange high-tech world under the control of… violent mutant fascists? Unable to keep himself out of trouble for very long, he’s soon captured and thrown into a cruel arena to compete for his life for the amusement of others, where himself and a group of fellow brawlers ponder their dwindling chance of survival – as so does the rest of mankind.

For a science fiction, convincing computer graphics are absolutely key to delivering the whole show. Here, they’re awful. This is really cheap production which will not be to everyone’s taste. As well as the special effects, the sets are obviously tiny, props are tacky, and the horrible stop motion animation is rather painful. Usually this would instantly be a dealbreaker since we live in a time where no sci fi would be seen dead without expensive lasers and jaw-dropping spaceship designs.

But the insane thing is that this actually works; it amazingly capitalizes and exploits upon its own poverty. Thanks to talented directive coordination, the story demands interest, relentlessly keeping up the pace and throwing in the occasional comedy whenever things turn quiet. The costumes are also impressive, especially the bad guys created with a futuristic Hellraiser twist. And even though an eyesore to look at first, the corny characters, OTT theatrics and the hilarious dubbing of the No.1 Man beg for your appreciation, especially with overblown lines like “The power of the human spirit will never be obsolete!” punches demon

If you can overlook the obvious budget constraints on this flick then you’re in for some fun. While nothing serious or groundbreaking, it doesn’t pretend to be, with lead director Steven Kostanski doing a hell of a lot with a little and whipping up a surprisingly satisfying watch, which is sadly a little too short finishing disappointingly at just below the 1 hour mark. If you can imagine Lexx with more fight scenes and an asian martial arts guy covered in blood, you’re halfway here.

5/10

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

Ever since Battle Royale, there’s been endless copies of the bewildering Japanese student slaughter. Each competing to be more destructive, nihilistic and cruel, they also tend to throw in nonsense, pursuing to be subversive and nonsensical at the same time. There may have been forerunners though that was the definite cinema moment in my opinion to spawn them all. (Probably wrong opinion.)

As the Gods Will is the latest entry in such hyper-brutal glorification of violence and it’s not bad, not great, not good, somewhere in between. Influenced heavily by facsimilies of the works described as above, this has a few somewhat worthwhile moments of enjoyable torture yet doesn’t really go anywhere near the emotional depths that it drives to be; it’s shock value for the general sake of it, and it soon gets old real quick.

Characters are whimisically whisked away to be murdered without a shred of mercy. So how can you expect to build any kind of serious ties or invest emotion in them? That’s the viewer’s challenge here and it’s not easy. Student Takahata is suddenly thrown into a deadly arena of survival when he manages to escape a bizarre bouncing head which turns his fellow students into… beads. And while gloating all the time, because that makes it more scary, right?

Stumbling over a pile of his dead comrades, Takahata finds that the worst is yet to come, embarking along what feels more like an episodic series of arena-style competition crammed into a viewing then one real movie. Each scene is so long – they may be designed to generate interest in the various personalities, but this is stuff is so corny that it would only, well, appeal to kids. Apologies to all kids.

Much of the horror is reliant on the animated enemies which aren’t too offkey. Technically they’re very competently composed and fearsome; after the first 10 seconds, they get really cheap and tacky, and this isn’t such a bad thing because the idea of being devoured by a generic advertisement digital moscat could have had a ring of irony in its murderous rampage. Since the film doesn’t take itself so seriously anyway, this feels like a missed shot at an open goal for self-criticism.

Takahata’s adolescent ruminations ultimately lead the narrative, and they are despairingly boring, though many moments – especially including the various tests he is subjected to – interestingly veer in the direction of criticism and statement about and against society. Sadly, although there’s a lot of noise, there isn’t much bravery or courage to back it up.

If you’re going to watch this, expect to be trapped in a 25-minute time loop of killing, infighting, dramatic victory, repeat. That isn’t a careless exaggeration; there is so much structural repetition of idea that the director could have created a more sustainable approach by marketing their concept as a string of episodes, rather than cramming them all into one 2-hour festival of mayhem. Don’t chop your films up like your sushi.

5/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3354222/

Uzumaki is probably the finest piece of horror manga to exist. The only competitors who could compare maybe would probably be Tomie or the Floating Classroom. Then there are the other epics such as Akira. Apart from that, there are few stories which could ever hope to match Junto Ito’s apocalyptic masterpiece of mystery and terror.

Despite being a manga, a discipline of drawing usually reserved for comedy and adventure to younger readers, Ito uses the style instead to deliver a surreal storm of splatter, gore and perversion. What’s worse is the crushingly bleak gloom and dread that lurks beyond each page. It’s an outstanding piece of work which any horror enthusiast needs to give at least one read.

Falling into the dizzy green hills of Kurozu-cho, two schoolchildren journey into hopelessness as their town and its people are torn into turmoil by a wretched and invincible force. For no apparent reason, everything slowly begins to undertake a transformation into a spiral. Plants, animals, humans and objects are subverted into monsterous shapes, with the resulting and bewildering destruction developing into panic, chaos, and insanity.

This cinema conversion is pretty bad – firstly in that it doesn’t even try to be much of a film. Instantly, just like the comic, “chapters” are announced. With each one finishing on a scare, this episodic style feels curious and unnecessary with no significant gain exploited from the division, and disruptive to creating a movie which would have an original mind. Then, it becomes apparent that most of the entire film is to be a clone. Well that explains it.

But just cherry-picking out the standout moments and expecting others to fill in the gaps is a real miss. The friendship of Reiki and Shuichi is the spine of the story, and is hardly explored. Ignoring the aggressive deterioration of the town and its supernatural doom is another failure. Finally, this half-assed collage gets played at the end and then the credits roll, like the directors just gave up and ran out the building by the time of post-production.

Well, it’s okay. While disturbing and unsettling, especially with some of the special effects, this was a fairly lackluster job to me and relatively forgettable. Ultimately so much more would have been accomplished if the creators paid more attention to the influences of what they were looking at rather than copy what was already right in front of them.

5/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzumaki_(film)

Here’s a strange one. Hospitals and horror are more staple as steak and eggs, so usually your expectations aren’t going to be high when you’ve seen something done to death. This time it was interesting to see a few new rabbits pulled out of the hat.

Set in what is presumably sister-fucking hick county, Carter the cop can’t traffic ticket his way out of this one when he’s faced with a terrible supernatural force which reaches all the way down into a dark local history. That’s all the excuse needed for people to start tearing their faces off. If you like gore, you’re probably going to like this.

There’s some pretty good stuff here. Brutal fights, buckets of blood and impressive props, all the while punctured with strange nightmarish sequences. Each moment of evil is refreshingly unpredictable and violent, and the score is oppressively atmospheric; nice to know Lustmord is still turning tricks.

Yet I’m not sure if it could have been casted better. Fathers does a great job of being a jerk, but many of the others just don’t seem scripted or arranged right. Poole in particular only feels like a wiped out hysterical goon and only became irritating to me.

Finally, the film really suffers from a lack of suspense. As this was clearly made by horror enthusiasts, it’s bewildering to see so few moments where a moment of tension is allowed to be built up and released. And despite its fiery entrance, The Void rapidly loses momentum by the midpoint, slowly grinding to an uninteresting halt by the end.

5/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Void_(2016_film)

Wracked with the death, violence and misery of plague, the remaining authority is incensed by the report of survivors, and goes out to kill them all. Well, what else do you expect when you get the christians involved.

In this song of doom set in medieval times, a fanatic leads a band of killers to reach a mysterious village where all have seem to have suspiciously avoided the tidal wave of disease which has destroyed most of the country. Unimpressed to hear of such withcraft and fearing unrest, they soon dispatch to remedy this source of evil, clear in their minds that not all are worthy of forgiveness.

Scenes of burning human pyres should be a dead giveaway on this one. Wasting barely any time on romance or theatrics, Black Death leaps into a grim world of torture and survival, delighting in the reality of disease, relishing its grief, misery, and senseless devastation. Characters, settings and developments and are stressed to be represented as genuine and authentic rather than mythical or strange, and there’s sense of atmosphere, especially when you hear the gentle carass of a glove over a rack of bloody torture equipment.

Performances are fantastic, but it’s the fascinating accuracy of the costumes, rituals and props which really sell the show. Moreover, Black Death deftly navigates religion, avoiding to make great judgements, instead mostly satisfied with trying to make itself a slowly developing tale. This is its main flaw: for the characters soon drift into the distance against a slow and plodding story which fails to grip you or demand attention, nor effectively balance the mythology and realism that it so well portrays.

While the lack of structure or tension sadly descends into banality, the ending is fantastic, with the creation of this amazing antagonist built on denial and self-deceit. The subversion of an innocent adolescent into heartless persecutor in the final moment is brilliant and shows an understanding of psychology way beyond most of the feckless meandering and wandering that makes up the body of the flick. What a waste. Still worth a watch though.

5/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_(film)