Possession Media

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/

No. Stop it. Vibrant country music and survival horror does not mix. Directors and filmmakers, please, don’t do this. If you want to appeal to hillbillies and rednecks, try to keep it based in rural locations and put in terrible techno songs or something, just don’t make it THAT kind of ordeal.

Deadfall Trail is the incredibly inane story of three self-absorbed morons on a challenging mountain hike designed for experts, hardened and experienced adventurers. Consisting of John, Julian and Paul, their goal is to weather the elements in a barren place and persist until the end in a cruel test of stamina. How ironic: this is also the difficulty presented for the viewer.

Virtually immediately, their ridiculously bombastic personalities clash violently, producing a display similar to what you’d see on National Geographic, when animals such as apes or wild dogs lash at each other in a mode of primal competition. No-one seems enthusiastic about intelligence, rationality or planning; their narcissism is only matched by their apparent brainlessness.

The wonderful scenery is marred by the incredible banality, a cheesy script and under average acting. They certainly could work potentially well as secondary characters, with a tougher counterpart to guide them, but by themselves, they don’t generate the humanity to achieve convincing leads. For a tiny cast of a trio, it becomes unbearable, especially with the awful lines they are ordered to deliver.

For a film that plants its flag upon the trial of surviving in the open, the emptiness of exploration or knowledge portrayed is another missed chance. Survivalists are obsessed with technique, creativity, and raw ability in nature. The most advanced thing you’ll get here are simple campfires. Well they attempt a trap for an animal but that fucks up pretty quick and very disastrously. What pros!

What’s worse is the cluttered and over-excitable sound design. The insistence of crickets and birds is initially enveloping, then quickly gets irritating. Though the arrangement is obviously there to encourage an atmosphere, there’s points where the use of silence would have been a stronger choice in order to allow visuals themselves to speak. Then there’s the banjo tracks, and that’s a point we’ve already discussed in every detail it matters.

A brief show of skill is revealed at the approximate mark of 40:00, which is not officially explained, but presumably is the experience of a terrifying psychotic episode brought on by extended isolation. The character appears to be covered in blood, perpetually drowning and fighting in a pool. The aggressive and unpredictable editing is surprisingly striking, leading to a feeling of unreality and disembodiment, and its style is sadly never repeated.

Although the wilderness it portrays is beautiful, this stupid movie is an ugly sonavabitch, offering little in the way of satisfaction and leaving much less. The lack of ideas, poor production and aimless direction is tough enough by 20 minutes in, and almost intolerable by the first third alone. Don’t think like you have anything to prove by missing this one.

2/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285217/

By and large, plague disaster concepts are pretty ineffective concepts nowadays. But they aren’t that bad. There’s usually at least something to salvage when the crisis is threatening to reach its peak and survivors are wrestling for antidotes or contamination suites. Best for this in my opinion is the insane Crossed comic run, the Stand by Stephen King (the first chapters only), and also fun fact: the Ring, yes the Japanese movie is based on smallpox.

This copycat crap is simply awful and so ridiculous. Filled with unnecessary military bravado, pumped up with character nonsense and a cringing cheese script, it’s a real test to get through this from start to finish without rolling your eyes every several minutes and this is no exaggeration. Moreover, the sheer ineptitude of camera ability and direction is frustratingly tedious despite the obvious ambitions to classics like Predator, Aliens, plus any random virus flick or outer limits action flick.

From the beginning though it doesn’t seem so bad. Hell, it seems almost better than average. With mid-life crisis man Dean, super strong bitch Mandy, fat coward guy and the funny pilot, the mainly introduced cast appear to be a strangely formidable fusion at first. The pilot is by far the most watchable and powerful character, especially when he expresses loud confusion and anxiety when facing confusing types of clouds while flying a plane in the air full of passengers.

This brief detour into comedy and stability is very fleeting. The rest of the trip is a brainless, budgetless and uninspired tale of survival. Though starting at a relatively entertaining speed, there’s a serious lack of plot development or progression. Midlife crisis man is appallingly casted in their role as a lead, lacking in energy, ability or soul, staged like a male bimbo and appearing as robotic as a DOS command.

The crass editing displays an inexperienced and amateur attempt, especially with the heavy rock song which is pertually out of tune. At least the filmers are generally available to using tripods. Yet the lack of design or ambition to the construction of each scene is pretty pathetic. Most of it all seems rushed and disorientated with little leaving anything tasteworthy.

Probably the most disappoitning thing this dumbass film missed out on was a surprisingly worthwhile potential of characters, yet it’s not the worst crime, which is being a pile of shit. And although its aims are appreciable, the result is a dire wander into incompetence, ignorance, incapability which nobody needs to suffer from ever again. Avoid – like the plague.

2/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2118009/

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/

God really likes Rockwell Falls. And He likes it just the way it is. So much that the human population has to stay directly at 436 at all times. Any deviation to this is not really treated very well, cue the fiery death as Population 436’s introduction which should give you some insight into what an asshole God is, if you’ve not read the Bible and learned firsthand anyway.

Enter Mr. Dickhead from Chicago who’s come to perform a census, poke his nose everywhere and be a general nuisance in this cursed rural American town which is presumably set somewhere in the post-boomer trump-voting midwest. Of course he gets what he deserves: trapped in a terrible group of paranoid cultists whom have no intention of letting him escape to his real life.

Nothing really goes extremely wrong here; the story plods along reasonably, staying safe yet generally holding itself together with a respectable coherance, and ending with a satisfying finale, even if it becomes just as dull and unexciting as the uninteresting town it depicts. For supernatural terror this is about as plain and vanilla on the menu and probably influenced mostly by the excellent 1973 Wicker Man.

There’s so many areas where greater development could have been created. The sense of isolation to be trapped in an alien place is only tentatively explored; the madness of the damned inhabitants has no real insight, and also overlooked is the potential for a discussion of religion, and how it both settles and displaces people. We began with our spirituality as nomads, so could this be connected somehow?

What appealled to me during the course of this forgettable crap was how a town which required to maintain a firmly static population could exist. Every settlement on earth requires its people to involve in some sort of trade or travel. Its plumbing and electricity surely require a fair amount of workers for installation and maintenance.

So it would have been fun to see some ideas about the villagers cheating “God”. First, you’d need to establish the exact parameters of the town. Then, carefully move people outside of them the moment an outsider enters, and return likewise (keeping in mind that this only applies to overnight stays). Some interesting engineering could potentially have been explored. Damn, need to watch Primer again for that fix.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462482/

HMMM. That’s kind of the feeling this one leaves you with at best. To be fair, it has had a lot of criticism and some pretty harshly toned reviews, so this intrepid investigator went out to explore for themselves and understand what all the commotion was about.

Henge begins relatively normally. (Normal, this is, in terms of Japanese style horror.) Yoshiaki is living a fairly simple life following the recovery of violent and strange seizures. With his devoted wife Keiko, his plans to return back to normality are soon interrupted as they begin again, this time with a rather odd case of sudden and temporary mutation. This unfolds as bizarre murders are happening in the same town, and yeah, doesn’t take a genius to start adding that up.

While set mostly in the couple’s house at first, slowly the film refreshingly creeps into the open, allowing for a greater visual impression. The lack of sets, low budget makeup/costumes and the tiny cast are achingly tough to get through; Aizawa’s above average performance makes up for somewhat, but you can’t help being left as if more effort and design was arranged into the practical realities of the production.

Although there is the obvious Tetsuo: The Iron Man influence, there are a few interesting aspects here which may possibly have been restructured to metaphorically show how domestic abuse works: the way it slips into the home undetected, develops over weeks and months, always seeming to excuse itself, and eventually swallows a person or a household with its own reproduction in mind. This was certainly my reaction from the actions of Keiko and her interactions with her rapidly mutating husband. Sadly, this isn’t the point of the flick.

There’s a handful of good moments of crazy murder and deranged depravity. So not everything is lost exactly. It’s the wild tangent that Henge takes which damages its watchability – not to mention credibility. By the end the narrative has rearranged itself from an attempt at psychological drama into something like a full-blown monster movie. Though its ambition and experimental nature is commendable, admittedly, this is a hell of a leap, and perhaps a focus on stronger balance between the two influences styles would have worked out more convincingly.

4/10

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

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

Note: Also known as Dark Image and Mirror Image

The best thing about this inept thriller is the character introduction. It’s a cool concept to see the people who made up the key components of the flick punched in a fever style of newspaper printing. That’s the best you’re gonna see in this pointlessly inept wannabe crime crap which needs to be avoided at all costs.

Stupid bitch Jessica and her silly friends are up against supernatural spirits and Detective Watts is on the call. Her uncle is rich and powerful and also daddy issues. Don’t mention that the female characters wear enough eyeshadow to presume they had to be punched in both eyes, hinting that only a concussion was the motivation in their involvement.

Terrible visions of cruelty and torture begin to plague her mind. Jessica still demands to live her own life, despite the visions of darkness, and the Dante’s comedy of cruelty promising to destroy her and everyone she loves. This comes in the way of inane parties and celebrations which really are as lame despite the intention to make it interesting.

This is some really bad shit and it’s tough to find a quality in any mode. The pathetic actors, the brainless story, the shameless whores, the incompetent sound design, it’s all bad. The thoughtless ineptitude about ghosts and demons is so amateruishly awful it’s barely worth to see it. This is really one to forget.

1/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1697973/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_5

The Ruins (2008)

Why are plants green? Chlorophyll. They grow this substance because they’re living solar panels which convert pure sunlight into energy through a process called photosynthesis. You are now smarter thanks to my blog. Unless you learned that in school in which case fuck you, smartass.

If they didn’t have this green stuff, how on earth would they get their food? A bunch of kids are going to find out in this fairly watchable and entertaining horror about a secret mayan temple and the not exactly hospitable inhabitants inside. Sadly it’s let down by messy structure, tedious dialogue and an emptiness of imagination in the paranormal zone.

This is a slow starter. The first 20 minutes feel uncomfortably overstretched, dragging along before anything happens. Even after the flick suddenly rears its brutality, it then reverts to more romantic posturing and pretentious character squabbles, with a long wait for the next delivery of some disaster or action that moves things along. If you’re gonna watch this, get used to this.

The camera work also feels sluggish, distant, and unprepared, and there’s a distinct lack of design somewhere in the story where suspense seems to be forgotten and nearly every scene is either too long, too short, or should have been cut out entirely. That’s not to say there’s no good parts; the scene of the kids being extracted out of the well as the enemy crawls around them was admittedly a nail-biting and well executed moment, and there’s more in store.

The lack of innovation with the four friends is also a miss. This isn’t the fault of the actors at all – if anything they’re above average, most notably Jonathan Tucker who creates an impressive display of stress and angst, but all leave a surprisingly good impression, clearly being very experienced and capable in their jobs.

Well, this is a pretty basic survival horror. While it’s not exactly terrible, and definitely superior to a lot of trash, the main drawback is the sloppy storytelling and editing, with the arbitrary super-abilities of the antagonist as another strong negative, ironically helping to render meaningless the terror it threatened to create.

4/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963794/