A Horror Film Blog

A young couple decide to have a weekend away at his daddy's beach house in a town perched on the edge of the ocean.  Damned if they don't choose the weekend of some terrifying ecological catastrophe for it. Emily and Randall smooch.  We don't get many essentially nice people smooching in horror films, so let's celebrate them. I enjoyed the first two acts of this of this film a lot. And they are distinct acts - the initial establishment and location of character, then confusion and mounting horror, followed by an action-orientated climax. I particularly appreciated the director's willingness to take things slowly and let unease and uncertainty build up. For the first half hour everything seems normal and mundane.  Our characters - Emily and Randall - arrive at the beach house.  They meet an older couple who are also planning on staying there.  Delightfully, and so unusually for films, no-one is unpleasant or acts like a total dick. Misunderstandings smoothed over...

 A frustrating missed opportunity to do something awesome. There are some tropes that never get old, in my humble opinion.  One of the oldest, most over-used yet evergreen is the one about the squad of tough-as-nails  (or, less often smart-as-fuck scientists) who have to investigate a Terribly Mysterious Happening and discover Things Man Was Not Meant To Know that eats their faces before the Plucky Final Guy / Girl blows it up or flushes it into space or whatever.  Love it.  Any film like that is almost guaranteed a sympathetic viewing - and (weirdly) the closer they stick to the template the better they mostly are.  Mostly. Milena Radulović spends almost the entire film looking various sorts of bad ass. Which is what makes Superdeep disappointing.  In theory, it should be among the greatest of such films - it is essentially The Thing and Aliens and a bunch of lesser genre examples ( Leviathan , Ghost Ship , Event Horizon ) stuck into a blender and ...

This is ... not good.  Like, bad. Grotesque, and not in a good way. A small fishing community ins assailed by malevolent demi-human fish creatures that like to rend flesh and rape women,  the latter is shown in embarrassingly bad - but needlessly prolonged - sequences.  And repeated, in case you didn't get the idea first time round.  Fish guys raping human girls.  For your amusement.  Because there wasn't no way anyone was expecting anyone would be scared by this shit. In case you didn't believe me about the fish guy rape bit It would have been rubbish in the 1960s, but this was made in 1980, so there is no excuse for it being this inept and clueless.  Horror films have often been a stepping stone for film makers - a simple plot, gallons of fake blood and some gratuitous nudity.  Roger Corman's persistently schlocky endeavours probably helped more film writers, actors, directors and technicians learn their trade - and pay the bills - than any pret...

Alligator is directed by Lewis Teague and written by John Sayles, who also went onto direct a string of very good films in the 80s and 90s ( The Return of the Secaucus 7 , City of Hope , Lone Star , Limbo , Men With Guns ). Termigator III: Rise of the Munchines It's tempting, given Sayles's involvement to try to see a bit more quality in this film than it really has.  It's a big, dumb film about an alligator terrorising Chicago.  But though Sayles may have writer it, it bears the hallmarks of Teague's mentor, Roger Corman.  It's a rather silly B movie with no real notable qualities. I did want to like the film more than I did, and wanted to see some strands of quality that would raise it above the run of the mill Corman fare.  But if we're honest, if the same film was presented to us without the revered name attached, we shrug, mutter something about "Just a Troma film without the boobs" and go back top bemoaning the lack of quality films. Perhaps Sayl...

The Marshes , directed by Roger Scott, is an Australian film about a team of ecologists who get lost in an endless Australian swamp, while some malevolent force menaces them. Boffins Priya, Ben and student Will are conducting environmental research in a vast isolated wetland.  At first the evil seems human: Priya encounters a gnarly local at a gas station and inevitably they encounter him again in the swamp.  Ultimately, however, he is the least of their problems. We gonna be just fine in this here swamp. The Marshes feels like it is trying to be a mix of Wolf Creek and The Blair Witch Project , and this doesn't work too well. The first half - the Wolf Creek part - is promising, playing on the perennial Australian fear of the Bad Man in the Outback.  Nothing too original happens but it shows promise - which makes the failure to realize that potential more disappointing. We're introduced to our main characters and the initial premise with economy.  The conflict with...