A Horror Film Blog

Downrange , directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, is okay, in a sort of super reductive way.  Instead of standard stalk'n'slash fare, which usually being stalked across various locations and slashed one by one, or even trapped in one fairly large location with lots of hidey-holes, this film is limited to one, very small location - the lee side of a car, with a sniper taking potshots at any part of the luckless road trippers huddling on the far side of their crippled vehicle.  It's impressively minimalist, and that bare-basics attitude is applied to the script as well as the narrative.   We get virtually nil character development beyond some basic young slash fodder stereotypes.    This isn't Wolf Creek , which took its time and developed pleasant, rounded characters before making bad things happen to them in the second half.   The sniper is never given any motivation or development - though we are allowed to see him - something denied his victims until the...

Best advice for this film is: read the summary below (no spoilers).  If, based on that, you have ANY reservations AT ALL, avoid. If you aren't put off, you should probably still avoid, but for different reasons. There is a gun.  There is a woman.  I guess we know now how they came up with the title Gun Woman (2014, directed by Kurando Mitsutake) tells a vaguely familiar story.  A depraved maniac tortures, rapes and murders a young woman.  Her husband, a brilliant surgeon, decides to gain revenge.  Realising his quarry is taking steps to protect himself and only now indulges his predilections in a sealed, guarded facility and only with fresh corpses, the surgeon concocts a plan.  He kidnaps a young woman, imprisons her and trains her to be a lethal fighting machine.  He then explains she's going to be drugged to appear dead, offered to the target as 'fresh meet' and when she recovers consciousness, she'll arm herself with the weapons he will have ...