A Horror Film Blog

I enjoyed this.  It is obviously a low budget effort, with just three actors and a limited set (cabin / woods) but whatever money they had was spent wisely, getting capable performers and splashing out (pun intentional) on lots of gory wolf action. Has anything nice ever happened when people go to an isolated cabin in the woods? The first half is building up characters and relationships.  The second half is a fight for survival against some mean doggos.  Neither part is quite on-the-money but it is still engaging enough.   The characters and the conflicts are  a bit stock - you get the feeling we're in a mash up of the Hunger Games (Tough girl with bow in a love triangle with her rugged best friend and her soft city boyfriend) and ... uh ... something with wolves.  But the acting and setting is good.   The mis-en-scene helps you work out it is a love triangle, and it ain't the boys who are hot for each other The second half feels a bit rushed...

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...

 A needless 'sequel' which adds nothing to the legend created in the first film and only weakens its legacy. Back in the late 90s I staggered into the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh one morning, beset with a hangover and fully intent on disliking the film I was about to see, the hysterically hyped The Blair Witch Project .  I did see it but I did not hate it.  I emerged from the Cameo blinking in the weak Scottish sunlight and chastened and humbled.  The film makers had accomplished what they set out to do - craft an effective, well made, innovative film. (I know, Cannibal Holocaust , The MacPherson Tape and The Last Broadcast and probably several others beat it by varying numbers of years, but none of them had any significant mainstream impact.) A genre was created with The Blair Witch Project , and effectively ended as well.  After that film, what else could you really do with  found footage style?  Other than endlessly repeat the same tropes and ideas....

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...