A Horror Film Blog

 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 ...

What, exactly, were Stuart Gordon's claim to be cinema's pre-eminent adaptor of HP Lovecraft? The hideous monster that lurks in the darkness, tormenting the innocent with his depravity.  Image Bauer Hosting His credentials: Reanimator , a witless take on one of Lovecraft's most morbidly (literally) funny stories; Dagon , a blundering rendition of The Shadow over Innsmouth, and a few odds and ends like Castle Freak which owes a few vague ideas to The Outsider;  From Beyond (a lurid 'reimagining' of a  minor story) and a brief, camp rendering of The Dreams In The Witch House - where he added the sex scenes Lovecraft carelessly forgot to include in his original mind bending yarn. This is the only Lovecrafty bit in the film, where monstrous Gorgio comes face to face with ... himself Thing is, none of these films are actually any good, on any level.  Nor are they worthy failures, like the recent The Colour Out of Space .  Stuart Gordon's 'Lovecraft' films a...

An effective but uneven folk horror from the Netherlands, a place not generally associated with unspeakable ancient evil steeped into the soil ... but is the real monster the atrocious dubbing? Sorry to bother you.  We're here to talk about the terrible ancient curse afflicting your bloodline.  Can we com in? Moloch is a mixed bag.  First of all, the dubbing is terrible.  Characters speak without moving their lips and then their lips flap for several seconds after the finish their lines - which are rendered in unemphatic fashion by voice actors who sound bored rather than terrified or annoyed or aroused.  Why, couldn't they have stuck subtitles on?  The set of people who are willing to soldier on in spite of the dire dubbing is identical to the set of people who will read subtitles.  Why degrade their experience by this travesty? But that said ... Beneath this superficial issue is a good film, made in a very small way and with a tight, claustroph...

Derivative, formulaic that often feels like pastiche.  Watchable enough until the monster rears its unconvincing head.  Then all hope (of fear) is lost. It is mostly a coincidence I'm writing this up in the immediate aftermath of Ghost Ship .  There I may have revealed a somewhat erotic fixation on ships, rust and torches and the diligent peruser of this blog (if such a thing exists) might understandably conclude watching Blood vessel - which is on a ship and where torches are used - might be evidence of a further attempt to sate these deviant desires.  I claim innocence, but expect no-one to believe me. "I am making it off this boat alive!"  And he does. (Luckily, it seems, I can say whatever I like here and no-one will ever know, as - other than a weird anomaly with The Sadness readership numbers have not, shall we say, blown the roof off the fucking joint.) Anyway, Blood Vessel .  I found it trawling through the nether regions of Shudder, and admit that ...

I have vague memories of watching this film years ago.  I remember not liking it very much.  Seeing it appear on Shudder, I thought I would revisit it, in case I had judged it unfairly. Perhaps.  It's an okay film, blessed with a good cast and budget 'all on screen' as they say; but it struggles to put its story across convincingly. Torches.  There are a lot of torches in this film.  at least these guys came prepared. The producers include Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver.  Big name producers guarantees a decent budget and access to resources but it also puts some limitations in terms of tone and story.  It can't be too dark, it's a Robert Zemeckis film.  It has to be brash and loud and in-your-face, it's a Joel Silver film. So, to the story.  A crew of rugged, tough-as-nails salvagers are commissioned by a completely unsinister stranger called Ferriman (geddit?) to locate and salvage a liner that has been drifting in the Bering Sea for 40 yea...

 A sort of interesting idea that doesn't come off.  Weakness in writing, plotting characterisation and acting prevent this micro-budget effort generating effective terror. Angie meets the big worm.  I don't think we need to spend too much time deconstructing this image. Our main character is 'erotic performer' Angie, a dancer in a sex shop called Revealer.  For those of us not familiar with the 1980s sex industry, this kinda like a cam girl deal where a guy would pay a girl on the other side of a plexiglass screen to take her clothes off.  No, it doesn't sound much fun.  The 80s were a terrible time and I am amazed we survived.  The other main is and League of Decency type Sally.  The End of the World happens and somehow they end up huddled in the cramped confines of Angie's booth as all Hell literally breaks out around them. Soon they are fighting wriggling penis monsters and the demon lord Asmodeus - though I am almost sure it was just some dude...

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...