Reminiscent of Alien and Event Horizon, Pandorum overcomes its laser tag and neon lights look with a surprisingly smart and chilling story. Go see it.

 

 

The films of Quentin Tarantino are difficult to codify.  As a true cinephile and a man who wholly consumes film, the man loves to work in genre in a way that trumps the very conventions of the genre he’s attempting at the time.  Reservoir Dogs, a heist picture sans a heist, is a crowning example of subverting the (crime) genre and making it something new, something fresh.  And if Dogs is a cosmetic crime surgeon, so is Death Proof to the horror genre (exploitation fare to be more specific).  And while his new film Inglourious Basterds is not quite a horror film proper, it’s hardly and out-and-out trench picture of war.  He’s once again melded genre, flipped audience expectation, fusing humorous dialogue with balletic violence in a way that seems both familiar and new at once.  In short, Basterds is a quintessential Tarantino experience.  And as far as experiences go, this one’s pretty fuc*in’ hard!

 

Who says modern day blockbusters are completely soul devoid and offer little more than visual pyrotechnics? Okay, well most do seem to fall under said description.  But to all you sci-fi junkies and action hounds, or really any casual fan of cinema, you better friggin’ take note – Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 is a highly charged, kick-ass thrill-ride equipped with well thought out social commentary and a fresh take on the interaction between humans and aliens.  As outlandishly imaginative as the film is, you actually believe it could happen, and that’s about the best damn compliment one can offer for a film of this ilk.  It grabs you from the jump and doesn’t let go until the intense, even if rote, high-octane finale.

 

Over the past five or six years, the horror genre has been inundated with a spate of what I deem "trap and torture" films; that is, films in which a demented assailant corrals helpless victims, bounds them up and subjects them to the most foul and heinous barrage of physical torment.  Flicks like Saw and its sequels, as well as Hostel and it's continuation, are gleaming examples of such.  Well now, courtesy of Marcus Dunstan and co-writer Patrick Melton, the lucrative brain children of such populist genre fare as all three Feast films, Saw IV, V, VI and soon to be VII - comes Dunstan's directorial debut The Collector - a hyper-charged, gore sodden piece of flash horror that like its main perpetrator, clocks you over the head with unrelenting lead pipe cruelty.

 

You’d probably have to go back some 33 years to find the last truly effective demonic-child film.  Sure the have been countless imitations and rehashes, some with varying degrees of success (i.e. creepiness), but it’s been awhile since the crowning example, The Omen, has even flirted with being supplanted.  So when I saw the previews for Orphan, I thought, here we go – another Good Son retread only with a possibly harder R-rating and a gender reversal.  Needless to say, my (good) expectations  were little to none.  This pre-assessment was unfair.  Orphan, despite its rote and in-scene predictability, actually has a decent twist and sly revelation of such that ultimately elevates the film from mere exploitation schlock to something a bit more earnest in its grim demeanor.  It’s honestly a decent and solid piece of throwback horror.


 

Little Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) Looks Over Her New Sister in ORPHAN!

Sophomore jinx for one Brendan Foley it seems, who after his debut Riddle, turns to a bottom of the barrel creature feature that equally fails to both entertain and frighten. Personally, I love it when a film is appositely titled for its own deficiencies. As a film, Legend of the Bog is certainly eons a way from being any sort of legend. That’s not to say it isn’t legendarily bogged by thoroughly amateurish filmmaking on every level. Bogged down by its derivation, its utter lack of creativity, bogged down by insolent subject matter and inability to capitalize on any of the talent associated within the production. In sum, Legend of the Bog is undeniable b-movie twaddle that should be quarantined for fear of mass contagion.  


 

 

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) Tries to Fend Off a Deadly Demon in Drag Me to Hell! 

 

Only a handful of filmmakers are at the forefront of their respective craft.  Only a few can pioneer genre in a way that sets the tone for their contemporaries, who, let’s face it, often become mere insubordinates.  One of those men is Sam Raimi, a writer/director who blazed trails of ingenuity and hyper-imaginative low budget logistics back in the early 80s.  The man who brought audiences the highly venerated Evil Dead trilogy (Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) now returns some 17 years later to the corner of cinema that help put him on the map as an true A-list visionary.  17 years later, Mr. Sam Raimi shows zero deceleration in his new supernatural terror Drag Me to Hell.

 

 

Anyone who’s read this site from time to time knows of our hardened penchant for all things horror-western.  It’s an underdeveloped genre hybrid, one rife with infinite potential.  So naturally, we perk up when we get a chance to see such a mélange, regardless of star power (or lack thereof) and/or distribution status.  And J.T. Petty’s 2008 film The Burrowers was certainly no exception.  Too bad it’s neither exceptional.  It’s a deliberate slog, a film that moves at such a snail’s pace it’s hard to get excited when the occasional ghoul does finally surface.  It’s a film of sweeping landscape beauty by day, an indiscernible shroud by night.  When we do eventually become exposed to any sort of terror, it occurs way too abruptly with obnoxiously murky lighting to the point where I was literally squinting with glasses on.  No joke.  A shame really, this could have actually been pretty special. 

 

 

 

It’s been a long slog getting to the end of this year’s After Dark Horrorfest “8 Films to Die For.”  And as much as I appreciate and support the notion of an annual horror event, the fact remains that this year’s crop aren’t the greatest of films to hit the genre.  So here we are, wrapping up our reviews with Oh Ki-Hwan’s South Korean chiller Voices (AKA Someone Behind You).  Produced way back in 2007, Hwan’s film centers on two sisters who find themselves in the middle of a malefic death curse that seems to infest everyone around them.  Despite being a bit turbid at times, the flick has a stylized visual flare and beautifully choreographed gore that actually appealed to me a bit more than the lot of the aforementioned “8 films.” 

 

 Faith (Amy Shiels) Does All She Can to Escape the SLAUGHTER!

 

Moving right along with the 7th of 8 (After Dark Horrorfest) “Flicks to Die For”, we bring you a look at Stewart Hopewell’s rustic slasher film Slaughter.  Based on true events, the flick focuses on a girl on the lam from her semi-psychotic boyfriend.  She escapes with a promiscuous girl she meets at a bar, they retreat to the latter’s isolated farmhouse.  With a skein of pigpen montages meant to reinforce the films title (Swine Flu, anyone?), inter-cut with cryptic, at times offscreen violence – we’re sort of left with a film whose build up not only lasts far too long, but ultimately fails to deliver when finally arriving at the pinnacle in the final reel.  It’s essentially frivolous b-movie dross, no wonder a feature debut from the filmmaker of such horror shorts as Misfortune and 3AM.