It’s 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A French captain has been wounded, and brought to the medical tent. He’s got hit by three bullets, but when the army surgeon removes them he discovers an additional fourth bullet which is made of silver. How did that get there? Well, obviously the captain knows as he smiles and says “eight for silver“. Then we need to head back 35 years before the battle, to 1881 in rural France, in order to find out the origins of that silver bullet. The brutish land baron Seamus slaughters a Romani clan who have settled upon “his“ land, except it’s not really his, they have a claim to it. Seamus won’t have any of that, of course, and he gathers a bunch of men to have them brutally killed and one of them is even dismembered and put on a stake as a horrifying scarecrow. Yikes! But, as everyone should know, you do not wrong anyone from a Romani clan without suffering the consequences. The elderly woman of the clan is buried holding a set of silver dentures, which will now serve as a means for their revenge. Soon, the townspeople and Seamus’ children are having terrifying nightmares of the dismembered scarecrow and the silver fangs. One day, the children go to the place where the scarecrow is located and the silver fangs were buried, and a farm boy named Timmy digs it up in what appears to be a trance-like urge. He then puts them inside his mouth, and bites one of the other children’s throat. This is the start of a nightmare for the townspeople and Seamus and his family most of all.
The Cursed (aka Eight for Silver) is a gothic horror werewolf film from 2021, directed by Sean Ellis. It was shot in the Charente region of western France, filmed on 35mm with anamorphic lenses. The movie serves as a gothic spin on the werewolf mythos, of which there have been numerous interpretations over the years. All from the classical old-fashioned werewolf movies to coming-of-age movies like Ginger Snaps, or movies set in a more modern setting like Wer. This one belongs in the old-fashioned category but with twists and turns of its own. The director said he was inspired by the story of the Beast of Gévaudan from the 1700s, where a man-eating beast was terrorizing the people of the former province of Gévaudan in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France, where there had been 210 attacks and 113 deaths between 1763 and 1767. Historians are still unsure what kind of animal the “beast“ was, but most likely an unusually large wolf, perhaps the last of the extinct species the dire wolf. Needless to say, stories like this are the perfect fuel for myths and legends, and it’s easy to see how it could inspire one to make a werewolf story.
Visually, the movie is very good with some decent set-pieces. The misty landscape during the bleakest autumn is a perfect setup for a movie like this. I also like how the early scene with the slaughtered Romani people sets a certain presumption of what to come, this scene was more brutal than anticipated. And indeed, there are some gory and bloody scenes here, and the effects are overall pretty fine, especially the practical ones. There’s a perceptible feeling of dread from the very start, aided with the fear and anticipation amongst the characters. When the first victim turns into a werewolf and the killing starts, the movie still manages to hold on to the feeling of mystery and trepidation. The only downside is that the movie outstays its welcome a little bit too much, where the final parts of the movie feels much longer than they should have. The pacing was overall pretty good throughout most of the movie, but it could have fared much better if the runtime was cut a little shorter.
Overall, The Cursed (or Eight for Silver, which I personally think is a better and less generic title) is a pretty good werewolf movie with a gothic flair.
Writer and director: Sean Ellis Country & year: UK/France/USA, 2021 Also known as: Eight for Silver Actors: Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Roxane Duran, Nigel Betts, Stuart Bowman, Simon Kunz, Amelia Crouch, Max Mackintosh, Tommy Rodger, Áine Rose Daly, Millie Kiss, Tom Sweet IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9907782/
In 19th century Vermont, a young woman’s parents drink sleeping tea in order to survive the harsh winter, but an early thaw leads to horrifying results.
Here we are at another Horror Short Sunday, and now it’s time for some folk horror in The Thaw. A creepy black and white folk horror story, perfect for the wintertime!
Director: Sean Temple, Sarah Wisner Writer: Sean Temple, Sarah Wisner Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Emily Bennett, Toby Poser, Jeffrey Grover IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt11690888/
I’ve seen some terrible, mind-boggling, retarded and fascinating amateur shows over the many years, but nothing could prepare me for this little Canadian shiny turd of a film called Things. And in this case, that is something I can appreciate. I’m always searching for the next best-worst movie, since I’ve always had a weak spot for these kinds of films, and this one belongs somewhere deep down of the horror movie iceberg. It’s impossible to review Things in a conventional sense, and is one of those that you just have to experience for yourself. Visually, to use that word very loosely, it’s something like Manos: The Hands of Fate meets Violent Shit, filmed in an obscure fever dream in the skull of Jörg Buttgereit.
The film starts right off like something that looks like some cursed low-fi video from the dark web. And to be fair, the same could be said about the whole film. It’s all shot by a Super 8 with the overall technical skills of two drunk cavemen, so that speaks much for itself. We’re in a basement where a mysterious woman (Jessica Stewarte) in a weird devil mask undresses in front of a sleazy-looking guy, named Doug (Doug Bunston), who says: I want you to have my BABY! My wife and I tried to have a baby, but we could never get one. Now it’s up to you. My true fair love.
And yeah, the acting is as goofy as the dialogues, which already sets the tone of what to expect. What makes this scene icky, for whole other reasons, is that this masked woman was/is a real-life prostitute, and probably did this short appearance just to scramble some quick cash for her next fix. The filmmakers tried to track her down to include her in the 2008 DVD release, but she could not be found. We all wish her the best. Anyway: two minutes in (yes, two minutes) and the film is already an unbelievable wet, bloated brainfart where there’s a lot for the senses to digest. The acting, the editing, the sound mix, the bizarre goofy music, the sheer level of pure and raw amateurishness… It will drain your sanity and good luck getting through the rest without some booze. The masked woman already had his baby, she says. Ah, good news then. And when she hands it over to Doug, the baby appears to be some sort of a monster that bites his hand. This was just a dream, by the way, as Doug wakes up on a couch in his living room.
After the opening credits, with the fugliest fonts ever put on film, we meet Don (Barry J. Gillis) and Fred (Bruce Roach), who pays Doug a visit on a late night. Yep, Don, Fred and Doug. These are the guys we’re supposed to root for. All three reeks of bad vibes a mile away, if the film didn’t smell bad enough already, where the youngest looks like a ticking school shooter while the other two have the charisma of the types of serial killers who would bury their victims in a basement crawlspace. We even have a dude here who pops in at the end (Dr. Lucas) who could be the twin brother of Jeffrey Dahmer. It’s hard to comprehend what’s going on here, but they find a tape recorder in Doug’s freezer and a diary of Aleister Crowley. Don puts his jacket in the freezer because it’s hot, they drink some beer, talking about paintings…
It’s pretty creepy up here. Why don’t you put something on TV, Don says.
On TV we have pornstar Amber Lynn, here dressed in a ridiculously dated outfit as the very least believable news anchor. She cuts in and out during the film to give some vague and unrelated plot details, or whatever, as she clearly reads straight from cue cards. Her background is randomly stacked with some cheap TVs and VCR’s that looks like anything but a news TV studio. Amber Lynn got paid $2500 to be in this, (the whole budget, I’d fairly guess), and spent a quick hour to shoot her few scenes. Director Andrew Jordan was at least clever enough to approach her with a 16mm camera to look more professional. You can’t see much difference though. And the biggest shocker is that she does the best acting here.
We have a random torture scene because the plot suddenly said so. Or maybe because the filmmakers had just seen Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment and thought it was cool to just throw in a quick eye-gouging moment. Yes. there’s gore here, but don’t expect much. It’s cheap amateur slop and combined with the blurry image quality, you’ll spot more clearly gory images from a Rorschach test. And there’s also some zombies here, because why not.
Doug finally shows up, so the main plot can go forward. And he’s irritated because Fred and Don didn’t bring any food. He opens the fridge and says after he gives a loud burp:
What the fUUUck? There’s a six day, or a six month old bread in here. Maybe I can make myself some kind of a sandwich. Eh.
They eat some sandwiches, drink beer, burps, farts and have a good time, I assume. And then we have the classic scene where they put a dead bug in Don’s sandwich. There’s also a dog here, who only smells bullshit and clearly doesn’t want to be in the film. Can’t blame him.
Around the 25 minute mark, Doug’s bedridden and pregnant wife, Susan, screams. Yes, she’s pregnant. Forget the masked woman we saw at the beginning. That was just a premonition nightmare. As if the film isn’t already a nightmare. A puppet creature with big sharp teeth crawls out of her stomach. Susan is dead. RIP.
Oh my gOOOd…! SUSAN, Doug yells. Poor Doug. He really must have loved Susan. Because the acting here is just that convincing. We then learn that Susan was a part of a failed impregnate experiment of Dr. Lucas.
After it’s been established that a killer creature now lurks around the house, plus some other ant-like monstrous Things, we cut to a news break where Amber Lynn informs us that the legendary filmmaker George A. Romero is once again taking his copyright case to the Supreme Court of the United States. Because pirates continue to distribute thousands of copies of Night of the Living Dead. OK, good to know. Where’s the weather report? As our three protagonists now have to survive in a cramped basement full of monstrous Things, the guy with the beard, Fred, suddenly vanishes, as if he was cut out of the movie. What the fuck? Where’s Fred?, Don asks. To give some logical explanation, we’re told that (and I’m not making this shit up) he was trapped in a mouse hole (!) that brought him to the third, fourth and fifth dimension. And if I dared to break down more of the “plot“, I’d probably be sucked into a mouse hole myself.
On the surface, Things look like something made by a group of ten-year-olds, just for pure fun and shit’s n’ giggles, as they were only goofing around with a camera with no more thought behind it. The whole film, except the ending, was shot in the basement of Andrew Jordan’s parent’s house in Ontario, Canada. His parents were also confident and wholesome enough to finance the principal shooting and pre-production, which I still guess was $2500 to only afford some quick scenes with Amber Lynn to boost the sales. Because director Andrew Jordan and co-writer/actor Barry J. Gillis had actually some high, grandiose ambitions with Things other than just show it to embarrassed family members and friends on a drunk Friday night. They wanted to distribute it all the way to Canadian Television. Because why not. And I just assume that they also saw the Hollywood signs far in the blurry horizon. The closest the film got to the mainstream was at the video rental shops, where it reached the historic milestone of being the very first film shot on an 8mm to get a VHS distribution in Canada. Andrew Jordan’s parents must have been proud, and cheers for that. Doug Burston’s parents, on the other hand, forced him to get a real job. And they might’ve had a point, considering that he was mostly drunk during filming (wow, what a surprise), and beer was a requirement for him to act in the movie.
The dialogues here is the most bizarre shit I’ve heard in a long, long time:
– They’re eating me! Take me to the hospital! They can rebuild me there! – I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I …! – All I see is blOOOd — and guts! – Ah, the blood is dripping like maple SYRUP! Oh, oh, so much blood! – My dog… my cute little bloody dog! – Listen, ah geeh ah, I’m gonna die! I feel like it, but I’m saved!
While this sounds bad enough on paper, just wait till you hear the delivery. It’s Zombie ’90: Extreme Pestilence level of bad, or maybe even worse. I refuse to believe that even a single line of dialogue was written here, aside from the scenes with Amber Lynn. The dialogues were overdubbed, since the original recording was useless, and Andrew Jordan spent months torturing himself in post-production to polish his masterpiece. He was high on cannabis during the whole process, which surely explains a lot. But even the most expensive sound mixing studio couldn’t save this. He also hated the experience of making the film, which finally begs the big question why he made it in the first place, and on top of that, distribute it on VHS for all to see. The mental state of these guys raises some speculation, because the more you dive into it, the more it sounds like a miracle that this bizarre, inept clownshow was actually completed from start to finish, and released. The entire project sounds more like something Andrew Jordan was forced to make at gunpoint, like some sort of a humiliation ritual. In that case, mission accomplished, as the film has garnered a cult-following over the years, for all the wrong reasons.
Actor and co-writer Barry J. Gillis is still very proud of the film, and said in an interview with Sins of Cinema that he would love to make a sequel to Things, and I’m quoting: only if there is a fan out there with access to an investor with a million or more dollars we could make a great sequel. And he also would love to have Bruce Campbell on board.
… and we can’t wait to see that. Just make sure to have Mike Flanagan as an executive producer so that Neon picks it up for distribution. Things is available on DVD by Severin Films/Intervision, and is also on our favorite streaming site, Tubi.
Director: Andrew Jordan Writers: Barry J. Gillis, Andrew Jordan Country & year: Canada, 1989 Actors: Barry J. Gillis, Amber Lynn, Bruce Roach, Doug Bunston, Jan W. Pachul, Patricia Sadler IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183881/
We’re in a suburban town where a mother is putting on some music in the car for her child. Static starts playing…and she then drives her car to some railroad tracks and leaves her child to die there. Then we head over to the Ryans, a family consisting of the mom Kendall (Selma Blair), the dad Brent (Nicolas Cage), the daughter Carly (Anne Winters) and the son Joshua (Zackary Arthur). Things are, like in most normal families, stressful and a little strained here and there: the dad’s going through a mid-life crisis, brother and sister are picking fights with each other, and the mom is trying to occupy herself with taking fitness classes. The kids go to school as usual, and then the TV screens and radios starts transmitting the static we saw in the opening scene of the film. All hell breaks lose, and parents all over the place are going crazy and hellbent on killing their own offspring. Brent and Kendall are no exception to this mass hysteria, and the children must try to stay safe from the people who should’ve been the safest of all.
Mom and Dad is a black comedy horror film from 2017, written and directed by Brian Taylor (who also directed the recent Hellboy movie Hellboy: The Crooked Man from 2024). It had a limited release, and while getting a generally positive reception it underperformed badly, grossing only $286,313 against its $4 million budget. Still, Nicolas Cage said it was his favorite movie that he had filmed in 10 years, and John Waters named it as one of his top 10 favorites released that year.
Now, a movie about parents going insane and wanting to kill their children sounds like a pretty fun idea for a horror movie, right? While it could have been anything from a serious and grisly movie to something that takes itself too seriously, it fortunately takes the road of black comedy instead which fits perfectly here. It’s pretty fast-paced, and easily entertaining despite not exactly having the thickest of plot. Originally, I expected the movie to be a bit more gory, though… sure, there is a bit here and there but not that much as many of the kills are off-screen.
The major theme of the movie is parents feeling trapped in parenthood. There is a line in the movie, where Brent says: “I mean, I used to be Brent… and you used to be Kendall… and now we’re just… Mom and Dad “. And I think this rings true for many parents, who might end up losing themselves in a busy family life and not having enough time to nurture the relationship to their spouse, their hobbies, and all the other things that gets thrown into the backburner because when you become a mom and dad, that’s your priority. And of course, we understand that this is how it needs to be: no children ask to be born, and making this choice involves all those responsibilities. Some are able to balance being a parent with all the other things in life, and some end up feeling “trapped“ in their own self-made bed, regretting their life choices, regretting getting older, and putting the blame on the children they chose to have. This by itself doesn’t turn them all into child-killing crazies, of course, but something in this movie triggers these deep-laden feelings. It is not entirely clear what actually caused the murderous rampage by parents, except we know it’s got something to do with the static that starts playing everywhere.
Mom and Dad is an entertaining movie filled with madness and fun, and fortunately never takes itself too seriously. Cage is in full unhinged Cage-Rage mode which is always a joy to watch, and even Lance Henriksen shows up here as Brent’s dad to push things even further as all the moms and dads are on a killing spree. Overall a good time, despite not getting much of a conclusion to anything.
Writer and director: Brian Taylor Country & year: USA/UK, 2017 Actors: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur, Robert T. Cunningham, Olivia Crocicchia, Lance Henriksen, Marilyn Dodds Frank, Samantha Lemole, Joseph D. Reitman IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5462326/
In “Rejected,” a short horror parody, three twisted tales of macabre horror unfold, all linked by an antiquated digital camera from 1997. The tales intertwine, creating a narrative that is both terrifying and hilariously absurd.
Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we take a look at Rejected. The short includes three “rejected” advertisements for the digital 1997 camera “Sonu”, each segment totally bonkers and fun!
Director: Rene Rivas Writer: Rene Rivas Country & year: USA, 2024 Actors: Bryn Booth, Austin Buchanan, Alex Demeroutis, Joel Foster, Lauren Hardcastle, Haley Jaeger, Sarah Llewellyn, David W Rice, Rene Rivas, Bradford Trojan, Brandon Waites, Erin Zipse IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt27911397/
Jesús Casas and Maria are a couple with a newborn son, Cayetano. They’re visiting a furniture store in order to buy a coffee table, where the salesman is offering them an expensive but high quality table which Jesús falls for immediately. Maria hates it on sight, though…and despite the salesman claiming that the glass is unbreakable and really tries his best to sell them the table, Maria still isn’t convinced. Jesús, however, really, really wants this table. He complains to Maria that she has not allowed him to choose anything for their home, so why not let him at least choose this coffee table? Well, he ends up purchasing it. In their apartment, which he inherited from his grandmother, he starts putting the table together. Upon doing so, he notices that a screw is missing, and he asks the salesman for another one. In the meantime, Maria leaves to buy some groceries in preparation for the visit of Jesús’s brother Carlos and his new, very young partner Cristina. And from then on…all hell breaks lose.
The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor) is a Spanish black comedy horror movie from 2022, directed by Caye Casas and written by Casas and Cristina Borobia.
This movie is a perfect example of getting the best experience if going in totally blind, which was what we did. And oh boy, was it an intense ride! From the very get-go of the movie, you notice how the couple are having so many unresolved issues which cannot be fixed by simply buying a table. Maria is super-annoying and bitchy most of the time, while Jesús seems to have lost his spine a long time ago (and I would’ve said balls as well, but they just got a kid). You know it’s going to build up to something just based on the tension between the characters alone, but if you haven’t read any descriptions or a synopsis of the movie the experience will definitely be slapping you a lot more.
So…yeah. That’s pretty much how far I’m willing to go because I really don’t want to spoil anything. The Coffee Table is a pitch-black dark comedy horror movie which is best viewed when going in blind. If you want something dark and bleak which manages to be uncomfortably funny at times, go watch it and have a fun (or not so fun) time!
Directors: Caye Casas Writers: Cristina Borobia, Caye Casas Country & year: Spain, 2022 Original title: La mesita del comedor Actors: David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera, Claudia Riera, Eduardo Antuña, Gala Flores, Cristina Dilla, Itziar Castro, Damià Fustagueras Petit IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21874760/
In a remote little French town located somewhere in the mountains, there have been a series of children’s disappearance cases. An old legend from the area, about a malevolent creature referred to as the “Soul Eater“, is resurfacing when the town also gets plagued by several violent and gruesome deaths which apparently defy explanation. Franck de Roland, captain in the national gendarmerie, comes to investigate the missing children’s cases, and ends up together with police superior Elizabeth Guardiano who is investigation some of the recent murders. They do not get together all that well at first, but once it becomes obvious that both the murders and the missing children cases are in some way linked together, they need to cooperate.
The Soul Eater (Le Mangeur d’Âmes) is a French horror thriller from 2024, directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, known for their impressive debut Inside (2007) and other movies like Livide (2011) and The Deep House (2021). The movie is based on a novel from 2021, called “Le Mangeur d’âmes“ by Alexis Laipsker. The French duo have undoubtedly made a mixed bag of entries in the horror genre, where they started off with a solid debut but have also had some releases which didn’t hold up as strongly (like the Leatherface movie from 2017). This movie is a bit different from any of their previous entries as it’s more a standard thriller than a horror movie, despite the trailer more or less leading you on to suspect some kind of supernatural flick.
On surface level The Soul Eater doesn’t offer something especially unique or truly unsettling, but the setup is quite good and the sleepy little mountain town works well for establishing the right tone. It’s a place where you can easily imagine the people creating their own folklore and myths, surrounded by mountains and endless forests. The isolated location makes for some decent scenery as well, and you get a believable feeling of how this town has kept to themselves without much intervention from outsiders. And it’s in places like those that all kinds of bad shit can start to happen, of course. Like any decent mystery thriller, the secrets are unfolding gradually, and while it did have a few pacing issues towards the latter part, I never found myself bored.
Some may have hoped that Bustillo and Maury would get back into their old tracks with this new release, and thus it may come as a bit of a letdown that this is more a crime thriller than outright horror. It’s pretty fine for what it is, though, and it does have a creepy build-up regarding the mystery and a nice setting. Overall TheSoul Eater is a pretty good murder mystery thriller, and while it’s not having very strong horror elements it stands as a decent release from the French duo. It still seems like we’re a long way from expecting another move in the same vein as Inside from them, though…
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury Writers: Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre Country & year: France/Belgium, 2024 Original title: Le mangeur d’âmes Actors: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud, Malik Zidi, Cameron Bain, Lya Oussadit-Lessert, Chloé Coulloud IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28821588/
When an amphibian-obsessed boy comes into possession of a book with ancient occult secrets, his concerned principal intervenes.
Another Horror Short Sunday, and this time we take a look at Toad Boy, a gory and a little bizarre horror short with some awesome body horror effects!
Director: Phillip J. McLaughlin Writer: Phillip J. McLaughlin, Hillary Rust Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Cliff Chamberlain, James Hoelzel, Tamir Tucker, Soren Williams IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt27214410/
Vidar the Vampire is the first, and for the time being, the last vampire flick from Norway. A low-budget independent production that came and went in 2017. Yes, we cavemen gnomes have come a long way, haven’t we. And later this year, we’ll have our first sea monster flick with Kraken. Skål!
The film starts with a local news report by the broadcast company NDK (Norsk DrittKringkasting) that tells us that a Satanic ritual has occurred in the middle of the God sacred bible belt in Norway, at a place called Jæren, a middle-of-nowhere land not so far from Stavanger (which also happens to be the hometown of Horror Ghouls) . Then we cut to our man, Vidar (Thomas Aske Berg), a skinny guy in his early 30s with a thick Burt Reynolds mustache and dressed in a silver protective suit as he starts a session with his psychiatrist. And he also wears sunglasses. Not because he’s got a severe hangover, but because he’s Vidar the Vampire. He’s frustrated and ready to tell his life’s story, a deep glory rabbit hole that will even get the shrink raising his eyebrows.
Like any therapy session, we start from the beginning where we see Vidar as a young boy as he lives with his strict religious mom at the farm we saw earlier in the news report. He does most of the work at the farm while he gets bullied by some classmates because he’s a loner and not able to get a girlfriend. We jump twenty years forward where Vidar is still stuck on the farm with no girlfriend, friends or future aspirations where the days consist of cleaning pigsties while his mom lies in bed and chewing pills. The only form of dopamine is hidden in Playboy magazines in his small, cramped bedroom. Vidar prays every night to get away from here, and one holy night, he gets heard. Hallelujah! And now it’s where it starts to get a little weird. We have a weird moment with a succubus before, one night, he finally meets the Savior himself in the barn. And here comes the big shocker: it appears that God is actually Satan. That’s how blasphemous we can get in modern times, I guess. After Vidar gives him a blowjob and swallows the unholy juice, he becomes a vampire, of some sort.
And there’s no surprise that things doesn’t get better for Vidar from here on. His God-fearing mom makes Vidar meet an evangelist in the local church in hope to exorcise him. Doesn’t go that well either. Even more crazy shit happens, and nothing can prepare Vidar for when he finally gets to break free from the isolated farm life to dive into the nightlife of urban Stavanger.
So, yeah, It’s crystal clear what the film is really about: a satirical middle-finger to Christianity, a statement that feels more fifty years-or so too late, and was already ridiculously outdated in 2017. If Vidar the Vampire was made in the 1970s, or even in the 1980s, the film would surely stir some controversy before it would be banned completely, and be regarded as an exploitation cult-classic years later. The filmmakers would also probably be put in jail for violation of the blasphemy law. I’m not kidding. A harmless, silly comedy such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) was banned in Norway for over a decade, and that should speak for itself. Things have changed radically since then with the rise of black metal bands in the early 90s, church burnings and Playboy, which was upgraded with porn on VHS, first imported from Sweden, of course. Good times. Hail Satan.
But the film is more than just poking fun of religion and clowns like Bob Larson. Chronic loneliness is the red thread here as we follow Vidar from one dire scenario to the next where things go from bad to worse, and he loses himself into an empty and hopeless existence of pure black-pilled nihilism. He walks around the streets of Stavanger at night in a farm suit while he tries to score, where he’s already completely damaged and a lost case. He becomes more desperate as his bloodlust also rises and he needs as much pussy as he needs the red human syrup. How about both? He stalks a young woman after closing time to her apartment where he chews her pussy and slurps her dry of period blood after she’s blacked-out. He almost swallows a tampon. Yum. This woman’s name is listed as “Drunk Cunt“ in the end credits (yes, in English for whatever reason). He then gets chased by her pimp as Vidar runs through the back alleys buck naked. We shouldn’t sympathize with a rapist, but still. It’s tragic, cringe, absurd, artsy at some times, and morbidly amusing to say the least, also much thanks to some solid acting and likewise dialogue. To lighten the mood, the film is filled with the most depressive and monotone folk songs that just make you want to kill yourself. Rest in peace in advance.
Vidar the Vampire is overall a weird and unique film, plain and simple, that will appeal to smaller audience as the vampire elements is used more as metaphors where the big question lies: is he really a vampire or just a raving mad incel who’s met the breaking point? And then of course we have the Norwegian language with some inside-jokes. If you can handle subtitles, the film is released on Blu-ray in America by Dread Central/DiabolikDVD. So have yourself a Drunk Cunt and enjoy the misery.
Writers and directors: Thomas Aske Berg, Fredrik Waldeland Country & year: Norway, 2017 Original title: VampyrVidar Actors: Kathrine Jünger Ims, Thomas Aske Berg, Marit Sanden, Sigve Aasland, Ingvar Skretting, Kim Sønderholm, Ruben Jonassen, Martha Kristine Kåstad, Astrid Braut Øksnevad, Balder Scheen Jacobsen IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6147514/
The Kyiv Seminary (a college that trains students to be priests, rabbis, or ministers) are sending their students home for vacation. Three of them decide to get piss drunk and ends up lost in the countryside in the middle of the night. When they see an old farmhouse, they ask the old woman who lives there if they can spend the night. She agrees, but her condition is that they sleep in separate areas of the farm. One of the students, Khoma Brutus, is placed in the barn. Later, the old hag tries to seduce him, which ends up with him getting hypnotized and the hag rides on his back like he was a horse. Weirdly enough, it isn’t until she also makes them both levitate that he realizes that she must be a witch. Huh! Who would’ve guessed! He ends up attacking her by violently hitting her with a stick, and then she suddenly turns into a beautiful young woman. Terrified, he runs away and back to the seminary, where he later gets the news that a wealthy man’s dying daughter has requested for Khoma himself to come and say prayers for her soul. I guess there’s no big surprise who this girl turns out to be. Anyway, she ends up dying before he arrives, but he will stand vigil and pray for her soul for the next three nights. In the chapel where the dead girl’s corpse lies, he starts praying and every night the girl wakes up, trying to get him while he’s protecting himself by standing inside a sacred circle he draws by using chalk. Can Khoma get through all three nights without the witch getting him in the end? Well, if she doesn’t, maybe all the vodka will…
Viy (Spirit of Evil) is a Soviet Gothic horror fantasy film from 1967, directed by Konstantin Yershow and Georgi Kropachyov, and it was the first Soviet-era horror film to be officially released in the USSR. It is based on a story by the same name, written by Nikolai Gogol, which also inspired Mario Bava’s Black Sunday.
The synopsis for this movie may sound rather straight-forward, but damn…it really is so weird at times, and starts off rather slow and fails a bit with keeping you fully engaged. In between the strange supernatural elements, the protagonist and the other people around him are mostly walking around getting totally sozzled on vodka or whatever the hell they’re drinking, while singing songs and goofing around. Khoma is pretty much constantly hammered during the day, and then fighting off the undead witch and whatever she summons at night, that’s pretty much the flow of what is happening here.
The movie saves up the best for last, where Khoma’s final night is where all the good stuff starts happening. This is where the witch finally summons the film’s namesake, the Viy, which is a large humanoid creature. This was actually played by a guy who was a circus artist, because the costume was so heavy they cast him for his strength. In addition, all kinds of other hell-spawn is summoned and we get some really surreal, fun and inventive scenes here.
Overall, Viy is a fantasy horror movie that feels more like a folklore-fairytale than outright horror, but amusing enough in its own way and with a pretty bonkers finale.
Viy was released on DVD in 2001 by Image Entertainment, and then re-released in 2005 by Hanzibar Films. Severin Films released it on Blu-ray in 2019, and it’s also available on several streaming sites, including Tubi.
Directors: Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov Writers: Konstantin Ershov, Nikolay Gogol, Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Ptushko Country & year: Russia, 1967 Actors: Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin, Nikolay Kutuzov, Vadim Zakharchenko IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062453/
It’s 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A French captain has been wounded, and brought to the medical tent. He’s got hit by three bullets, but when the army surgeon removes them he discovers an additional fourth bullet which is made of silver. How did that get there? Well, obviously the captain knows as he smiles and says “eight for silver“. Then we need to head back 35 years before the battle, to 1881 in rural France, in order to find out the origins of that silver bullet. The brutish land baron Seamus slaughters a Romani clan who have settled upon “his“ land, except it’s not really his, they have a claim to it. Seamus won’t have any of that, of course, and he gathers a bunch of men to have them brutally killed and one of them is even dismembered and put on a stake as a horrifying scarecrow. Yikes! But, as everyone should know, you do not wrong anyone from a Romani clan without suffering the consequences. The elderly woman of the clan is buried holding a set of silver dentures, which will now serve as a means for their revenge. Soon, the townspeople and Seamus’ children are having terrifying nightmares of the dismembered scarecrow and the silver fangs. One day, the children go to the place where the scarecrow is located and the silver fangs were buried, and a farm boy named Timmy digs it up in what appears to be a trance-like urge. He then puts them inside his mouth, and bites one of the other children’s throat. This is the start of a nightmare for the townspeople and Seamus and his family most of all.
