british horror movies – Horror Ghouls

28 Years Later (2025)

Posted on June 24, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

28 Years Later starts 28 years earlier with an opening sequence somewhere over the hills and far away in the countryside of the Scottish Highlands. The rage virus has spread across the country and a group of kids have been locked inside a living room with the Teletubbies on TV to be kept calm and safe, which doesn’t last long. One of the kids are Jimmy, who escapes from the home as the freshly infected are raging their way in while Jimmy’s dad, a priest, has gone completely insane as he’s on his knees at the church, welcoming the apocalypse to kill him and the rest of humanity. Because the Bible says so. Amen. Jimmy escapes, followed by a childhood that we only can imagine as a traumatic hellride that will segway itself into a fine and stable adulthood. Ha-ha. And no, this is not the first and last we see of Jimmy. He will be important later, you can be sure of that.

Then we take the huge leap of 28 years later where parts of Britain are still in full quarantine, after the rage virus has been wiped out from the rest of Europe. So maybe the last ten seconds of 28 Weeks Later happened after all in the lost tapes of 28 Months Later. We’re in a small community of survivors on the island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England that is connected to the mainland through a causeway. Here they have their own fortified Animal Crossing village where the modern technology that we once knew is a faded memory. No smartphones, no internet, no telly, no cars and no botox. Most kids today wouldn’t even survive a day without their daily dose of Guess My Fart on TikTok. We meet the twelve-year-old boy Spike (Alfie Williams), his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the bedridden mum Isla (Jodie Comer), who’s suffering from an unknown disease. And since there are no doctors on the island to examine her, there’s only to hope for the best.

But today is a big special day when Jamie takes Spike outside of the village to the open world mainland for the very first time, to teach him to scavenge and protect himself with bow and arrows. Because the infected is still roaming, which has since mutated into new variants. Now there’s not just the regular infected to be aware of, but also the Alphas, this film’s version of the Volatiles (yes, another Dying Light reference). These giants are not sensitive to light though, and once they spot you, it’s Game Over, unless you’ve unlocked the skill to run like Tom Cruise. And all the infected are buck naked, and if you’ve never seen tits before and especially dicks, you may get traumatized. Just a friendly warning/sarcasm. Another new type of species we may stumble upon is the fat slobs (jabbas) that mostly crawl deep in the forest and slurps worms like noodles. Maybe that explains why all the jabbas are… Asians. I still have questions.

It’s all quite a surreal and eerie experience for Spike, and we feel it too, as the soundtrack is mixed with disturbing chants from the poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling, while we have some grainy war clips from the middle-ages to set up the mesmerizing mood. As Spike lets The Breath of the Wild sink in, he and Jamie enter an abandoned house where they find an infected that is hanging from his feet from the ceiling. The name Jim is carved on his chest. Huh. The infected is still alive and Jamie orders Spike to give him an arrow to his skull to make him his first kill. The trip escalates into getting chased by an Alpha all the way to the village gate. Safe and mission accomplished.

The village celebrates Spike’s coming-of-manhood quest with a big party where Spike witnesses Jamie cheating on his wife. At the same time, Spike has a little chat with his grandad (if I remember correctly), who mentions Dr. Kelson (Ralph Voldemort Fiennes), a mysterious hermit who lives some hills and forests away from the island. And Jamie is very aware of this doctor. Spike confronts Jamie the next morning and understandably gets angry at him when it’s obvious that Jamie just wants Isla to die so he can be with his new mistress. After Jamie slaps him, like the first-class scumbag that he actually is, Spike tells Jamie to fuck off and later sneaks out of the village with Isla to get her to this Dr. Kelson. Who’d know that Spike has bigger bollocks than the Alphas. Balls with Spikes, if you will.

Spike and Isla also come across a Swedish Nato patrol soldier, Erik (Erik Sundqvist), who’s been stranded in Britain after his unit patrol boat got destroyed. Since he has got nothing better to do, he joins the quest for Dr. Kelson. He also has this thing called a smartphone, something that Spike has never seen before. Erik proudly shows a picture of his girlfriend, a standard botox doll with duckface and all. You know, the regular stuff. Spike then asks what’s wrong with her face. Ooof… the comedy writes itself.

28 Years Later, where director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland returns to the franchise since the first one, was not exactly as expected. I’d say that. What we basically have here is a very spiritual coming-of-age film where the subject of death is explored in such a raw and honest way, but at the same time, with an empathic, somber and unpretentious approach which I can’t remember to have seen in any horror film. I especially like the whole concept of the bone temple, without going more into that. It’s beautiful, emotional, and it’s been eons since I actually got teared-up in a movie theater. And I’m not that easy to manipulate. And yeah, there is action and several wild and brutal scenes here as the threat of the infected looms everywhere, even though the weather in Britain is better than ever. The gore doesn’t hold back, which is all good old practical.

While the ground story itself is nothing new, the execution is quite something else. The cinematography, the use of the idyllic summer landscapes with the blue sky and all, makes a stark contrast to the morbid and ugly, almost like a dreamlike paradox. There are some really haunting images here and some brilliant use of silhouettes while the kinetic camerawork amps up the intensity. That this thing was shot on iPhones with a budget of 60 million dollars and looks more crisp, lively and just overall way more vibrant and epic than a 200 million Disney film is just hilarious. The acting is top-tier and the newcomer Alfie Williams has a bright future ahead as he manages to carry the whole film. Jodie Comer is fantastic as the more and more sick and disorientated mother, and Ralph Voldemort Fiennes as Dr. Kelson is an eccentric oddball I’d like to see more of. Also say hello to Cillian Murphy’s long-lost twin brother. So yeah, I was highly impressed with this one, how it explored some themes in a new, fresh way, the world building and the overall vibe and atmosphere. It all just clicked.

28 Years Later is the first part of a trilogy. The second one, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was shot back-to-back and is directed by Nia DaCosta. And I won’t deny that the director choice has given me some mixed feelings. I just hope for the sweet love of Belzebob that this trilogy is, at the very least, carefully planned with a clear roadmap so we don’t end up with another slow and embarrassing car crash incident like The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker …

And then we have the quite special and super-non-controversial ending, which connects some elements from the opening scene in the most British way that I actually found to be pure genius. It comes straight from the blue with the zany apocalyptic madness that we’re most used to in Mad Max and Dead Rising. No spoilers here, but some of the clothing choices of these individuals that pop up in the last minutes have made people on the internet completely lose their collective minds, as the one and only thing they now see is The Great Satan himself, Jimmy Savile! Yes, the former best buddy of King Charles and the once protected golden pedophile of the BBC (not big black cock). Some NPC’s are programmed to see only what they wanna see with zero ability to pick up any nuances and the several additional layers here. During the rewatch they’ll maybe also spot Epstein, Pootin and the double chin of Dan Schneider. That being said, have a cold one, smell some flowers, have sex, enjoy the summer and Memento Mori.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Fulford, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Edvin Ryding, Chris Gregory, Celi Crossland, Rocco Haynes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10548174/

Prequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Days Later (2002)

28 Weeks Later (2007)

Posted on June 20, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

We’re not so far after the events of the first film where the rage virus is still fresh and spreading like wildfire. While we just have to hope for the best for Jim and his girlfriend, we’re introduced to some new characters, which starts at a barricaded, cozy cottage in the countryside of England. Yes, we’re still in England, and I don’t mind. Their tea is something else. Anyway, Don (Robert Carlyle), his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) and some other survivors are getting ready for dinner. Then someone knocks on the door, a boy who’s been chased by his freshly-infected family. And he’s frightened. Of course he is. As Alice lets him in, we see a glimpse of how heavily barricaded the house is as the sun shines through like laser beams.

Then, suddenly, all hell explodes as one of the infected that chased the boy manages to punch through the walls, which weren’t so heavily barricaded after all, bites Alice and we have one of the most intense opening sequences in a zombie film since the singaia scene in Braindead. It’s full non-stop chaos where even the cameraman really struggles not to get attacked. It all escalates to Don sliding out of the top-floor window and leaving his wife behind, and his last memory of her will be her screaming for help from a window while being trapped. I couldn’t have lived with myself after a situation like that, but that’s maybe just me. Because the big question here is why she hasn’t already been turned into a red-eyed zombie, since we’ve already learned that the virus only takes seconds to strike. Huh. Yeah, you can say.

If Don couldn’t, or wouldn’t, save his wife, because he’s maybe a cowardly narcissist, he meets the next level of Mission Impossible – to run away from a horde of infected Tom Cruises to the river so he can escape on a boat. Don(e).

And just to have a quick summary, we get a text timeline of the events:

15 days later: Mainland Britain is quarantined

28 days later: Mainland Britain has been destroyed by the rage virus

5 weeks later: The infected have died of starvation

11 weeks later: An American-led Nato force enters London

18 weeks later: Mainland Britain is declared free of infection

24 weeks later: Reconstructions begins

Then we are 28 weeks later. And god knows how many timeline texts we’ll get in 28 Years Later!

So, what we’ve learned now, there’s no more threat from the rage virus. The society starts to come together, families reunite, postman Pat can finally deliver mail in Greendale again, and maybe we can celebrate the next Christmas. Empathy is back… for now. London is split into the secure zone District One, heavily guarded with the help of the US military. Since the first film was such a huge success in the states, the producer probably thought that mixing the film with American actors would please them even more. It didn’t seem to work as the film earned 20 million less than the first one. But it made a big profit nevertheless. Here we have a relatively unknown Jeremy Renner, way before his Marvel days, as Doyle the sniper. Harold Perrineau, always most known for sitting in a wheelchair and speaking in metaphors in the TV show Oz, as a chopper pilot. Rose Byrne is Scarlett, the medical chief who tests and approves people to enter the secure zone. You know, just in case someone should just be too unlucky to have some of the virus in their bloodstream, as it can be spread by dogs and rats. And there’s no vaccine yet.

Don, the one who we saw in the opening scene, reunites with his two kids, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots) as they arrive at District One. They were out of the country when the outbreak happened. But where’s mum? Yeah, where the fuck is Alice, Don? Don does what a narcissist does by lying and saying that he tried to save her while he fakes some crocodile tears. Tammy and Andy sneak out of the safe zone to go for some open world exploring with a scooter in the big, empty and desolated London. Because why the hell not. Yeah, there are some really questionable and logical issues here, but whatever. They stop by their former home, where they, to their big surprise, stumble into their mum, Alice! She’s a bit shaky and disorientated, but very alive and not infected, despite that she got bitten. She gets taken back to the safe zone to get examined by Scarlett, who believes that Alice’s immunity could be a source of a vaccine. And Don has some explaining to do. At the same time, he seems genuinely happy to see that Alice is alive. So it’s not always too easy to read that man. He enters her medical room, when no one is holding guard. Don and Alice have a reunion where “The Kiss of Death“ couldn’t be more literal.

Yes – Don, the airhead that he is, kisses her fully contagious wife straight on the mouth with the tongue and all. Yuck. He turns immediately into a raving infected, gauges her eyes before he spreads chaos and panic in heartbeats. A bittersweet karma for Don. Just too bad that the rest of the world had to go down with him. It’s time to escape the big city – again! But now it’s Code Red, which means that all soldiers are ordered to shoot and kill everyone, and that also includes the uninfected. The difficulty level is now set on nightmare mode as we follow Andy and Tammy running and using their stealth skills through a minefield of snipers, while also avoiding the infected. One life, one hit-death, no continues.

So there’s the sprint start 28 Weeks Later, more or less. This time directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo while Danny Boyle and Alex Garland is put on the sideline as producers. While the first one focused more on the psychological aspects with a more bleak and somber tone, this one goes straight to the jugular, with more blood, more gore, more rage and more action. One of the highlights involves a messy zombie massacre by using the blades of a helicopter, a very similar gag we also saw in Planet Terror, which came out the same year. Not much new on the surface here, and not much more to learn than we already know. It’s overall a fine and entertaining sequel that at least manages to keep up with the same energy and adrenaline as the first one, rich on locations with some more nice set-pieces of a deserted London to spice up the apocalyptic surroundings.

There’s not much of a spoiler to say that there’s no happy ending here, as we have now finally reached the big milestone of 28 Years Later. This one ended with a cliffhanger, or a sort of, where the virus has been able to spread itself outside the UK to France, with a quick teaser that the next installment would take place in Paris. And that film never happened, nor did 28 Months Later. So in that case, it’s maybe about time to re-watch the French action/zombie flick La Horde (2009), which, as I remember, could as well work as a spinoff.

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writers: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López Lavigne, Jesús Olmo
Country & year: UK/Spain/USA, 2007
Actors: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Amanda Walker
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/

Prequel:
– 28 Days Later (2002)

Sequel:
– 28 Years Later (2025)

28 Days Later (2002)

Posted on June 17, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

This British and relatively low-budget zombie film was a hUUUUUUge success when it came back in 2002 and is today, 23 Years Later, regarded as one of the big, fat zombie classics that more or less reinvented the whole zombie sub-genre after a decade of almost overdosing on Zoloft. Strong British tea seemed to do the trick. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland were actually surprised over the giant success of the film, especially how it blew up in the US. They were just making a small zombie film, after all, with (at the time) no-name actors. A classic case of lightning in a bottle, I guess. It gave the genre the same resurgence as Scream did for slashers in the 90’s and opened the doors for George Romero to finally make his first zombie film under a Hollywood studio with Land of the Dead. And, of course, we have another British classic, that is Shaun of the Dead, and tons of other shitty zombie films that got sharted out at full speed in step with the shark films during the early 2000s (and still going strong). We Norwegians finally got our first zombie fest with Dead Snow plus an even better sequel, and I’m still hoping for a third one.

Then came the mega-hit TV show The Walking Dead and the whole planet was in full-blown zombie mania. It was a fun ride as long as it lasted, until the show fell completely on its arse, and we were forced to forgive Negan. B o l l o c k s. I digress.

A group of activists break into a lab to save some monkeys used in experiments. And these monkeys are not to be messed with as they’ve been injected with this so-called rage virus. As soon as they release the monkeys, they get attacked, bitten and turned into zombies within seconds. Sorry, I meant “infested“, as this virus turns them into red-eyed flesh-eaters with a non-stop rage psychosis that also gives them the skill-upgrade to run like Tom Cruise. What a great combination. And no, this rage virus wasn’t coughed out from some shady lab in China, but at Cambridge University. Yes, in Cambridge, England, of all places. God save the Queen. Then we skip to some days later, 28, to be precise, where sheriff Mick Graves wakes up in a hospital… uhm, sorry, wrong universe. The first issue of the comic book series The Walking Dead was released one year after the release of this film, by the way. A young lad named Jim (played by an unknown Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed after being in a coma, to quickly discover that he’s the only one in the building. It’s eerie, quiet and a bit spooky. What the hell happened. Is he the Last Man on Earth? Huh…

From here on, we follow the footsteps of a confused, hazy and disoriented Jim as he walks into a deserted London, like an open-world game where all the NPCs have been glitched away. Then we have the classic scene which the film is most known for where he walks through an empty and trash-filled London Bridge with Big Ben in the background with not a single soul to spot. This scene was shot very early in the morning, a hangover Sunday morning I’d guess, where they had to shoot in a big hurry before a car would enter the frame. Jim enters a church filled with bodies where he has his first encounter with “the infected“, among them a creepy priest. Athletes were used as the running zombies. Makes sense, but I find it a bit funny at the same time, since Britain has its fair share of obesity. Although jabbas have their physical limitations, they sure can be angry too. Anyway – he manages to get away, and pays his mum and dad a visit, which he finds in their bed, rotting away after committing suicide during the outbreak. A horrific sight where you actually can smell it. This scene made me think of the poor guy in Dying Light who shot himself in front of a photo of his cat. Jim eventually meets some other survivors, the young chick Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and her younger daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). With Frank’s car, they join forces, looting a grocery store before escaping London and driving to Manchester. And instead of a nice sunrise on the horizon, they only see a city in flames. More shit and bumps in the road (to say it mildly) happens, but then they meet the military. Thank goodness! Finally safe. Oh, well…

So the big question is: does the film still hold up? Has it survived (no pun intended) the test of time and all that? I recently rewatched this, and the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, for the first time in two decades, and I’d say yeah. That is much thanks to the grounded story and the rock-solid acting by everyone involved. 28 Days Later focuses way more on the fight-or-flight mode and getting the hell out of the big city and hoping for the best, rather than action and gore and collecting skill points. There are gory moments here, but that aspect is not the main focus. The first two acts of the film is more of an escape journey where we get more of a sense of the apocalyptic surroundings and the overall grimy atmosphere of sheer hopelessness as they stumble from A to B… and eventually to C. They have a terrifying moment in a tunnel where they have to change a tire while we hear the infected screaming in the distance as they come closer and closer. Then we see their running shadows, and it’s time to change that damn tire! A simple but very effective scene. It all builds up to a more intense and action-packed third act where we see some clear parallels to George Romero’s films, and, of course, to mention The Walking Dead for the third time, where humans are as much a threat as the zombies/infected, and how we flush all forms of basic moral sense in the toilet as the society collapses.

Without spoiling, Cillian Murphy gradually reaches the breaking point and goes in full shirtless Rambo mode, Ramboheimer, if you will. The deeper meaning behind his mental development is obvious where the last thirty minutes or so could as well be something from a war film. Makes more sense now in the wake of Alex Garland’s last two films, Civil War (2024) and this year’s Warfare. The subject of war is clearly his thing. Garland and Boyle were clearly on the same page here as they took a lot of ideas from real events to put in the script to not just make it as another zombie film. The Rwanda and Sierra Leone war were some of the inspirations for the piling bodies in the church. The rage virus was inspired by the scares of anthrax (not the band), bio-terrorism and the spread of mad cow disease in the 1980’s. So yeah, 28 Days Later has aged pretty well – because humans will always be humans, for the better, but mostly for the much, much worse. The soundtrack is also outstanding, where the tunes of In the House, in a Heartbeat by John Murphy capture the eerie emptiness, the sadness and the overall bleak atmosphere perfectly.

The one and only gripe I have here, is that damn low-resolution image quality. And I’m not the only one. The answer is short and simple: 28 Days Later is one of the very first films that was shot digitally, with a Canon XL1, which doesn’t allow it to be remastered to 4K. That’s why the film has the overall image quality like an old YouTube video from 2007, and also why the Blu-ray looks the same as the DVD. Director Danny Boyle wanted to give the film a more gritty and authentic look, aside from being shot like a documentary. Sometimes it works, but for the most part it just looks outdated. Bummer, but it is what it is, so… Still a solid film though.

The film is reviewed from the Norwegian streaming site Viaplay, after our 20 plus years old DVD crashed.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK, 2002
Actors: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Luke Mably, Stuart McQuarrie, Ricci Harnett, Leo Bill, Junior Laniyan, Ray Panthaki, Christopher Eccleston, Toby Sedgwick
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/

Sequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Years Later (2025)

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025)

Posted on May 27, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In this demented/twisted/fucked-up serial killer flick that your mum and dad don’t want you to see, we meet, yeah you guessed it – Peter Pan. And he’s a, yeah, you guessed it – a serial killer. And yep, you guessed it again – he murders children, sometimes in broad daylight. And not one by one, but in drones. The few lives he spares gets trapped in his dungeon basement. Oh my… calling the whambulance is no use here. So there’s no big shocker to say that this isn’t the Peter Pan that we know from our classic childhood fairy tales, but rather a homicidal maniac who lives out his sick fetish role-playing fantasies.

Pan is also a hardcore junkie who lives comfy enough in an abandoned manor somewhere in the idyllic British countryside of Ashdown with his one and only Tinker Bell, an unpleasant sight by itself who looks more like the sister of Longlegs. Instead of heroin, we have pixie dust. It’s the same shit though, so don’t get fooled, kids. Stay outta drugs and have some Kava instead.

But at the end of the day, Peter Pan actually means all well. Because he doesn’t kill children just for the hell of it, but in order to send their souls to Neverland to save them from the evil world that we live in. Your typical road to hell that is paved with good intentions, to put it that way. Neverland is, after all, a place where you can be a little boy for the rest of your existence. And since dead people don’t age…well, you get the idea. Sweet dreams.

The film starts with a quick, flashback story of Pan (Martin Portlock) where he works as a mime artist at a circus. After performing in front of a group of kids, he stalks one of the kids home, which by a wild coincidence is named James Hook. After sneaking into his bedroom through a trapdoor, where we also have a quick Pennywise reference (because why not), the kid’s mother spots him and hell breaks loose. After a brutal fight in the kitchen that goes from bruises to chopped-off toes by a meat cleaver, a disfigured face and a scalped head, Pan takes Hook with him before we jump fifteen years later.

Then we meet the upper-class family, the Darlings, just another wild name coincidence, where the older sister Wendy (Megan Placito) is driving her youngest brother Michael (Peter DeSouza, the possessed kid from Pope’s Exorcist) to school. Michael is depressed, and since it’s his birthday and all, Wendy tries her best to make his day a little easier by also intending to pick him up after school. Aaw, how thoughtful. Too bad that she gets distracted on the phone by her boyfriend when Michael leaves the school on a bike, which leads to him being captured by our psycho killer Peter Pan The Grabber. While Michael is trapped in his manor where he’s forced to play games like hide-and-seek, a guilt-stricken Wendy sets out to find her brother.

Terrifier meets The Black Phone says hello to Castle Freak, written and directed by Scott Chambers, a living non-stop Duracell Bunny who made only eleven movies in 2021 alone, according to his IMDb. Geez, I’m having a stroke just thinking about it. Can’t say I’ve seen any of them though, except from Exorcist Vengeance (2022) only because of Robert Bronzi, the famous Charles Bronson clone. While his previous films have an average rating between 2.8 and 3.6, it’s fair to assume that he has had a major skill upgrade at some point. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is a more polished and overall professional-made movie than you’d expect, all from the camerawork, production design, sound, pacing, acting, and, of course, the effects, which are all practical, as far as I could see. To be completely honest, this looks more like it could be in the same universe as Damien Leone’s Terrifier than the Poohniverse. And that’s probably the best compliment I can give.

The most remarkable here is Martin Portlock as Peter Pan – a brilliant and charismatic actor who just came as a lightning strike from the blue sky when he went viral in the UK after his appearance as a witch on Britain’s Got Talent. Here, he’s a mix of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Freddy Krueger and Radu the vampire with a dark and a seductive British voice that would even make Hugh Grant blush. He’s as ruthless and mean-spirited as he’s intimidating. I also liked the angle with the Tinker Bell character, played by Kit Green. Her and Peter’s relationship is a pure psychological warzone, if the circumstances weren’t hell already. Her story of how she ended up in this pit of misery would be an interesting spinoff by itself. And if you want the blood and gore, you’ll get it. The third act goes especially full throttle in the splatter & gore department, with a cute final girl and all, which you can guess who.

So yeah, all in all, a gritty, gory, tension-filled and morbidly entertaining ride you’ll never experience at Disneyland, even after dark. Solid stuff. I hope we see Martin Portlock in more horror films, while it’ll be interesting to see what Scott Chambers does next. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is available on streaming on Amazon Prime, or (for us Norwegians) on Viaplay.

Writer and director: Scott Chambers
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Megan Placito, Martin Portlock, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Teresa Banham, Olumide Olorunfemi, Campbell Wallace, Nicholas Woodeson, Hardy Yusuf, Harry Whitfield
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21955520/

The Cursed (2021)

Posted on February 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

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/

Paperhouse (1988)

Posted on November 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Anna Madden is an 11 year old girl, who one day starts having fainting spells at school and when playing with her friend. She’s suffering from glandular fever, and must stay at home and finds herself bedridden much to her dismay. She draws a house, and when she falls asleep she starts having disturbing dreams about this house. Later she draws a face in the window, and the next time she dreams there’s a boy there. His name is Marc, and he’s suffering from muscular dystrophy and cannot walk. She keeps adding things to the drawing in order to form the house more to her liking, like adding stairs and furniture. She also tries an attempt at fixing Marc’s legs, but this proves futile. Something’s not right in her dreams, however, and in real life Anna’s having troubles with her relationship with both her mother and her absent father who’s struggling with alcoholism and is often away for work at long periods of time. One day when her doctor comes for a visit, Anna finds out that the doctor has another patient whose name is Marc. And now she’s starting to realize that the house in her dreams may not just be a pure fantasy after all.

Paperhouse is a dark fantasy film from 1988, directed by Bernard Rose who later directed Candyman (1992). This movie is based on a novel from 1958, called Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. This novel was also the basis of a British TV series made for children in the early 1970’s, called Escape Into Night. This movie, however…is clearly not a movie suitable for the young’uns, despite being originally marketed as a children’s fantasy film. Sure, the horror elements aren’t very explicit and it takes a while for them to settle in, but there’s a definite ominous atmosphere throughout, and the scene where her blind father appears in her dream (blind because she didn’t draw his eyes properly) and starts hunting her with a hammer, isn’t exactly Saturday morning material.

I have to say that the work they did on the dreamworld is pretty well made, where everything looks like it’s trapped in a closed space where nothing else exists. It’s filmed in a desolate field, where you can see the ocean nearby but it’s all just vast and empty. No other islands to spot, no trees, other buildings, absolutely nothing. The surrealism and weirdness of the place is spot-on, and the strange interior of the already strange and crooked-looking house only adds to the vibe.

Paperhouse is a pretty strange coming of age movie, not outright a horror movie but it certainly has some elements thereof. The surreal tone, the somewhat unconvincing acting (especially by the lead actress, who also never played in any other film after this one) gives the whole film a very weird vibe. Also some nice music from Hans Zimmer which strengthens the incredibly dreamy and outlandish mood. Worth a watch if you want something strange and different.

Director: Bernard Rose
Writer: Matthew Jacobs
Country & year: UK, 1988
Actors: Charlotte Burke, Jane Bertish, Samantha Cahill, Glenne Headly, Sarah Newbold, Gary Bleasdale, Elliott Spiers, Gemma Jones, Steven O’Donnell, Ben Cross, Karen Gledhill, Barbara Keogh
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098061/

Dark Waters (1993)

Posted on October 21, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Elizabeth receives a message about her father’s recent death on an island convent. This island is her place of birth, but she hasn’t been there since she was a child. It appears that her father used to give regular donations to the convent, and as her father’s sole beneficiary she will now have to determine whether these should continue. Elizabeth then travels to the place, but a heavy rainstorm has stopped all the traffic to the island. She ask one of the boat owners if he can take her over, but he refuses. Strangely, her conversation was overheard by a fisherman who offers to take her to the island, as he’s not afraid of the bad weather. Once there, she meets the ancient Mother Superior, who is (of course) blind. She will be staying at the convent, and a sweet and friendly nun named Sarah will be her guide. When they visit a decaying library, Elizabeth notices an illustration of a demonic creature, and a painting of two little girls and a pagan amulet. Soon, all kinds of weird nightmarish shit start to happen, and Elizabeth is bound to find out the disturbing secrets about the place, and her own connection to it.

Dark Waters (which is also known as Dead Waters in an American home-video edition) is a horror film from 1993 directed by Mariano Baino, co-written with Andy Bark. It was based on a short story by Andy, one that was inspired by his childhood visit to Staithes in North Yorkshire. The film is also one of the first western films shot in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the process was a truly troubled one. The system there created some bumps in the road, with some travel problems and even multiple coup attempts where Mariano was awoken by gun fire while in Moscow for the dubbing. Still, the filming location provided cheap sets with spectacular locations for a low cost, and for a movie like this there’s no doubt that locations and scenery really puts the film up several notches.

There are some obvious Lovecraftian elements in Dark Waters, or “Cave of a 1000 candles“ if you will because I haven’t seen so many candles being lit during a film production, ever. Must have been one hell of a job to lit all of those. Everything that surrounds our protagonist feels old, wet and otherworldly. Much of it appears very dreamlike, or nightmarish would probably be a better term, as all the locations and the people Elizabeth meets feel so incredibly…off. Everything from the strange location of the convent to the even stranger people she encounters. While obviously helped by great locations, the film is beautifully shot and with a competent and strong focus on contrast to enhance the mood as much as possible. There’s also some instances of decent gore, so another thumbs up for that.

What struck me the most while watching Dark Waters was that it has a very distinct 70’s vibe all over it, and if I didn’t know that it was a movie from 1993 I could have sworn it to be another hidden 70s gem. Instead, it’s anther hidden 90s gem, because this film is unfairly obscure and I’m quite sure that if it had been made as a throwback film these days, it would have garnered a lot more attention. Speaking of these days, there’s a 2023 film called Consecration, directed by Christopher Smith (Creep, 2004 and Triangle, 2009) where the plot looks very much alike this film. Not sure if that is some kind of unofficial remake though, as I haven’t yet seen it.

Dark Waters is an old-fashioned occult thriller, with a Lovecraftian and slightly surreal vibe to it. While the story is a bit murky, the film is all very much about style, mood and atmosphere. And candles, of course. Lots of ’em.

Director: Mariano Baino
Writers: Mariano Baino, Andy Bark
Country & year: Russia/UK, 1993
Actors: Louise Salter, Venera Simmons, Mariya Kapnist, Lubov Snegur, Albina Skarga, Valeriy Bassel, Pavel Sokolov, Anna Rose Phipps, Tanya Dobrovolskaya, Valeriy Kopaev, Ludmila Marufova
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109550/

The Legacy (1978)

Posted on October 12, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Margaret (Maggie) Walsh and her boyfriend Pete Danner are interior decorators, and currently busy with a client in California. One day Maggie receives a large financial retainer from an anonymous client in Britain, but they can’t really leave because of their current obligations. Then, their client in California suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances. Well, off to England then! They end up in a rambling country estate: Ravenhurst. The place is owned by Jason Mountolive, who has invited several potential heirs to his estate. Jason is dying, and he wants someone to take over when he’s gone. All the guests also have to wear a signet ring with the Mountolive family crest upon it, and Maggie discovers that she cannot take it off. Maggie and Pete then decide this all looks shady as hell, and leaves the place. Except no matter how much they drive around, they always end up back at the Ravenhurst grounds. They cannot leave…and must stay until the heir has been chosen. And then the guests start dying…

The Legacy is a horror film from 1978, directed by Richard Marguand in his directorial debut. The Ravenhurst mansion is the musician Roger Daltrey’s residence, and he lent out the building for the movie on the condition that he would be a co-star in it, and he plays a character called Clive Jackson. There’s also a novel, but here’s a twist: the novel is based on the movie, and not vice versa. It was released in 1979.

The movie is a mystery-fueled occult horror film, where characters are dying one by one under mysterious circumstances. Despite having several kills, the movie is not at all gory. There’s several inventive death scenes, although they do lack a bit of buildup to be properly effective. The most chilling death scene is the one involving the Clive Jackson character, where he is choking on a chicken bone (despite not having eaten any chicken) and it all ends up with a botched attempt at tracheotomy. Other deaths includes a mirror that explodes and the glass shards kill the person in front of it, a fireplace that suddenly shoots out a large deadly flame, and of course a swimming pool death. The film shows pretty early that there are supernatural elements at force here, and several of the death scenes are obviously not done by human hands alone. There’s several body counts here that needs to be disposed of, and let’s just say that there are some rottweilers that aren’t going hungry. It’s always nice to have some pets that can take care of certain business matters. Speaking of animals, there’s also a mysterious white cat with heterochromia (one blue and one green eye).

While you don’t really wonder who will be the survivor considering we have a very clear protagonist here, the story is kept intriguing due to the mystery about why the other people are killed off and what the deal with everything here really is. The location with the English countryside, and the old mansion’s exterior and interior sets a spooky haunted-house like atmosphere. The pacing is actually quite good, where there’s a gradual build-up and a heightened sense of mystery. So overall, The Legacy is a 70’s supernatural horror film that’s worth checking out, with some great atmosphere and fun kills. And of course, the also that adorable white cat!

Here’s a sweet little fun fact: Sam Elliot (who played Pete) and Katharine Ross (who played Maggie) fell in love for real when they co-starred in this movie, and married in 1984 and are still a couple to this day. Aww.

Director: Richard Marquand
Writers: Jimmy Sangster, Patrick Tilley, Paul Wheeler
Country & year: UK, 1978
Actors: Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott, John Standing, Ian Hogg, Margaret Tyzack, Charles Gray, Lee Montague, Hildegard Neil, Marianne Broome, William Abney, Patsy Smart, Mathias Kilroy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079450/

Rawhead Rex (1986)

Posted on October 6, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

He’s Pure Evil. Pure Power. Pure Terror. And pure schlock! Good grief, no wonder Clive Barker himself hated the film despite having written the screenplay for it, and to such an extent that he decided his next movie Hellraiser would be made under a much stricter rule of his own hand. Thus he ended up directing that movie himself. For those that have read the original Rawhead Rex story in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, or even read the graphic novel adaption by Steve Niles which was wonderfully illustrated by Les Edwards (which is a lot more true to Barker’s original vision of the phallus-formed monster), this movie goes into pure B-horror territory that’s as schlocky as it can get, with a monster design that looks like a demented ogre suffering from a lockjaw condition. In other words: perfect horror ghouls material!

We start off with Howard Hallenbeck, who travels to rural Ireland with his family in order to research some religious artifacts. In that same quiet town a lightning strikes a huge phallus-formed stone column that’s been placed in the middle of a field. Then, Rawhead Rex rises from the dirt after having been buried under there for a long, long time. Now he’s back and ready to wreck havoc on humanity! In the meantime, Howard enters the local church and sees a stained glass window featuring the monster, and the church verger Declan appears to act strangely and don’t want him poking around. In the meantime, Rex himself has started the kill count by offing some locals. When Howard is driving home with his family, his daughter needs to urinate and goes behind a tree. Their son stays in the van reading a comic book, and of course Rawhead Rex appears, killing the boy right in front of Howard and takes the body with him into the woods so he can continue to eat his meal in peace. All of this leads to them reporting this at the police station, where we are presented with one of the most hilariously unconvincing family-in-grief scenes I’ve ever seen. Now, Howard is hellbent on taking the monster down, but things have gotten even more complicated as Rex has gotten his own Renfield in the church verger Declan. There is supposed to be a weapon in the church which can defeat the monster, and Howard must try his best to get it before there’s an even bigger bloodbath.

Rawhead Rex (1986) was directed by George Pavlou, and as mentioned Clive Barker wrote the screenplay. The filming took place in County Wicklow, Ireland, Leinster, Redcross and Laragh. The actor in the Rawhead Rex costume, Heinrich Von Schellendorf, was only 19 years old at the filming and it took two hours to put him inside the costume. The film was given a limited release in the US by Empire Pictures in 1987. The 80’s have given us everything from pure gold to pure trash, everything from masterpieces to disasters to even some disasterpieces. There were a lot of B-horror movies from this decade, and a lot of them actually have a decent entertainment value. This movie falls well within that category, where you can’t really imagine anyone saying the movie is good, but if you have at least a tiny bit of appetite for so-bad-its-good movies, then you will at least have some fun with it. Rawhead Rex is what it is, pure schlock and B-horror where you shouldn’t take it seriously for a moment. The acting is hilarious at times, and while the monster looks more laughable than scary it does have a certain charm to it. It sure does provide a lot of cheesy fun.

Clive Barker talked a little about a possible remake of the movie, but nothing ever came of that. Could have been really awesome, though, if someone made a movie that kept the disturbing and wicked vibe of the original story, and didn’t hold back at all on the gore and nastiness. And of course, with a monster resembling the original vision, maybe something close to Les Edward’s version in the graphic novel. Oh well, I guess we can only dream.

Rawhead Rex was originally released on DVD in the US in 1999 by Geneon, and then re-released by Prism in 2003. Later, a restored version was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Kino Lorber in 2017. It’s also available on multiple streaming sites.

Director: George Pavlou
Writer: Clive Barker
Country & year: UK/Ireland, 1986
Actors: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Hugh O’Conor, Cora Venus Lunny, Ronan Wilmot, Niall Toibin, Niall O’Brien, Heinrich von Schellendorf, Donal McCann, Eleanor Feely, Gladys Sheehan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091829/

Stopmotion (2023)

Posted on September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Suzanne Blaker is a stop-motion animator quite famous within the circle, but she’s unable to use her hands anymore due to arthritis. She still wants to complete her latest film, and for this, she needs help from her daughter Ella. Poor Ella is often overworked by her demanding mother, constantly having to do scenes over again and never doing anything the right way (at least according to her mother). Then Suzanne suffers a stroke and ends up in a coma, where Ella finds herself with enough freedom to do what she wants. Her decision is to finish her mother’s film, and she chooses to rent a studio apartment where she can work. There, she encounters a little girl who appears to be very interested in her work, and ends up guiding her towards completely new ideas for the film. Instead of finishing her mother’s “boring“ movie, she changes it to be about a young girl lost in the woods, who encounters a scary entity called the Ash Man. The girl keeps guiding Ella through the process, making her craft the dolls from meat in order to make them look more real, constantly pushing Ella to experiment more and using techniques she probably never thought herself comfortable with using.

Stopmotion is a psychological horror film directed by Robert Morgan, and it’s his feature length debut. The screenplay was written together with Robin King, and it stars Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale, 2018) in the leading role. Robert Morgan also made the horror short film The Cat with Hands (which I found out about some years back when Guillermo del Toro recommended his on his Twitter/X account) where stop motion is also used.

The movie is definitely a slow burn, and what first appears to be something that could lead to a final twist of some kind, ends up getting revealed very early during the movie. There isn’t really much of a mystery, there is no unraveling of Ella’s psyche, we very much know where she’s headed. Artists being at risk of getting consumed by their art, well that’s an axiom that’s been used more than a few times in movies, but here it doesn’t really get as disturbing as it could have been. Still, it manages to convey a very dark and uncanny atmosphere, and there’s a definite “A24-vibe“ over it.

The best part of the movie is, without a doubt, the stop motion scenes. The characters, setting and backgrounds for the animated stop motion scenes are actually very atmospheric and creepy, too bad we didn’t get to see even more of them. To be honest, I’d love to have a full horror short featuring this animation. It’s grotesque and macabre in a fascinating way, reminding me a little bit of Phil Tippett’s Mad God, and seeing the different techniques used only enhances this feeling. We see Ella using real meat in order to make stop motion, and that is not actually unheard of. This technique was also used by legendary stop motion animator Jan Svankmajer.

Overall, Stopmotion is a slow, dark psychological thriller with some really eerie stop motion scenes. Not for everyone, but certainly a strange little nightmarish tale.

Director: Robert Morgan
Writers: Robin King, Robert Morgan
Country & year: UK, 2023
Actors: Aisling Franciosi, Stella Gonet, Tom York, Therica Wilson-Read, Bridgitta Roy, Caoilinn Springall, Alex Freeborn, James Swanton, James Harris, Jaz Hutchins, Joshua J Parker, Nicola Alexis
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14852624/