satanic films – Horror Ghouls

Longlegs (2024)

Posted on August 2, 2024August 2, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in the 1990’s, where FBI agent Lee Harker has been assigned to work on a case involving a series of murder-suicides. In each of these cases the father in the family has killed everyone else and then himself, but the big mystery is how each case also involves a letter written in Satanic coding, signed by “Longlegs“. If someone or something has influenced the fathers in these families to commit the murders, then how and why? Upon investigating, Lee discovers that in each family there’s been a 9 year old girl born on the 14th of each month. And all the murders occurred within six days before or after the birthday, which makes the dates of the murders form an occult triangle symbol on the calendar. One date is missing, though. And Lee receives a coded birthday card from Longlegs, and he threatens her that revealing the source of the code will end up getting her mother killed.

Longlegs is a horror thriller film written and directed by Osgood Perkins, starring Maika Monroe as FBI agent Lee Harker and Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. It was released in the U.S. on July 12, and have since grossed approx. $74 million worldwide on a budget under $10 million, making it Neon’s highest grossing film so far and the highest grossing horror film of 2024. It seems to be steadily creeping closer to surpass the box office total for last year’s indie horror hit Talk to Me. How it became such a massive success is not only favorable reviews from critics and audience, but a devilishly (no pun intended) clever marketing campaign: the promotional teasers have been effectively chilling and with taglines like “The best serial killer horror film since The Silence of the Lambs“ and “The scariest film of the decade“, then yeah…expectations were set high, and the hype got real. And we all know that too much hype can ruin the experience for some. Of course, Longlegs isn’t the first horror movie to suffer a little from extreme hype, Talk to Me from last year was also so hyped that a certain type of people were ready to release bash-reviews on YouTube in pure spite. And that’s something both of these movies have in common, aside from being really good movies.

With the movie premiering in the U.S. several weeks before we (finally) got the premiere here in Norway (which is August 2nd, but we got to see it on an early screening on July 31st), we couldn’t avoid having new videos and reviews popping up all over the place during those weeks of wait. We did our best to avoid major spoilers prior to watching it, and as always: lowered our expectations a bit. And we both had a great time in what was a fully booked auditorium. That’s actually a first in a very long time, that a screening we went to was full, so that’s something.

Visually, Longlegs look great (I mean the movie, not the actual character who looks like something dredged up from your deepest fever-induced nightmares. Hmmm…I guess that’s actually a compliment in this setting). The cinematography and clever use of color is pure art, and I really liked the use of 4:3 format for the flashback scenes. The use of sound and music adds the perfect layer of ominous vibe to the movie, created by Zilgi which is a pseudonym for Elvis Perkins, the director’s brother. Performances are strong, with Maika Monroe’s portrayal of the FBI agent Lee Harker who appears to be somewhere on the spectrum, but also possibly influenced in other ways which I will not spoil here. But the icing on this Devil’s Food Cake is without a doubt Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. While the titular character has a limited screentime, whenever he’s on screen his uncanny appearance and freakish behavior evokes a perplexing mix of feelings: it’s a blend of goofy, disturbing, and zany. He talks in a Tiny Tim-esque voice, heightening the creep factor a dozen notches.

Cage said that he drew inspiration from his own mother for this role, channeling his late mother’s mental health issues. She suffered from schizophrenia and depression throughout her life, and in an interview Cage stated:

“It was a deeply personal kind of performance for me because I grew up trying to cope with what she was going through. She would talk in terms that were kind of poetry. I didn’t know how else to describe it. I tried to put that in the Longlegs character because he’s really a tragic entity. He’s at the mercy of these voices that are talking to him and getting him to do these things“.

So yeah…all of that gives an even eerier and tragic vibe to the whole character. Speaking of mothers, Osgood Perkins also stated that Longlegs is his most personal film as of late, and an ode to his own mother and the secrets she kept about her husband’s sexuality and how “a mother can lie out of love“. Perkins’s father was Anthony Perkins (yep, the Psycho guy), and his mother’s name was Berry Berenson, who perished in the first plane to hit the World Trade Center. So yeah, a lot of dark and depressing stuff to take inspiration from here, that’s for sure.

The movie also seems to have planted a seed in certain religious and devil-fearing circles. On r/Christianity it seems like it’s about time to pray some more. “I don’t believe you can say hail Satan that many times and not call upon anything. I just haven’t felt right and I’ve been praying a lot since I watched the movie“. I don’t know about you guys…but if this was supposed to be some kind of deterrent from seeing the movie, it did at least have the exact opposite effect on us.

Longlegs, being the great horror movie it is, is probably best viewed if you don’t let your expectations elevate too high prior to watching it. It’s not going to make you faint, have a miscarriage, puke snakes or have the devil hitch a ride back with you from the theater. It’s just a good, slow-burn atmospheric horror movie that really hits the sweet spot on oppressive, nightmarish and nihilistic mood. Having seen and appreciated some of Perkins’s earlier movies is a plus, but not completely necessary as this is the most straightforward horror film I’ve seen from him thus far. But it is a slowburner, it does focus a lot more on atmosphere than narrative (in order to repeat myself from my review of Gretel & Hansel), and it is made in total Oz Perkins-vibe. So if you can appreciate movies like this, go see Longlegs and Hail Satan!

Writer and director: Oz Perkins
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2024
Actors: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby, Lauren Acala, Kiernan Shipka, Maila Hosie, Jason William Day, Lisa Chandler, Ava Kelders
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23468450/

Last Shift (2014)

Posted on July 26, 2024August 2, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Jessica Loren is a rookie police officer, ready to take on her first assignment: taking the last shift at an abandoned police station that will soon be closed down for good. For some reason she doesn’t quite understand, her mother calls her and pleads with her to not take the job. She believes it must be because her father was killed on duty many years ago. Anyway, Jessica ignores her mother and leaves for duty. The commanding officer at the police station gives her a quick tour, and tells her that a Hazmat team will come around sometime later in order to collect evidence that is difficult to expose of. For this reason, she’s ordered to never leave her post. Sounds like a pretty easy task for a rookie, right? Nothing bad could happen here…right? Well, what sounds like a dull job, soon proves to be anything but as Jessica soon finds herself in stranger and stranger situations. The first incident is when a hobo enters the place and acts all weird, but it gets more disturbing when she receives a series of distress calls from a woman named Monica, who claims that she’s been taken hostage by a cult and believes they’re going to kill her. The thing is: no emergency calls are supposed to come into that police station anymore, as they have been rerouted to the new station. Jessica also finds out that in this exact police station the members of an infamous cult committed suicide one year ago, and she starts suspecting that the calls from Monica indicates that this cult still has some living members. Something is going on at this police station for sure, and while the place may be abandoned by people, something is definitely still there…

Last Shift is a horror film from 2014, directed by Anthony DiBlasi, written by DiBlasi and Scott Poiley. It was filmed in Sanford, Florida, in an actual abandoned police station. The script for the movie had actually not been written yet until the director and writer came upon the place. Sometimes you just need to find the right location and setting first, especially when you’re an indie filmmaker.

DiBlasi’s vision for the film was to have one that focused on atmosphere and would keep the audience wondering and intrigued by the mystery, and on this it definitely hits the sweet spot perfectly. Despite being a one-location movie, it keeps the pacing up and rarely falters. Much of the horror elements and sinister atmosphere comes from the main character’s isolation and increasingly bizarre and creepy events that keeps unfolding around her. Going from the subtle incidents at the beginning to a gradual rise in bizarre occurrences, the tension always keeps building. It’s also obvious that DiBlasi used the Manson Family as inspiration for the cult, while adding some occult and satanic elements into the mix. I guess you could define this movie as a little bit of a slow-burner, where indeed the focus on creepy atmosphere and a tingling sense of foreboding is what drives a lot of the movie forward, keeping its mystery elements in the shadows and revealing little bits and pieces along the way.

Overall, Last Shift is a creepy and effective psychological horror film featuring a satanic cult. DiBlasi also directed a remake titled Malum in 2023 where it appears the focus is a lot more on gory effects and an expansion on the cult elements.

Director: Anthony DiBlasi
Writers: Anthony DiBlasi, Scott Poiley
Country & year: USA, 2014
Actors: Juliana Harkavy, Joshua Mikel, Hank Stone, J. LaRose, Sarah Sculco, Kathryn Kilger, Natalie Victoria, Mary Lankford Poiley, Matt Doman, Lindsi Jeter, Randy Molnar
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2965466/

The First Omen (2024)

Posted on April 16, 2024August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

First off, just let me say, in the most dry British gentleman-accent as I’m raising my glass of brandy, that: metal up your arse and Hail Satan!

Because who in the right mind would have thought that we’d get a pretty decent prequel to The Omen from 1976 in the year of 2024? Huh… but here we are. Unfortunately, the timing for the promotion for The First Omen couldn’t be much worse as it came straight after The Exorcist: Bieber Believer. *Fart*. People seemed to be finally fed up to the throat with soulless rehashed franchise revivals and didn’t give The First Omen much thought of the day. I was one of them. Here we fucking go again. Satan wept. Then the film came, people saw it, and I was as surprised as everyone else with the common reaction as it was better than expected. It’s a shame that the film underperformed at the box office, but as I said: bad timing. They should have waited another year when the corpse of Believer had once and for all rotted to dust and was faded from everyone’s memory. Oh, well. The motivation for giving it a chance on the silver screen peaked higher when I noticed that the film was directed and co-written by Arkasha Stevenson, who was also involved in the brilliant, sexy and satanic mini series Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021). This is her feature-length directorial debut. And she has learned from the best and knows how to direct a horror movie, that’s for sure.

The year is 1971 and the young woman, Maggie (Nell Tiger Free) has arrived in Rome, Italy, where she’s met by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy) to drive her to Vizzardeli Orphanage, where she is about to start a life as a nun. The place is filled with red flags (or red omens, if you will) as soon as she sets her first footsteps into the orphanage. She sees some children’s drawings on the wall, but the one that takes her attention is a more sinister drawing made by the mysterious, quiet girl Carlita (Nicole Sorace). Maggie knocks on her door to introduce herself to this Carlita, who hides behind her bed. She crawls at Maggie like a cave girl and gives her a big, wet lick on her cheek. Welcome to Italy, baby. We soon learn that she isn’t quite right in her head and Maggie gets some strong advice from the shunned priest Father Brennan (played by the demon voice himself, Ralph Ineson) that it’s best to keep a distance from her. So many omens here. What was the first omen again..?

Anyway, the film spends a good chunk of time letting us get to know Maggie. Since she hasn’t taken her vows yet, and is basically still free as a bird, her roommate Luz dolls her up and takes her to the disco where Maggie gets her very first sexual arousal. Sure you wanna marry God, honey? Meanwhile, Father Brennan is dedicated to exposing the evil plans of the church. Because we’re in a time when Italy is in a rebellious revolution where young protesters are on the streets and setting cars on fire and such. But the most alarming of all: more and more people have turned their backs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the church can’t have that. No spoilers, but what the writers did here was quite ballsy, I must say, and some aspects are also straight facts when it comes to sexual abuse, which is an open secret in the Catholic Church and has been for many years. Here, they take it a bit further. And since Italy is still a hardcore Christian country where they still believe that every single mental problem is demon possessions, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if several audiences died of heart attacks while they were holding their crucifixes and rosaries. Chiama un ambulanza, por fervore!

Maggie is also witnessing a morbid birth scene in the orphanage, which should be enough to take the hint and fly right back to the USA and never look back. But she hasn’t seen anything yet, nor does she know that she’s just a number waiting to get her belly pregnant. She starts to see cryptic visions and a creepy nun in the corner in her dark room and her mental state slowly starts falling apart to pure paranoia while questioning her faith. Nell Tiger Free (free the tiger?) is really outstanding, which gives a colorful emotional range to her role. She’s emphatic, sweet and likable and no one would guess that she was the mother of the most evil kid on the planet.

The film wasn’t as scary I’d hoped for, though. But nevertheless, the film wins me over with its gothic atmosphere and overall grim sense of premonition constantly looming in the air (it’s after all an Omen film). It has a great build-up with a string of unpleasant moments and a tension that boils up to the inevitable, yet highly effective climax. Arkasha Stevenson directs the hell of the movie, which is overall beautifully shot with some great scenery of Rome and its old, antique surroundings. Despite some few lame jump scares thrown in, which is almost unavoidable, this is a solid quality film in old-school form that also stands well on its own legs.

Although this prequel does it very best to blend it all in with the first film, there’s an obvious change here, and that’s the jackal, the dog that actually gave birth to Damien. But, of course, we couldn’t have a two-hour movie with a dog running around in the streets of Rome, that wouldn’t be the best recipe for a prequel. The jackal is a key figure here, though, but thus far the keyholes has only produced girls. And that’s as much I can say before spoiling, because the desperate motivation here is everything.

I also like the writing on the poster that says The Most Terrifying Movie of The Year, a quote from the Fox studio themselves. That’s cute. Maybe not the most terrifying of the year 2024, we still have to see ’bout that, but certainly the most terrifying film in the franchise since Damien: Omen II (1978). There’s also a cool nod to the lift scene from that film plus other references without going too much into member berry lane. Hearing Ave Satani (originally written and composed by the great Jerry Goldsmith) for the first time in a movie theater, here with a remix version by Mark Korven, was epic in itself. The film also opens the door to a spin-off sequel, and I can’t say I’m very enthusiastic about that idea.

Director: Arkasha Stevenson
Writers: Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas, Ben Jacoby
Country & year: USA, Italy, Serbia, Canada, 2024
Actors: Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga, Tawfeek Barhom, Maria Caballero, Charles Dance, Bill Nighy, Nicole Sorace, Ishtar Currie-Wilson, Andrea Arcangeli, Guido Quaglione, Dora Romano
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5672290/

976-Evil (1988)

Posted on January 23, 2024September 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In this directorial debut of Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund, we dial the number 976 to hear our horrorscopes. Yes, with three R’s. And anyone who dials this cursed number will hear a voice by Satan himself as he speaks in riddles how you’ll die in just a few moments.

In real life, 976 was an actual premium-rated telephone number that allowed people to call services of everything from Tech support, overall entertainment to phone sex. And, of course, having your horoscope read (with one R). The service also charged extra, which was every parent’s nightmare when they got the next phone bill.

Fun fact: Robert Englund still meets fans at comic cons who tell him that their worst grounding by their parents was when they called Freddy himself on a 976 number where Englund laid down a bunch of stock replies. He would also on occasions answer the phone for people all over America for an hour. This was at the peak of Freddy mania. Fun times.

One of the callers we meet here is the teenager Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys). He’s an awkward nerdy introvert on the spectrum of mentally retarded. He lives across his cousin Spike (Patrick O’Bryan), who is the polar opposite of Hoax: cool and a badass pussy magnet. And Hoax looks up to him as Spike has to protect him from being bullied. He also lives with his crazy, religious mom who doesn’t make things easier. And Spike can’t protect his sorry ass every minute as he also has a girlfriend to be with. Hoax gets frustrated, angry and now wants to show the bullies and even his mom that he’s no longer to be messed with. After a Satanic ritual and a 976 call, he gets slowly possessed by Beelzebub, develops supernatural powers and big claws to have his sweet revenge.

The first forty minutes or so in this “anti-bullying film” (as Englund calls it) are pretty slow and clunky, and with a script co-written by Brian Helgeland (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Highway to Hell, Mystic River), I expected some more insanity, for lack of a better term. We have a weird love/hate relationship between the cousins Hoax and Spike to build up some dramatic tension. Unfortunately, their chemistry isn’t quite there. Spike also has a girlfriend, Suzie, who mostly looks bored until she gets attacked by spiders. We have a detective, who investigates the source of the cursed 976 call, who looks even more bored. The only one who stands out among the flat characters is the clumsy goofball Hoax as he wears the same nerdy outfit throughout the whole film, except some scenes where he’s wearing a cute pajamas.

The real fun is when Hoax starts to get possessed through several stages with some really tasteful make-up effects by Kevin Yagher, who also worked on the original Child’s Play and several of the Elm Street films. We also have some clever use of miniatures, and a climax with set-designs which look like something from a dream sequence from the already mentioned franchise. The direction is mostly solid with colorful, vibrant cinematography in the purest 1980s style. Robert Englund is of course the one behind the evil 976 voice, where he does his very best to not sound like Freddy Krueger. The gore is very minimal, as low-budget as this is, but the little we have is at least well done.

As much as we love the cheesy and distinct corniness of the 1980s it must be said how ridiculously dated the film is. Such as being a nerd in that decade was the most “gay and uncool” thing ever. The concept with payphones and if not novelty phones where you actually had to get your fat ass from the couch to dial the number to the local pizza delivery. Could anyone born after the 2000s even grasp to imagine? My oh my, the ole’ days… It’s funny how Robert Englund had to repeat himself during the commentary track on the Blu-ray to remind the Gen Z how insanely different the world actually once was.

976-Evil overall is a very mixed bag that maybe works best just as a curiosity to see how our favorite boogeyman from the 80s is as a director. Slow first-half, full popcorn entertainment with some extra cheese during the rest. The film was released on Blu-ray from Eureka Classics in 2020 with an extended version and commentary track by Robert Englund and his wife Nancy Booth, which both met on the set of the film and has been married since. How cute.

Director: Robert Englund
Writers: Rhet Topham, Brian Helgeland
Country & year: US, 1988
Actors: Stephen Geoffreys, Jim Metzler, María Rubell, Lezlie Deane, J.J. Cohen, Patrick O’Bryan, Sandy Dennis, Darren E. Burrows, Gunther Jenson, Jim Thiebaud, Robert Picardo, Paul Willson, Greg Collins
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094597/

Seytan (1974)

Posted on October 6, 2023September 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

There was actually a time when films like this were called plagiarism. Today we call them remakes. And call this specimen of celluloid what you will, Pazuzu, however, has already left the building and dived straight back to hell to suck Saddam Hussein’s big hairy toes rather than being near this eyesoaring madhouse.

There’s little to zero trivia info to find about this Turkish obscurity other than it’s more or less a shot-for-shot remake of The Exorcist – a movie from 1973 you may have heard of. The film was apparently shot on a low budget, resulting in a grainy and poor image quality. You don’t say. To call the image quality grainy and poor is the biggest understatement since the beginning of human existence. I would first assume the film was shot on used toilet paper with a dirty lens covered in fresh urine and projected straight out of Belphegor’s asshole.

And you couldn’t ask for a more honest plot summary to add on the backside of the DVD cover:

– After the worldwide success of William Friedkin’s 1973 classic film The Exorcist, those wacky Turks decided that maybe they should steal the script and make their own homegrown version of the film. The result is Seytan, a one of a kind viewing experience. If you’ve seen the 1973 original you’ll feel you’re experiencing déjà Vu as this version is almost an identical scene by scene remake of The Exorcist, albeit with a Turkish soundtrack, music recorded directly off a record player, editing most likely done by a blind monkey and special effects more fitting for an elementary school play. Combine this with really grainy film stock, some out of work (possibly homeless) unknown Turkish actors, horrible direction and a budget of about $1.95 and you’ve got yourself an instant classic. –

There are some story changes here though. Instead of Father Damien Karras, we have the young author Tugrul Bilge, who’s just written a book about black magic titled Seytan. And one of the readers of that book is the twelve-year-old girl Gül, while she also plays with a spirit board. And instead of Captain Howdy we have Captain… Lersen. Gül gets possessed by Lersen and her mother contacts Bilge after she discovers his book. Although Bilge is a non-believer (u-oh), he gets invited to have a look at Gül as she’s bedridden and wearing some cheap make-up, a big Tina Turner wig and mumbles with a comical demon voice that sounds more like a drunk, old Japanese samurai. And yes, of course, The Exorcist himself, an old gentleman with a white-trimmed santa beard, eventually pops up to conjure holy forces in the big climax.

The funny thing is that both Gül and Tugrul sound like some sinister stage names from a black metal band, while Lersen sounds more like a regular Joe.

And forget about any obscene cussing like “your mother sucks cocks in hell” and “let Jesus fuck you!” The most edgy written piece of dialogue we get is “I will kill you”. In other words: I highly doubt that anyone who saw this back in 1974 in the Turkish cinemas went out of the movie shaking with trauma, and had problems sleeping the following night. The masturbation scene is still here though, in its own unique way, along with the head spinning sequences, the possessed furniture, the medical examinations, ~~Karra’s~~ Bilge’s sideplot with his mommy issues – but with the momentum like a quick fart in the wind, and the emotional depth as deep as a puddle on the sidewalk. It’s amateur-hour all the way and like a piss-drunk karaoke version of something very familiar performed by Eilert Pilarm with the tunes from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells constantly on repeat throughout the first half of the movie, ripped from a tired cassette tape, to remind us that this is… The Turkish Exorcist. Burp.

The acting is as laughable as you’d expect, but I have to give the girl who plays the Turkish Regan some cred as she tries her best and seemed to have a jolly fun time during the making of this looney tune. She also got the pleasure of spitting some green-something in the old man’s face.

Seytan never got any official physical release, or not that I know of, other than a DVD bootleg in 2007 by Substance, ripped from a VHS added with subtitles which even Google seemed to struggle to translate. Fun shit. It’s of course also on YouTube with a more cleaned up image quality but without the subtitles.

Director: Metin Erksan
Writer: Yilmaz Tümtürk
Also known as: Seytan – The Turkish Exorcist
Country & year: Turkey, 1974
Actors: Canan Perver, Cihan Ünal, Meral Taygun, Agah Hün, Erol Amaç, Ismail Hakki Sen, Ekrem Gökkaya
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072148/

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Posted on December 30, 2022August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Erin Bruner is a lawyer filled with ambition, who takes on the case of a Catholic diocesan priest who is charged with negligent homicide following an attempted exorcism on a 19-year old girl, Emily Rose. The archdiocese wants the priest, Father Richard Moore, to just plead guilty so they can scuffle this under the carpet and do as much damage control as possible, but Moore won’t have it, and pleads not guilty. He is determined to tell Emily’s story. Bruner then starts experiencing strange things on her own, like waking up at 3 a.m. to the smell of something burning. Moore warns her that she might have become a target for demons, and through bits and pieces we get to know Emily’s story.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose was written and directed by Scott Derrickson and co-written by Paul Harris Boardman. Derrickson actually chose to use Boardman as his co-writer because, with himself being a believer and Boardman a skeptic, he thought this would balance the screenplay with enough realism from both perspectives. And I dare say this was probably a very good decision, as the movie does a solid job on walking the line between religion and science, constantly making you wonder if she really was possessed or just terribly mentally disturbed.

The movie is told with some back-and-forth between the trial and the lawyer-related stuff, and flashbacks from Emily’s life. What makes this movie different from the plethora of other demonic possession movies, is its blend between courtroom drama and the supernatural, carefully balancing between the two and offering enough for both believers and skeptics to hold on to. The movie is inspired by the true story of Anneliese Michel from Germany. There’s actually another film based on this story, called Requiem, which is more based on the, well…actual true events. The young German woman was born in 1952, and died in 1976 after she underwent 67 (!) exorcisms. She died of malnutrition, and her parents and the priest were convicted of negligent homicide. Just like the Conjuring movies, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is best viewed as pure fiction with a few slices of truth, otherwise it would just become completely convoluted with thoughts of what is obviously invented for the purpose of scares in the movie, and what’s inspired from the true events. The true story was indeed a religion vs science trial regarding the aftermath, but the backstory of Emily Rose (Anneliese Michel) is very loosely based on what really happened. I guess in that sense, it’s wise to not even have the character named after her to make the distinction even more obvious.

Jennifer Carpenter, who is playing the role of Emily Rose, does nothing but a stellar performance as the struggling/sick/possessed young girl, and does so with some pretty chilling possession scenes that are bereft of any pea soup vomiting or head twisting. In order to prepare for her role, Jennifer actually spent hours in a room full of mirrors while trying out different body positions and facial expressions to see what was scariest. Many of the scenes where Emily is experiencing the effects of her “possession”, it is still very much left in the open whether it’s really demons causing it, or a result of her mentally disturbed mind. Feel free to take your pick on which is the scariest alternative.

There’s a ton of chilling atmosphere and a lot of subtle creative details that add to the creepy vibe. The actors did a stellar job by providing convincing performances, and the courtroom drama manages to add both suspense and ties in with the rest in a way that makes it feel wholesome. With the movie being a bit old, some of the CGI (which there isn’t much of anyway) is perhaps a little outdated, but not at all bad and it’s being sparsely which doesn’t affect anything negatively. The Exorcism of Emily Rose stands out as a solid and chilling possession horror movie which has aged quite well, and provided a well founded start on Derrickson’s horror movie career (with him later giving us movies like Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil, and The Black Phone). And no matter whether you consider the story as one of demonic possession or mental illness, the result is equally creepy and frightening.

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writers: Paul Harris Boardman, Scott Derrickson
Country & year: USA, 2005
Actors: Jennifer Carpenter, Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Colm Feore, Joshua Close, Kenneth Welsh, Duncan Fraser, JR Bourne, Mary Beth Hurt, Henry Czerny, Shohreh Aghdashloo
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0404032/

Premutos – The Fallen Angel (1997)

Posted on December 9, 2022August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Hail Premutos! Premutos who? The very first fallen angel, of course. Forget all about Lucifer, here it’s only Premutos that matters, ready to conquer the world of the living and the dead by spreading death, carnage and insanity (as if the world wasn’t insane enough already). But in order to reach into present time, the son of Premotus must clear his path throughout the human history. And in order to do so he has to be constantly reincarnated. Sounds rather stressful.

The plot here is all over the fucking place, scattered over various time periods, so I will do my best to cut it as minimal as possible so it doesn’t get as long as The Satanic Bible. Here we go: We start in year 1023 in the middle of a gory battle-field in India, where the son of Premutos gets reincarnated through a skeleton that transforms back to life. As the skeleton transforms into a human in the cheesiest low-budget style possible, Premutos Jr. rises from the ground, holding two severed heads. Some hand-drawn lightning sparks from his blood-soaked body, ready to raise Hell, but his stay gets reduced to not more than fifteen seconds before he gets stabbed to death. Oof! Better luck next time.

We take a huge leap to year 1942 and the place is on a graveyard somewhere in Germany where the old farmer Rudolf digs up a scroll, or whatever. Since the town folks are being suspicious after bodies are being missing from the graves, a mob breaks into his house to kill him. In the basement they are met by the sight of dead bodies, just in time to rise as zombies and cause mayhem. One of them gets his dick bitten off. Fun stuff. But to cut it short (non pun intended), Rudolf buries the manifest that reveals the black magic of Premutos. He then attempts to bring his wife (I guess,) back to life, only to his disappointment as her head suddenly explodes like a melon put in a microwave, just like that. No time to mourn as the mob bursts through the door to finally kill Rudolph. Rest in peace.

Then we’re in the present time, in mid 90s Germany where we meet the young man Matthias (Olaf Ittenbach). He’s a clumsy tard that always fails to impress his love-interest next door. Calling him mentally inept feels wrong since everyone seems that way, probably due to the bad and goofy acting. However, he’s the last and seemingly final reincarnation to open the gate for Premutos to enter the modern world. He’s of course unnaware until he has nightmares and flashbacks from his many earlier lives, from various scenarios as he goes more and more insane. We see him as a farmer in a plague-infested Bavarian Forest in 1293 where he meets the old hag from Resident Evil Village telling him that Premutos will come, as she’s holding a severed head and laughs hysterically. In another flashback he’s a soldier from WW 2. He transforms into a werewolf-like creature. Then we jump back to present time where we finally get introduced to the film’s hero or anti-hero: Matthias’ stepdad Walter (Christopher Stacey) – a jolly, bubbly guy who looks like a caricature of a hillbilly straight from the heartlands of ‘Merica in love with his rifle. He adds a lot of the fun factor. But anyway, today it’s his birthday and tonight, to quote 45 Grave: it’s partytime! But first, he digs a hole in the garden to plant a flower, because why not, only to find the book we saw earlier. And just to add gas on the fire, he gives it to Matthias.

Nothing goes wrong from here on, and Walter has the birthday party of his life, all wrapped up with a fifteen minutes finale with a non-stop splatter orgy with the almost impossible attempt to outdo the gore-meter of Peter Jackson’s Braindead.

Premutos – The Fallen Angel is regarded as Olaf Ittenbach’s best film, his magnum opus and the only film that someone would bring up with a good conscience if you were asked to recommend only one film from his still growing filmography. I haven’t seen a quarter of his resume yet as we speak, so I can’t really subjectively confirm. But still, Premutos is a fun package of a low-budget gorefest that blends inspirations from Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and Andreas Schnaas.

Based on the remastered Blu-ray version there’s a lot of decent visuals here. The flashback scenes are quite competently shot with flexible camera work, and a sense of sober cinematography on set and fitting spots for locations, which is a rare element in a film like this. Although it’s overall completely B-Movie chaos, it shows that the director had more ambitions than to only focus on the gore and bodycounts. The present-day scenes however are dull and flat where we see Matthias on a local football match, getting his nutsack destroyed after being hit with the ball. Yeah, shit happens. And there’s some other boring filler-scenes here that doesn’t add much, but they’re minimal.

The birthday party scenes, before Hölle gets real, are fun, though, where it’s clear that the actors had a blast and were probably getting drunk for real while the camera was rolling. One of the guests is the doppelganger of Sam Hyde, by the way. Just take a look at the dude with the round glasses on the seventh screenshot down below and convince me otherwise. Anyway – they get so drunk that they start to puke and … grab their fresh spew and throw it at each other. Fun times!

But of course, we’re mainly here for the gore, and it sure delivers. Just like the Hell scene from The Burning Moon we get a non-stop batshit carnage that goes on for over fifteen minutes. Some effects are really great, some are straight-out cartoonish and cheap, but overall a perfect dessert for gorehounds, if you weren’t pleased already. Body parts get ripped off left and right, torsos cut in half with a chainsaw and much more. Whether the film did outdo Braindead or not, I would bet that Olaf Ittenbach at least outdid himself with Premutos.

The film was released on Blu-ray later this year by Unearthed Films. It contains a fully restored version, which looks great, with the original German dialogues. A new, animated opening is also added. We also get a bonus-disc with the soundtrack and a vintage VHS version with pure bonkers Zombie ’90: Extreme Pestilence-style dubbing for those who want more so-bad-it’s-good experience.

Writer and director: Olaf Ittenbach
Original title: Premutos – Der gefallene Engel
Also known as: Premutos – Lord of the Living Dead
Country & year: Germany, 1997
Actors: André Stryi, Christopher Stacey, Ella Wellmann, Anke Fabré, Fidelis Atuma, Olaf Ittenbach, Heike Münstermann, Ingrid Fischer, Frank Jerome, Susanne Grüter, Ronald Fuhrmann, Renate Sigllechner
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0144555/

Premutos Lord of the Living Dead from Unearthed Films on Vimeo.

The Necro Files (1997)

Posted on November 4, 2022September 9, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

I stumbled upon one of the Horror Movie Icebergs one night while I was doing some night fishing, and a film called The Necro Files was mentioned. Just the title alone was more than enough to peek my morbid curiosity, and after watching the first batshit fifteen minutes on YouTube, I was thrilled to discover that the film had just been released on Blu-ray which already deserved a spot in the collection.

The Necro Files is a one dollar budget backyard-style horror trash, set in Seattle, which starts off perfectly with a young lady flashing her tits and pussy in a quick shower scene. An intruder with a mask that combines Michael Myers with Charles Manson with a swastika in his forehead, assaults the poor woman, stabs her like a deranged gorilla, spills her guts, cuts of a big chunk of one of her tits and eats it. And he really enjoys it. Yummy-yummy. No subtlety here, what so ever. The two police men Martin and Orwille have been on a personal hunt for this maniac since he raped and murdered one of the officer’s sister, one of two hundred victims. After they finally get the long-awaited message, they drive to the scene, and after a messy confrontation, Mr. Rapist gets shot. Justice served. Good riddance. God bless … for now.

Then we jump seven months later. We’re at a cemetery where a group of black cloaked satanists are about to sacrifice a new-born baby. It’s broad daylight, by the way, and no disturbed civilians to see in the background. And don’t worry, it’s a plastic doll. As the baby screams with some voice-over effects, they stab the toddler and buries it, urinates on the fresh soil and – surprise, surprise – the seven months old rotting corpse of Mr. Rapist suddenly pops out from the ground, resurrected as a zombie. He has a lot of unfinished business and starts his comeback by tearing the urinating dick off a victim before he kills several of the satanists, leaving two behind. He’s also more horny than ever and sets out for a raping/murder spree as his thirty inch rubber dick is dangling out of the zipper, ready to slam it in every walking glory holes he would stumble upon.

And yeah, there’s also this flying zombie baby floating around on a string. Pure demented z-movie schlock, just the way we like it and probably not in the slightest as you expected. It has it’s fair share of nudity and some kinkiness going on. Mr. Rapist attacks a couple during a S&M act, rapes a brunette with some fluffy butt cheeks before he beheads and mangles her body to a pile of gory mush. There’s a random scene with another hot brunette who’s getting ready for an evening with a sex doll, and her kinky ritual doesn’t go exactly as planned. The two police men dimwits, Martin and Orwille, are the funniest part. The chunky one is like watching a bizarre Dr. Phil impersonator who tries to be the rational one, despite the bonkers dialogues, while the other one is an unhinged, raging drug addict. Well, it’s Seattle, after all. And speaking of: this viral clip of a zombie woman in Seattle is already an oldie, but still, I just had to throw it in here.

The Necro Files is a fun little trashfest for those of us who have a weak spot for ultra-cheap homemade VHS horror that has no other intentions than to go completely relentless batshit, having a jolly time and not give a flying (zombie baby) fuck. The Blu-ray is available from Visual Vengeance, featuring extras such as the puppet animation Necro Files 3000, a mini poster and of course a condom, just to mention some.

Director: Matt Jaissle
Writers: Todd Tjersland, Sammy Shapiro
Country & year: USA, 1997
Actors: Steve Sheppard, Gary Browning, Christian Curmudgeon, Jason McGee, Theresa Bestul, Jenn O. Cide, Dru Berrymore, Anne R. Key, Todd Tjersland, Jonas Arke, Jeff Nelson, Isaac Cooper

IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0203726/

The Demon’s Rook (2013)

Posted on June 25, 2022August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

James Sizemore is a man of many traits and with a childhood consisting of several near-death experiences such as drowning, electrocutions, and almost hit by a freight train. And if that wasn’t traumatic enough, his childhood home in Georgia also seemed to be haunted by poltergeist activity. As he was influenced by these experiences he began to draw goblins, demons and whatnot which in later age evolved into producing some really cute Lovecraftian sculpt figures which he sells through his own company Wonder Goblin. He also makes music, has written one comic book, made two horror shorts (Goat Witch and Budfoot) and probably more I’ve forgot to mention. But the most important achievement in this case, is that he’s written, directed and produced one feature-length film, The Demons Rook. A passion project in which he gathered friends and family to a shooting schedule planned for three quick weeks in his local home community in Georgia with a tiny budget of five thousand dollars. In the purest indie-horror fashion they soon found themselves trapped in what is known as the indie horror-purgatory and continued the shooting for over two, grueling long years during the weekends, while questioning their own sanity, preventing the one mental breakdown after another, and promised themselves to never make a movie again. In other words, the normal cycle of independent movie making.

We meet the young boy Roscoe, not far from similar to the director himself, who during the day plays with his friend Eva, and sits up at night and makes drawings of demons. He is constantly visited by the demon Dimwos, a two-horned creature that looks more like something from Lovecraft’s universe. It is unclear why this demon shows up, but we can guess that he has been conjured by the drawings. Dimwos gets hold of the kid and one night lures him into the woods and down a hole that leads to Hell, where he trains him with black magic through manhood. Many, many years later, an grown-up Roscoe (now portrayed by James Sizemore) returns to the world with a long beard, confused and scared because, for some reason, he has accidentally managed to free three evil demons from Hell to Earth. And these demons are nothing to joke about, and makes matters worse by resurrecting the dead into Night of the Living Dead zombies and possesses people into Evil Dead monsters, to create hell on earth. Roscoe seeks out his childhood friend Eva (Ashleigh Jo Sizemore) and uses his trained Jedi powers to prevent a full demon apocalypse.

One quickly realize that director, producer and co-writer James Sizemore has a deep love for the good old video nasty-era horror cinema of the 70s and 80s, and has taken a laundry list of references that really shine through from old horror genre obelisks such as Dario Argento, George A. Romero, Stuart Gordon, Lucio Fulci, Lamberto/Mario Bava, Tom Savini, early Peter Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft and probably more. With impressive gory effects, juicy body-counts, and creative old-school prosthetic make-up, the use of light, colors, flexible camera work, and massive use of a smoke machine to set the thick, retro atmosphere, the film works perfectly as a visual throwback to the good old times. And a budget of approx 70.000 dollars well spent. That being said, The Demon’s Rook suffers from the same as most home-made horror movies, with underdeveloped scripts and pacing issues with scenes that drags on, and a mixed bag of acting from amateur to decent. The actor couple James and Ashleigh both make good efforts with some naive enthusiasm and energy, even though we do not care all that much about them in the end. They got married during the filming, by the way, and are still married today. How cute. A year later after The Demon’s Rook, she got the task to be breast-naked and sacrificed to Satan in her husband’s horror short Goat Witch.

The DVD-release from 2015 seems to be out-of-print, but can be found after a quick search on Amazon Prime (limited by region).

Director: James Sizemore
Writers: James Sizemore, Akom Tidwell
Country & year: USA, 2013
Actors: Ashleigh Jo Sizemore, James Sizemore, John Chatham, Melanie Richardson, Josh Gould, Sade Smith, Dustin Dorough, Lincoln Archibald, William Baker, James Becker, Michael Bremer, Laura Clark
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2401215/

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Posted on June 4, 2022August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a book dealer who specializes in rare items. He is hired by a wealthy collector named Boris Balkan, who has acquired “The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows“: a 17th century book that is rumored to be able to summon the Devil himself. It is said that the author of the book, Aristide Torchia, wrote the book in collaboration with the Devil, and that only three copies survived. Balkan suspects that only one of these books are authentic, and that’s the reason he’s hired Corso: so he can inspect the other books and determine which one is the real deal. Corso accepts the job, and begins his travels to check out the other books. Soon, he comes into contact with a mysterious woman who appears to be following him…and he’s getting more and more drawn into a supernatural conspiracy.

The Ninth Gate is a neo-noir horror thriller by Roman Polanski, which is loosely based on Arturo Péres-Reverte’s novel called The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas) from 1993. Polanski liked the script so much and “saw so many elements that seemed good for a movie. It was suspenseful, funny, and there were a great number of secondary characters that are tremendously cinematic“. Polanski was very clear about not believing in the occult at all…but he certainly liked the genre, that’s for sure. While The Ninth Gate is nowhere near as popular or praised as his first devil-worship movie, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), it’s still a solid and stylish Polanski thriller.

Polanski’s knack at storytelling easily keeps the viewer engaged enough throughout the movie, with minimal use of special effects. In fact, there is very little violence or blood, and it relies on atmosphere and mystery accompanied by absorbing European scenery and cinematography. The cast is good, with a good performance by Depp who is portraying the unscrupulous and cynical book dealer who finds himself entangled in occultism and devil worship. There’s a lot of occult and tarot-like symbolism in here, some which may even be easily overlooked, like for example the obvious difference between the journeys of Corso and Balkan, going in opposite directions. I guess it’s one of those movies where taking everything at face value might leave you bored and moderately confused by this little puzzle of a film…there’s so much symbolism and small things that may not be too apparent, but makes a huge difference when you notice it. Certainly that old phrase comes to good use here: the Devil is in the details!

The Ninth Gate is a movie that has, since its release, received very mixed reception where some have been put off by the heavy use of symbolism and the apparently non-conclusive ending. But overall, I think The Night Gate is an enjoyable atmospheric and symbolistic occult horror thriller that has Polanski’s quirky humour and slightly absurd tone all over it.

Director: Roman Polanski
Country & year: France, Spain, 1999
Actors: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, Barbara Jefford, Jack Taylor, José López Rodero, Tony Amoni, James Russo, Willy Holt, Allen Garfield, Jacques Dacqmine, Joe Sheridan
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0142688/