HorrorGhouls – Page 11 – Horror Ghouls

Uninvited (1987)

Posted on April 19, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We’re at a genetic research facility, where a bunch of crazy scientists have decided to genetically alter a house cat into some kind of mutant. Why? Well, probably because crazed scientists always think “can we” when instead they should have been thinking “should we”. It goes just as well as one might expect: the cat escapes, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Don’t be fooled, though, because this mutant kitty isn’t all that bad. After escaping, it meets a nice man who gives it food, who is then mugged by two thugs who steal his truck. The cat jumps on it and have them both killed, using its pussy power and serving up some instant karma right there. Go kitty! Those aren’t the only sleazebags we meet, however, as a multimillionaire by the name of Walter Graham is preparing for an escape to the Cayman Islands in order to avoid the usual: tax evasion, criminal prosecution, and all that stuff those islands provide a safe shelter from for felons like him. He’s made sure to bring with him enough money and liquor in order to make the journey pleasant. Before boarding his luxury yacht, however, he does of course make sure to bring some booty together with the booze, inviting two young nitwitted girls aboard. The girls bring along three boys as well, much to Walter’s dismay. But not only that, they also bring along…dun dun dun…a certain orange feline one of the girls just found close to the harbor! Walter protests even more about the cat, saying it’s not invited. Well, too late, everyone’s already on board and he’d better start the trip to the Caymans without further delay before even more uninvited guests ends up on deck, specifically those from the authorities. Best to haul ass out of there and get the party started! Of course, things quickly goes awry when the drunken captain gets killed by the cat after threatening it, and falls into the deep blue sea. Since no on else witnessed this, they believe it was an accident, but it so happens that one of the boys aboard is a biologist, who decides to inspect a blood sample from what they assume is the captain’s blood, and finds abnormalities in the blood cell count. It doesn’t take long before they realize they have a very dangerous uninvited guest aboard the luxury yacht, with a mutant killer kitty on the loose!

Uninvited is a creature feature B-horror film from 1987, written and directed by Greydon Clark. Back in the day it was released on VHS by New Star Video, and here in Norway it was released as Killer Cat. It later got a DVD release in 2009 by Liberation Entertainment, and in 2019 a remastered version was released by Vinegar Syndrome.

If you haven’t guessed it already: this one is totally B-cheese all over the place, topped with some catnip for good measure. It’s ridiculous as hell, which of course is part of the charm, but it’s also a bit of a mess and somewhat uneven. There are periods where things are crazy and fast-paced, and then there are periods where everything slows down before it amps up the pace again. It’s worth sitting through the more boring parts though, and of course the highlight of the movie is the cat itself. Already from the start, the mutant cat is more the hero than the villain here, where many of the characters are utter scumbags, so at first it appeared to take a bit of the “monster misunderstood and good, humans bad” trope, but the kitty doesn’t discriminate, and not only the baddies are killed. So, who are you actually supposed to root for..? Well, it doesn’t really matter in the long run, because of course you’re rooting for the cat! Which is constantly meowing during nearly all its screentime. Except it isn’t, because for some retarded reason they decided to play the two stock-sound meowing effects on repeat whenever we see the cat on screen, despite the cat’s mouth being closed. It’s both hilarious and annoying at the same time, and while I would like to say “take a shot for every time the cat meows without even opening its mouth”, I think I’d rather not, because you’d end up with alcohol poisoning before getting halfway through the movie. Yes, the constant meowing really is that much.

The cat itself is for the most part a cute and fluffy one, but the mutation has caused it to sometimes let loose a monstrous Mr. Hyde version from inside its own mouth. Whenever this happens, this monster crawls out of the cat’s very obviously fake head, and sometimes attack people in true Hobgoblins style (meaning the people just hold a puppet while shaking it, pretending for dear life that it’s alive and trying to kill them. Just as convincing every time). Some of the filming was indeed done on a boat, at least, as the director paid $15.000 in order to rent the luxury yacht for two weeks. But this is of course not the only place the film was shot. Like in many B-horror movies, some inventive ideas had to be used, and of course the classic of filming stuff in the director’s garage was a thing here. Other than that, there were several shots featuring a miniature of the yacht which was done in the director’s own swimming pool.

Uninvited is one of those B-Horror movies that makes me glad we have badges instead of ratings here at Horror Ghouls. Because, how the fuck are you supposed to properly rate a movie like this? At one hand, a simplistic take on the movie’s quality would be something akin to a 4/10, but on the other hand it’s a 8/10 when it comes to B-horror entertainment value, topped with extra cheese and overall a ridiculously fun pastime. So, if you enjoy those kinds of movies, check it out if you can. The Vinegar Syndrome releases are out of print and going for a hefty price at eBay, but it’s also available on several streaming sites.

Writer and director: Greydon Clark
Country & year: USA, 1987
Also known as: Killer Cat
Actors: George Kennedy, Alex Cord, Clu Gulager, Toni Hudson, Eric Larson, Clare Carey, Beau Dremann, Rob Estes, Shari Shattuck, Michael Holden, Austin Stoker, and a cute fluffy ginger cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096341/

The First Omen (2024)

Posted on April 16, 2024November 14, 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/

THE SPIRIT BECAME FLESH – Horror Short

Posted on April 14, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

An unbeliever returns to his deeply religious hometown only to find that they have fallen prey to a sinister monster that they believe is the Holy Spirit of God.

The Spirit Became Flesh is a creepy horror short about a guy returning to his family home, only to find that his old community has turned their faith to a monster in the woods.

Director: Jesse Parker Aultman
Writer: Jesse Parker Aultman
Country & year: USA, 2023
Actors: Christopher Dietrick, Chloe Baldwin, Anthony Gaeta, Bries Vannon, Lynda Gibson, Lena Lark, Carl Paul Ezold Jr, Michael Evans
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt26654878/

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2011)

Posted on April 12, 2024July 9, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The first film was My Little Pony, compared to what we were going to witness in The Human Centipede 2 (Eat Shit and Die), as writer and director Tom Six said with a great enthusiasm. And that couldn’t be more true. This is the film that should have all the buzz words the first one was bombarded with.

This one also takes another whole approach in terms of tone, style and plot, of little there is. This time shot in crisp black and white where we get the pleasure of meeting Martin (Laurence R. Harvey), a sad existence of a human. He’s a short, middle-aged, mentally challenged and morbidly obese outcast with some even bigger, hideous eyes. Picture a morbid live-action version of Humpty Dumpty mixed with the Tweedle Boys and some bloke who shouldn’t be near any children. Martin lives in a bleak and nihilistic world with his old mother in a cramped and depressing apartment complex in East London. His mother hates his fat guts and just wants to kill him. Luckily, Martin is suitable enough to have a job as he works as a tollbooth clerk in a parking garage where he mostly spends his time watching the DVD of The Human Centipede. Yes, this is the real world, you see, where the first film was just a movie. As Martin also has a centipede as a pet, the only friend he presumably ever had, he’s is obsessed with the film and is fantasizing about himself making his own human centipede – because, after all, the film told us that it was 100 % medically accurate.

Martin starts to collect the victims for his centipede experiment of twelve people to lure them into his own warehouse. One of the victims is also fully pregnant. Yup, this nasty sequel holds no punches. But his biggest wet dream is to get his hands on the actress Ashlynn Yennie, who also starred in the first film. And in order to get her from the US to an obscure warehouse somewhere in London, Martin has a genius plan: he’ll trick her to believe he’s a casting agent for Quentin Tarantino. Yes, she’s up for a surprise.

Tom Six wanted to have more “blood and shit“ in the sequel, which lacked in the first film. And blood and shit you’ll get, in gallons. The film goes all the way, even the extra footsteps, with the brutality to put the poorest taste in the audiences mouth, and maybe pleasing a depressed Roger Ebert this time. But in the midst of the shooting of The Human Centipede 2, some drastic changes had to happen when Tom Six was told to change it to black & white to make it appear less gory. The black & white only adds more to the imagination and enhances the gritty and grimy atmosphere. And it’s still one of those films where you want to take a long shower after watching. So it works in that sense and serves its purpose. There’s a color version, to my knowledge, that was included in a Blu-ray set, which I haven’t seen.

I wouldn’t recommend a movie like this to anyone unless you have a bucket full of a sick & dark sense of humor and hate your neighbors. And having some self-destructing personality flaw, sadomasochistic behavior mixed with some strong misanthropic tendencies is a plus to fully enjoy this movie with some ghoulish schadenfreude glee. The ending goes completely off the rails and hilariously batSHIT, where the tagline 100% medically INaccurate couldn’t fit more. A real shitshow in the purest form where it’s OK to have a sadistic laugh or two. I hope that the real centipede they used in some scenes wasn’t harmed though.

Fun trivia: The director views it as an anti-bullying film and tweeted – It should be mandatory to watch THC2 in school classes…It deals with a character that is bullied and what to do! And a high school teacher in Tennessee did just that by showing the film to her class. After she was suspended, Tom Six gave her an autographed copy of the film.

Tom Six followed up with the third film, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence). It was, of course, like the others, banned due to highly explicit sexual violence, as well as an abundance of potential obscenity. This was Six’s attempt to make a pure “comedy“ in some bizarre sitcom-style, where I’m inclined to believe that the film was banned because people died of the painfully cringe humor more than anything – and seeing Dieter Laser in a full non-stop psychotic meltdown-mode, while trying to commit suicide in almost every scene by getting his blood pressure as high as possible. The centipede aspects are shoehorned in at the last minute, which makes the trilogy anticlimactic like a quick, dry fart. Watch the first two.

I can also mention that Tom Six’s newest film is called The Onania Club – which is about a group of elite upper class women in Hollywood who get their pussy wet and horny by witnessing others’ life tragedies, all from the extreme pleasures of seeing images of holocaust victims to people dying of cancer. And judging from the trailer, it looks as cheap and amateurish as a YouTube skit. It was originally set to be released back in 2017, but has been further delayed because there isn’t a single distributor on the planet who wants to touch it. And if the film can’t match any standards even for a company like Wild Eye Releasing, then it has to be worse than herpes. The Human Centipede films, however, are mostly out-of-print but can be found on eBay.

Writer and director: Tom Six
Country & year: Netherlands, USA, 2011
Actors: Laurence R. Harvey, Ashlynn Yennie, Maddi Black, Kandace Caine, Dominic Borrelli, Lucas Hansen, Lee Nicholas Harris, Dan Burman, Daniel Jude Gennis, Georgia Goodrick, Emma Lock
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1530509/

Prequel: The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

Posted on April 9, 2024August 23, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Two young American ladies, Lindsey and Jenny, are visiting Germany. While driving through a forest they get a flat tire. And since they don’t know how to change a tire, they have to go on foot with their high heels through the forest while it’s raining to hopefully find some help. Luckily, they come across a house where the lights are on. They ring on the doorbell and out comes Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) who invites them in for a glass of water while he’s calling the car service.

You have a really lovely home. Do you live here with your wife?, asks one of the girls. No… I don’t like human beings, he answers in the most unironically way with his creepy German accent.

Okay, then. Thanks for the water, but now it’s time to leave. Oops, too late. Because Dr. Heiter has laced their water with some strong sedatives, and soon they’ll wake up in his lab basement, strained to their hospital beds. Because, you see, this doctor has a very special passion, and that is to make the world’s first human centipede. And according to the poster, this is done with 100% medical accuracy. So this is perfectly safe to try at home, kids.

The Human Centipede was, at the time, the most brutal – shocking – sickening – gruesome – gross – revolting – disturbing – disgusting (and add all buzz words possible) piece of horror film that has ever been made on planet Earth – and probably the most hyped and viral thing that only Megan is Missing (2011) could come close to. The buzz for this film was so colossal and huge that it managed to crawl its way into the mainstream pop-culture and was even mentioned as a parody game of Pac-Man in an episode of The Simpsons. There is also a porn parody titled The Human Sexipede. Anyway – people who haven’t even seen the film call it the most disturbing thing ever. But for most of us who have actually seen it, we can confirm that this is a prime example of how a morbid concept like this sounds so much more horrific on paper with a pretty brilliant poster design that is cryptic enough to toy with your darkest imagination.

Because this is not exactly the body horror you’d expect to see from directors like David Cronenberg, Brian Yuzna or the horror mangas of Hideshi Hino and Junji Ito. It’s not even close to being as gruesome and graphic as the title and the poster would trick you to believe. Yes, it’s supposed to look more realistic and grounded with the less is more approach, but still… It’s quite underwhelming, and nothing but comical to see the actors squeezing their noses between their ass-cheeks to make us believe that they’re Frankensteined together, as they’re moaning like they’re in some scat porn video. The only legit disgusting moment here is the snot hanging from the nose of the Asian guy, who got lucky enough to be the first link to the centipede experiment. I can’t imagine the actors being proud to be in this and have ever shown it to their moms and dads and their friends – Hey, look at this horror film I’m in where I’m eating ass and breathing farts.

There are many unique ways to be totally humiliated on screen as an actor, but this has to take the shit cake – only until the far more fucked-up sequel The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) came and said hold my anus. And there’s no wonder why actresses who showed up to the casting sessions walked out in disgust after discovering what they were about to sign on to.

The Human Centipede was mostly filmed in a residential home in the Netherlands with primarily four actors and a small budget. The film could have been so much worse, but our villain, Dr. Heiter, makes sure to keep us entertained. He looks like an elderly meth-addicted Robert Pattinson with stage four cancer. A solid-looking mad-scientist villain, in other words, with an electric performance by the eccentric German actor Dieter Laser (1942-2020) which makes this film worth a watch alone. And speaking of meth… Dieter approached his role with method acting, didn’t mingle with either cast or crew between the takes, and pretty much kept to himself. According to Dieter, the white jacket he wore was by a real Nazi doctor from WW2. He took the role so seriously to a point where he started to feel some Nazi guilt, and got into a fight when he accidentally kicked the Asian guy. Welcome to showbiz. Tom Six views the film as a reflection on fascism and his fear of doctors and hospitals.

But at the end of the day, The Human Centipede is an unintentionally twisted, silly little comedy that got hyped out of proportions just because of its title alone, and it’s not to be taken seriously for even half a second. Our old friend Roger Ebert, on the other hand, hated the film so much that he gave it zero stars – which should be enough to pique your curiosity, if you ask me.

Writer and director: Tom Six
Country & year: Netherlands, 2009
Actors: Dieter Laser, Winter Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura, Andreas Leupold, Peter Blankenstein, Bernd Kostrau, Rene de Wit
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/

Sequel: The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2011)

EXPOSURE – Horror Short

Posted on April 7, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

40% of UK homes now have cameras, largely from CCTV and smart devices. Many of these devices are susceptible to hacking, allowing intruders to watch residents in their own homes.

Exposure is a creepy and mysterious horror short where very little is known about it, except that Bloody Disgusting identified the director to be a guy named Kris Cummins. The horror short is done in found footage style, and is truly effective and chilling!

Director: Kris Cummins
Writer: Kris Cummins
Year: 2024

Creep (2004)

Posted on April 5, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Kate is waiting for the train at Charing Cross Underground station. She falls asleep, and when she wakes up there’s nobody around and the place has been locked up for the night. Even if the entire place has been deserted and she’s the only one there, an empty train suddenly arrives. Not knowing what else to do, she boards it, hoping to get away from the place. Then, it stops and all the lights go out. Then she finds out that the place was not entirely abandoned after all, as she meets one of her coworkers who keeps following her around and eventually attempts to rape her. She is saved by someone unknown, who drags the guy out of the train, and when Kate sees a glimpse of him covered in blood, she starts running. Then Kate meets a homeless couple, Jimmy and Mandy. They also have a dog called Ray. After offering some payment, Jimmy reluctantly agrees to follow Kate to the night guard, but they will be hunted by someone else who is prowling the underground station, looking for victims…

Creep is a horror film from 2004, written and directed by Christopher Smith (who later directed Triangle (2009). Creep was his directorial debut, and there was also a game made called Creep: The Last Tube in 2005 which was used to promote the film. While the game went down nearly 14 years later, the developer helped making sure the game didn’t end up as lost media, and was uploaded to Archive.org.

Creep may at first appear to be similar to The Midnight Meat Train, but those are very different. In Creep, a lot of the movie relies heavily on portraying Kate’s feelings of being trapped and surrounded by danger all around. The movie doesn’t start off with lengthy character depictions or backstories, we simply see a young woman waiting for a train and nodding off, waking up in a place that appears to be deserted. Places that use to bustle with people where you’re used to seeing them filled with the regular everyday stress, will always seem slightly surreal and nightmarish when totally empty. Of course, Kate eventually finds that she is not entirely alone after all, there’s danger from all around and this is what makes all the twists and turns come somewhat unexpected. I say somewhat, since there is a short opening scene in the film which hints that there is indeed someone malicious in that underground station. And the actor playing this someone, this creep, is Sean Harris (who has the leading role in Possum from 2018) who is a method actor who didn’t socialize with anyone throughout the shoot. Also, none of them ever saw his makeup prior to shooting the scenes, a process which took seven hours each day. Whew! I also guess going into it so blindly must have been quite an experience for the other actors, and probably caused some genuine reactions.

While there are some grisly scenes and a little bit of gore here, some scenes are offscreen so there isn’t really enough to warrant a gore-badge. There’s a little bit of illogical nonsense here and there, but nevertheless Creep is an overall fun horror movie well worth a watch.

Writer and director: Christopher Smith
Country & year: United Kingdom, 2004
Actors: Franka Potente, Sean Harris, Vas Blackwood, Ken Campbell, Kathryn Gilfeather, Grant Ibbs, Joe Anderson, Jeremy Sheffield, Sean De Vrind, Ian Duncan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381966/

I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)

Posted on April 2, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

John Wayne Cleaver (yeah, not Gacy, this movie is not about that guy) is a teenager who’s struggling with homicidal impulses. He’s going to a therapist, a man named Grant, who has diagnosed John as a sociopath. John is also helping his mother with work at her funeral home, having a rather distanced and curious view on the bodies there. When there’s talk about a serial killer in John’s hometown, his interest is of course piqued. One day John witnesses his friendly elderly neighbour Crowley (Christopher Lloyd, from Back to the Future) asking a drifter to join him on an ice fishing trip, and he decides to follow them. The elderly man appears at first to be in danger, and the drifter is about to attack him when things take a sudden u-turn and Crowley ends up killing the man with only his hand. Surprised and full of awe, John witnesses the scene from behind a tree, seeing how old man Mr. Crowley is cutting out the drifter’s lungs. Well, now he knows who the serial killer in town is. Instead of heading straight for the police, however, the sociopathic boy creates a profile for the killer, noting how earlier victims also had organs removed. He starts spying on Crowley, and offers to help Crowley and his wife shoveling their walkway for snow in order to get a bit closer. What ensues is a kind of cat and mouse game, only this is more like a predator vs predator game.. and John has no clue what he’s started meddling with.

I Am Not a Serial Killer is a horror film from 2016, directed by Billy O’Brien and based on a novel from 2009 of the same name by Dan Wells. Funding for the film was provided by the Irish Film Board, The Fyzz Facility and Quickfire Films, and its budget was a meager $1.45 million.

The film is deliberately slow-paced with a combination of drama and thriller. Since we’re being shown exactly who the killer is on a very early stage there’s no real mystery about it, the boy spying on the killer doesn’t do it in investigative Summer of 84-style because he’s unsure, he knows. He literally witnessed his neighbour committing murder in broad daylight. He investigates him because he wants to know more, he’s simply fascinated! This makes you wonder what direction the movie will take, as we also got to know early on that the boy is more than just a little troubled. It often offers an interesting peek into the troubled teenager’s dark thoughts, and it works well as a variation of the youngster vs the serial killer neighbour. There is a kind of unusual vibe throughout, where certain things that happen are steeped in seriousness, while having a certain indistinct silliness over it. Max Records is also doing great in the performance of the sociopathic teenager trying to keep his urges in check, and seeing Christopher Lloyd as the seemingly charming yet very deadly elderly man certainly gives the movie a heightened efficacy.

There are also some fun easter eggs: Dan Wells, the author of the novel has a cameo near the end of the film, as a police officer. Crowley, played by Christopher Lloyd, is suspected of being a missing person whose name is Emmet (a nudge to Lloyd’s character in the Back to the Future films, as Dr. Emmet Brown). There’s also some gameplay footage where John’s friend is gaming, and this is from a game called The Order: 1886 by Ready At Dawn, which is a game that features a protagonist battling against a hidden evil, which is very much what is also happening in this film.

I Am Not a Serial Killer is a fun experience, and certainly one of those films where it’s best to walk in blind for the best experience.

Director: Billy O’Brien
Writers: Billy O’Brien, Christopher Hyde
Country & year: Ireland, USA, United Kingdom, 2016
Actors: Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser, Christina Baldwin, Karl Geary, Dee Noah, Lucy Lawton, Anna Sundberg, Raymond Brandstrom, Michael Paul Levin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4303340/

RITO DE PASO – Horror Short

Posted on March 31, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

After closing his eyes our hero wakes in another world. There he awaits the arrival of someone on top of the mountain. Together they will walk deep into the woods with the intention of rescuing their dearest loved one from the clutches of a mysterious secret society.

Rito de Paso is a surreal and nightmarish horror short!

Director: Jaime Herrero
Writer: Jaime Herrero
Country & year: Spain, 2019
Actors: Antonio Meler, Elisabeth Bonjour, Luis Torrelles
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10950196/

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Posted on March 29, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Leon is a photographer who is totally over the moon when the famous gallery owner Susan is willing to take a look at his work. This soon ends up as quite a blow to his ego, however, when she criticizes him for not being bold enough with his pictures. Despite being let down by this, he decides to take more risks when photographing the city, and goes on a search for the most gritty shots he can find. One night, he takes pictures of a group of men behaving threateningly towards a young woman, and ends up rescuing her as the guys just decide to beat it due to the security cameras nearby. Leon is satisfied with both his heroic deed and some possibly successful photographs he can use, but the next day he discovers that the woman he rescued went missing the same night. So, what to do? Well, the only responsible thing someone could do in a situation like this: he goes to the police and delivers the photographs he took from that night. The result is that he is practically just being scoffed at, which makes Leon even more intrigued. He starts his own investigation and discovers that there are numerous reports of people that have gone missing under similar circumstances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany, and Leon suspects that this man is a serial killer that’s been killing subway passengers for many years.

The Midnight Meat Train is a horror film from 2008, based on a short story by Clive Barker by the same name. The story was written in 1984, and is included on the first volume of Books of Blood. The movie was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, and while getting fairly positive reviews, it was only given a very limited theatrical release and ended up quickly on DVD. Barker was, naturally, quite angry with Lionsgate because of this. The movie certainly didn’t get the theatrical run it should’ve had, but nowadays it’s extensively available on both physical releases and several streaming sites.

As far as the comparisons go between the short story and the movie, the original story portrayed Leon as a bored loner in a city he used to idealize before moving there (and realizing what a shithole it actually is), while in the movie he’s got a girlfriend and a passion for photography. While I personally prefer the original story’s premise more than the movie’s, I understand how the change was necessary when implementing a bit of detective investigation. While you get a lot of things spoiled already in the opening scene, where you get to know that the title implies exactly what you’ll get, it still manages to offer enough suspense and feeling of mystery throughout. The gore is aplenty with some really visceral scenes on board the “meat train”, where guts, eyeballs and severed heads are flying around the screen like it was supposed to be a 3D production. A jolly good time indeed! The only slight disappointment for my part is the ending, which seemed rather underwhelming compared to the original story.

The Midnight Meat Train is a gritty and atmospheric horror film, well acted and with some very effective gore scenes (although the CGI effects are a little bit outdated in some parts, but overall decent enough). It stands well together with the other Clive Barker adaptions, like Lord of Illusions.

Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Writer: Jeff Buhler
Country & year: US, UK, 2008
Actors: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Vinnie Jones, Roger Bart, Tony Curran, Barbara Eve Harris, Peter Jacobson, Stephanie Mace, Ted Raimi, Nori Satô, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805570/