Set in the late 70’s, a psychiatric doctor and his assistant are called to an isolated country house to examine Deborah, whose brother believes she is losing her mind.
Again it’s Horror Short Sunday, and this time we’re taking a look at O, Glory! This horror short offers up a trippy 70’s vibe, where an opinionated and conceited psychiatrist believes he can cure a mentally disturbed woman, only to have everything spiral into bizarre cosmic horror.
Director: Charlie Edwards-Moss, Joe Williams Writer: Charlie Edwards-Moss, Joe Williams Country & year: UK, 2022 Actors: Sam Spruell, Jonathan Livingstone, Emily Stott, Vincent Shiels, Charlie Ratcliffe IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt17274022/
Because this has nothing to do with Joe D’Amato’s film, even though I see clearly through the cheap and ridiculously outdated selling tactic. Italians were notoriously known for spewing out cynical and half-assed unofficial “faux“ sequels to more successful films way back in the day, which most of us horror ghouls know pretty well already. This one came just four decades too late. I discovered the film while I wrote my review of the original, and I honestly expected the worst of the worst and that I’d maybe turn it off after the first thirty minutes (which is something I rarely do). And to my fat surprise, I had some fun with Anthropophagus II, because it’s so dumb it’s actually amusing.
The plot goes as follows: A group of young female students are writing a thesis on a historical air-raid shelter bunker located near Rome, Italy. To get a sense of the place and its environment, they let themselves be isolated in the bunker over a weekend. No alcohol allowed. And I thought that girls just wanted to have fun. They also have to hand over their cellphones, which I don’t believe for a second that any Gen Z would survive without for even two seconds. They would crumble and die of abstinence before starvation. Anyway – it turns out that a disfigured, tiny freak lives deep in the bunker where he has his own secret little dim-lighted torture chamber. He looks like an older, retired brother of Yellow Bastard from Sin City, just without the beer gut, and is of course not related to the cannibal from the original film. He’s moons apart from the creepy and intimidating presence we saw with George Eastman, if we really have to compare. So, what’s his deal? You’ll see.
On the surface, there’s nothing new here, just a string of tired, over-done clichés and modern TikTok characters with a half brain cell and the personality of an emoji. Nothing much to grab onto there, except some nice flesh, I guess. It’s formulaic by the textbook. The acting is flat with tone deaf dialogues written by an alien who doesn’t have a clue how humans interact. Yes, it’s one of those movies. The girls are cute, though, I’ll give ’em that. All the actors have English dubbing and some of their dialogue delivery is on Scooby-Doo level and overall so goofy that I burst out laughing several times. Lol and Lols and more emoji lols. The film is produced by Giovanni Paolucci, an old-timer veteran who’s worked on several films by Bruno Mattei and Dario Argento’s big turkey, which was Dracula 3D. So that alone should maybe say something.
The film’s strong side is the effects and the setting of the bunker which reminded me more of Creep (2004), while we have a series of fleshy Guinea Pig-inspired torture porn scenes. And this one goes hardcore on the gore, already in the opening scene where we have a baby being ripped out of a woman’s vagina. A nice quick nod to the original. The effects are impressive, and the violence is mean-spirited, brutal and callous, whereas Art the Clown would probably have smiled from ear to ear. Solid work from the splatter & gore department, in other words. So, if you’re primarily in for the bloody and messy stuff, sprinkled with some flavors of classic Italian horror aesthetic to make it taste more than a week-old frozen pepperoni pizza, you won’t be too disappointed.
Anthropophagus II is available both on DVD and Blu-ray, and also lurking on our favorite streaming site, Tubi.
Director: Dario Germani Writer: Lorenzo De Luca Country & year: Italy, 2022 Actors: Jessica Pizzi, Monica Carpanese, Giuditta Niccoli, Diletta Maria D’Ascanio, Chiara De Cristofaro, Shaen Barletta, Valentina Capuano, Alessandra Pellegrino, Alberto Buccolini IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13757762/
It’s summer, the sun is shining and that means: vacation time. How about traveling to an obscure, exotic Greek Island out in the middle of nowhere. We can take along our heavily pregnant friend who’s just minutes from giving birth. Yeah, that’s a great idea, because nothing bad could happen to her.
As soon as our group of friends arrives at the island, things doesn’t seem to be right. The old town nearby is eerily quiet where all the townsfolk just seem to have vanished in thin air. After some exploring, they stumble upon a rotten corpse which should be enough to take a U-turn and maybe visit Disneyland instead. Whoops, too late, cause their boat has been attacked and is adrift. The pregnant woman, who stayed on the boat, has been captured by a grunting man which we so far has only seen from his POV view. Turns out that he’s a deranged cannibal who’s eaten the whole island where the only survivor is a blind girl drenched in blood, hiding in a basement. Have a nice stay.
Antropophagus, or AntHropophagus. or AntHropophagOus, or just I Eat Your Fetus. Yum is Joe D’Amato’s filthy and notorious Eurotrash magnum opus which is most known for one particular scene (or maybe two). The odd title stems from anthropophagy, a doctor term which in English simply means cannibalism. And with that being said, the film is far from as gory as as it’ll make you to believe. We have the half-classic scene of the cannibal eating his own intestines, a severed head in a bucket, a pretty sloppy kill with a meatcleaver, and of course the film’s big selling point: the very juicy fetus scene which made the film earn its spot on the list of Video nasty, and banned in most countries. But don’t worry, the effect of the fetus was a skinned rabbit covered in blood. Poor rabbit, though.
The pacing is slow, especially in the middle-part where the film really uses its precious time to build up the atmosphere. The characters are bland and boring which makes the slow build-up seem longer than it should. A familiar face among the body-counts would be Tisa Farrow, most known from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh-Eaters (1979). This was her final acting gig before she retired from the film biz to pursue a career as a nurse. She died early this year at age 72. RIP.
The film is pretty tame compared with today’s standards, to be honest. There’s also some very bizarre circus/clown music to be heard during the first half. The film’s strong suit is the thick, raw and sticky atmosphere. George Eastman as the bulky and tall cannibal is also a big plus here, even though he walks slower than a lobotomized zombie on Zoloft. So despite its flaws and clunkiness, the film has its unique vibe and distinctiveness, maybe much thanks to the primitive surroundings and the old European buildings with the overall strong odor of death and decay everywhere. It’s also a technically solid film with some really great ghoulish sceneries – the most memorable being in a moist catacomb where the film’s crew mixed real skeletons with fake ones.
And that segways us to the IMDb’s trivia section: because according to the director, some of the heads and bones in the catacombs were plastic imitations, as mentioned. Upon collecting them after the scenes had been shot, the crew accidentally took with them some real bones. Since D’Amato did not dare to return them, he let them make a “pilgrimage” to his house. Horns up!
I’m also a sucker for that deliciously tasty movie poster, by the way, which is definitively something to have framed in your living room just to piss of your mum and dad every time they visit. That one is made by Enzo Sciotti (1944 – 2021) who also illustrated movie posters for Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, David Lynch, George A. Romero and more. Movie poster designers, and illustrators in general, get little to no credit, and with the rise of AI junk, I hope that will change. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that, though.
Antropophagus has gotten numerous releases throughout the years, all from cut-down versions to bootlegs with even more numerous alternative titles to keep you confused. It was for the first time released in full uncut version in 2005 by Shriek Show with both Italian and English dub. The Italian version is laughably bad, so rather stick with the English one. Eastman and D’Amato followed-up with a so-called “spiritual sequel“ a year later called Absurd, which is just dull and painfully boring. The remake Anthropophagous 2000 (1999) by Andreas Schnaas is way more fun. An unofficial sequel was spat out in 2022, simply called Antropophagus II, which I hadn’t heard of until now.
Director: Joe D’Amato Writer: George Eastman, Joe D’Amato Country & year: Italy, 1980 Also known as: The Grim Reaper, The Savage Island, The Beast, The Zombie’s Rage, Man-Eater Actors: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, Margaret Mazzantini, Mark Bodin, George Eastman IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082479/
A reclusive nun is tempted to leave the monastery. Her dream is to become a curvy, voluptuous woman; to become how she really feels inside. With cautious steps, she ventures towards the sinful city.
On this week’s Horror Short Sunday, we present the amusing Sister Hell, a horror short from Norway (our home country) about a nun who wants to undergo a total bimbofication surgery. When mother superior and the other servants of the lord tries to stop her and punish her for her sins, the devil himself comes to save the day and brings along his fiddle and his accordion as well! Yes, it’s exactly as weird and bizarre as it sounds. Enjoy!
Director: Fredrik S. Hana Writer: Fredrik S. Hana Country & year: Norway, 2015 Actors: Thomas Aske Berg, Espen Hana, Oliver Hohlbrugger, Anders Hommersand, Lene Heimlund Larsen, Johanna Knudsen Rostad, Michael Wallin IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt4921312/
In Arvores National Park, several rangers and other people have gone missing over a span of many years. Lennon is a backcountry ranger who starts working at the place, after her predecessor became one of the missing people. Of course, Lennon also has a motive for working at this place: when she was a child, her sister Jenny disappeared there, and she hopes that maybe she will find some answers. In her ranger cabin, she also keeps track of all the people that have gone missing over the years, including her sister. Soon, there’s report of another missing person as well: Sarah Greenberg, who went missing during a hike. The rangers form a search party, but the head ranger orders Lennon to stay at base camp, an order she quickly disobeys. She starts searching for Sarah as well, and finds her bloody and disoriented. What sounds like a happy ending to what could have been another missing persons case, ends up getting Lennon fired and she is asked to await airlift out of the place in five days. Well, five days can be a long wait…and strange things start happening when Lennon then decides to take a hike through the park…
Lovely, Dark and Deep is a horror film from 2023, written and directed by Teresa Sutherland. It’s her feature debut, and stars Georgina Campbell (from Barbarian) in the leading role. The movie was filmed in Portugal, providing many great forest and landscape shots.
The feeling of total isolation comes through well during the film, where the infrequent appearance of other rangers and hikers almost come as a surprise. It is both beautiful and unnerving, where Lennon walks through the confines of the forest on a sunny day, while also feeling like the entire place is ready to swallow her up and leaving no trace. Every year, hundreds of people go missing in national parks, and many of them are never found. While it comes as no surprise that this could easily happen due to the lack of proper planning, not having proper gear, unpredictable weather, sudden illness and even wildlife, it’s still something that’s fruitful for fanciful explanations and creepy theories: from the more down-to-earth speculations like serial killers roaming these places to supernatural explanations, Bigfoot, ufo’s, you name it. And while Lovely, Dark and Deep does offer some supernatural elements, most of it is subtle enough and without any thorough explanation, which works just fine for a movie like this.
Lovely Dark and Deep is a slow-burner which focuses on mood and mystery, providing an unsettling and often dreamlike atmosphere. It’s primarily about a woman who returns to the place where a childhood trauma happened, in order to seek answers. Not only does she get isolated in the vast forest landscape, but she’s already mentally isolated by dwelling on her past terrors and conflicting feelings and self-doubt, partly blaming herself and wondering if she could she have done something to save her sister. It does take a certain turn after a while where it ventures into the supernatural and surreal, which may take some people out of it, but which I personally found enjoyable. Recommended if you want something beautiful, mysterious and atmospheric. Or something lovely, dark and deep if you will.
Writer and director: Teresa Sutherland Country & year: Portugal/USA, 2023 Actors: Georgina Campbell, Nick Blood, Wai Ching Ho, Mick Greer, Celia Williams, Maria de Sá, Ana Sofia Martins, Ivory Lee Smith, Letícia Assunção IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15560132/
It’s Shark Week and all, and since I’ve already talked about the modern classic that is Ouija Shark four years ago, now it’s time to take a look at the sequel.
Ouija Shark 2 opens with a quick summary of the first one where Anthony (John Migliore) sacrificed himself to save his daughter from getting eaten by a ghost shark. Anthony (John Migliore again) has since gotten stuck in a cheap green-screened Hell as a twisted parody of Dr. Strange where he’s getting chased and fighting against… gorillas. Of course, what else did you expect.
Anthony’s supposedly grieving wife (played by Deborah Jayne Reilly Smith) gives an emotionless speech with some crocodile tears, standing by his gravestone and swears that she will bring him back. She visits the fortune-teller who helped Anthony crossing over to the other side, in order to whack the shark and get some answers. The crystal ball tells us what we already know: that he’s in Hell. We can’t leave him THERE.We have to SAVE him, Anthony’s wife says with the emotion of a flat google voice. It’s not gonna be easy, the fortune-teller replies. It’s gonna be a barefoot trip to the park, don’t you worry.
Because after a quick meeting with The Grim Reaper (played by a dude with some cheap white paint on his face), Anthony gets some assistance from a ghost alligator which will help him finishing the evil shark. And just out of the blue, as expected, we have a musical number here where a goofy Satan and his TikTok brides show Taylor Swift how you make a catchy song (and that was not irony). Meanwhile, in the land of the living, Anthony’s wife is in the local woods to ask the mom of the fortune-teller for help. She’s a hermit and not interested. Shove off, she says. Can’t blame her. She changes her mind, though. But who cares. Now we want some shark mayhem, as the poster teases us with.
And the poster didn’t lie. If the film wasn’t amateur-hour already, just wait for the last thirty minutes – or as Satan himself says: You’ve seen nothing yet, folks! Here we have a series of random nightly cityscape shots where the ghost shark and the gator boss fight each other. Both creatures are, just like in the first film, ultra-cheap looking cute puppets that toddlers would have in their bed, and it looks as epic and cinematic as you’d expect. The gator spits out yellow-glowing puffy CGI balls while Satan controls the shark with a ouija board as he’s laughing and having a blast. The military chimes in and fires some missiles. The shark zaps them by shooting force-lighting through its eyes. Lots of buildings get destroyed, even a nuclear power plant (!) Oh, the mayhem, carnage and destruction! Roland Emmerich would eat his heart out. Really intense stuff, in other words. We see a handful of extras who run left and right in front a black, foggy background, all of which I would bet is super proud to be a part of Ouija Shark 2. And don’t blink if you wanna catch the two-second cameo by Lloyd Kaufman.
Ouija Shark 2 is written and directed by the main protagonist himself, John Migliore. And he goes all in for a crazier tone than the first one with a script that must have been co-written by a group of eight-year olds who just made it up as they went along. While the first had a whopping budget of 300 (yes, three hundred) Canadian dollars, I’d guess this one is slightly higher (50 dollars extra maybe), which gives us a few more green screen backgrounds rather than just the local woods and the director’s backyard. The acting is, of course, a big factor here, which is as strong and solid as you’d see in an elementary school play. But the one who takes the golden raspberry here, is Deborah Jayne Reilly Smith. She’s so stiff, lifeless and ridiculously robotic that she makes Mark Zuckerberg actually look like a normal human being. That in itself quite impressive.
So, whats next for this epic franchise, we may wonder? How about Ouija Shark 3: The Harpoon Made Me Do it, just to spitball an idea.
Writer and director: John Migliore Country & year: Canada, 2022 Actors: John Migliore, Deborah Jayne Reilly Smith, Kylie Gough, Simon Wheeldon, Lena Montecalvo, Jay MacAulay, Sabrina Migliore, Emmalene Pruden, Nicholas Migliore IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21409958/
A late-night janitor gets a strange visitor when cleaning in the swimming pool area.
For this week’s Horror Short Sunday, we take a look at the animated horror short The Night Shift, which is the second episode of the animated series Uncanny Alley shown on Adult Swim. It’s created by Rodrigo Goulão de Sousa, who is an animator based in France. The episodes are all horror themed, with surreal and often bizarre elements mixed into the creepiness. This episode starts off with a seemingly “ordinary” supernatural event: a bleeding crooked ghost walks by, leaving stains of blood all over the floor. At this point, the janitor seems more downhearted by the fact that he’s got to clean it up, rather than showing any fear over seeing an actual ghost…but then, the ghost starts gibbering some kind of nonsense and we’re suddenly thrown into a surreal, bizarre lovecraftian world of some kind. Certainly worth a watch and all the episodes are available on Adult Swim’s YouTube channel.
Director: Rodrigo Goulão de Sousa Writer: Rodrigo Goulão de Sousa Country & year: USA, 2024
Sara is an overweight girl who gets constantly bullied by a group of other teenage girls: Maca, Roci and Claudia. One of these girls even used to be her friend. They call her Cerdita (Piggy), and she can’t get a moment of peace no matter where she goes. On a hot summer day, she decides to visit the local swimming pool, where there’s no one else except another man who leaves shortly after. The peace doesn’t last long, though, because of course the three bullies comes along and ruins everything for her and also ends up stealing her backpack and clothes. Wearing nothing but her bikini, she has to walk home and gets harassed by a group of men who makes fun of her weight. Devastated, she escapes onto a side road, where she sees a parked van. Suddenly, a bloodied Claudia appears in the window of the van, screaming and begging for Sara to help her. Struck with fear, she freezes when realizing that the driver of the van has kidnapped those girls. Then, the kidnapper locks gazes with her, and she recognizes him as the man who was by the swimming pool earlier. He drops off her towel so she can cover herself, and drives off. Returning home, Sara finds herself conflicted as the kidnapper is one of the very few people in her life who have shown her some kindness and respect, and she decides to not tell anyone about what happened. Things escalate as the search for the missing girls are put into force, and other people are found dead. Sara is not sure how long she can keep her mouth shut in allegiance with the serial killer…
Piggy (original title: Cerdita) was released in 2022 and is Carlota Pereda’s feature film debut, and based on the short film by the same name from 2018. Both the feature film and the short film features Laura Galán in the leading role, and the shooting locations included the village of Villanueva de la Vera and the surrounding areas.
Now, looking at some of the posters for this film, where Sara is covered in blood on a hot Spanish summer day, and others where she’s been edited to be wielding a knife in her hand, one might think this is a typical revenge thriller movie. It’s not. Setting the film off by showing how Sara is bullied by people left and right while getting to meet an actual serial killer who – ironically – is the only person who shows her some kind of affection, really does set the mood. Yes, we sympathize with Sara and what she’s going through, and yeah…we don’t really feel too bad for those girls who are simply portrayed as a group of mean bitches. The exception is supposed to be Claudia, who used to be Sara’s friend, but who now enjoys being with the “cool” girls instead. We can see that she initially hesitates when seeing how the others treat Sara, but she soon joins in and does absolutely nothing to stop them. Despite being somewhat portrayed as the “lesser evil” among the girls, I honestly think she’s just as bad, maybe even worse. So yeah, we want to see Sara getting justice, but it plays out more as a drama thriller where the heroine is constantly plagued with differing feelings of both guilt and loyalty to the man who kidnapped her tormentors. And the majority of the villagers are also portrayed as people who aren’t exactly easy to like, including Sara’s own family, with the exception of her dad who seems to be the only person she’s got an okay relationship with.
Piggy aka Cerdita is a not a typical revenge film or slasher, but as a drama thriller about a bullied girl who ends up fighting quite the dilemma. Who to choose: the serial killer who saved you from your bullies, or the bullies and villagers who couldn’t really give a shit about you? In a regular slasher the answer to that question would have been obvious, but this movie is taking a more realistic approach. Sara never turns into some kind of badass heroine, but instead she’s coming to her own decisions despite her conflicting feelings. Definitely worth a watch, and an interesting take on how a bullied person would deal with having an evil savior.
Writer and director: Carlota Pereda Country & year: Spain, 2023 Original title: Cerdita Actors: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, Claudia Salas, José Pastor, Fernando Delgado-Hierro, Julián Valcárcel, Amets Otxoa IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10399608/
It’s been approximately 30 years since the events of Nightwatch aka Nattevakten (1994), and the survivors aren’t actually faring so well. Martin is a complete wreck, not just because of his obvious PTSD but also because his wife Kalinka committed suicide after never getting over the trauma this incident caused her. He’s without a job and haven’t even received any welfare pay, and he tries to chase away his demons with drink and pills. Yeah, that always works great. His daughter, Emma, is trying to help him out but it’s apparent that she hasn’t properly processed her mother’s suicide either, which isn’t too surprising considering that she’s the one who found her. Not to mention the impact it all had on Jens, who bailed ass out of the country and have been living in Thailand ever since. Trauma has indeed dug its claws deep into everyone involved. Emma was never told about what happened, but when looking through some old newspaper clippings she finds out about the serial killer Wörmer and her parents involvement with him. History often likes to repeat itself, and Emma ends up taking a night watch job at – you guessed it – the exact same place as her father worked. Good choice! And when she finds out that Wörmer is still alive and just woke up from his coma, she wants to meet him in the hopes of finally exorcising both her father’s demons and her own. Unwittingly, she just ends up letting even more demons loose…
Nightwatch – Demons are Forever (original title: Nattevagten – Dæmoner går i arv) is a danish thriller/horror movie from 2023. It’s a direct sequel to the first film from 1994, Nightwatch, and both are written and directed by Ole Bornedal. A sequel almost 30 years later may feel like an odd choice, but considering how this movie became a danish cult classic back in the days it’s a fun way to re-introduce the film while giving a follow-up to the story, including the original actors coming back to play their earlier roles. It’s definitely a nice watch for those who have seen the original, and while some may argue that a sequel this long afterwards feels unnecessary, I’d like to counter-argue with what the hell kind of sequel these days are really “necessary“ anyways..?
Just like the first film, there is a mystery and several red herrings attempting to throw you off guard. While this isn’t as effective as in the first, it’s compelling enough to keep you engaged. The red thread here is trauma and its effect on everyone involved, and while this sequel can’t even come close to being as effectual for today’s audience as the first film was (which would have been a bit weird to expect anyways) it’s still a well-crafted thriller. It’s also a lot of fun to see the old actors from the first film getting back together again for this sequel, and the actor playing Emma, Fanny Bornedal, is the director’s own daughter. It was also enjoyable to see Ulf Pilgaard back as the serial killer Wörmer, although quite reduced due to old age (83 years) he manages to come off as an intimidating predator who of course still likes to repeatedly listen to some creepy-ass old song (Lille Lise lett på tå).
Overall, Nightwatch – Demons are Forever is a decent sequel that comes incredibly late, but better late than never as they say. Or at least that’s true in some cases. Sure, there’s nothing groundbreaking here, and if we are going to be perfectly honest there wasn’t really any of that in the original either, it was just presented to an audience where the majority had never seen something like that before. The film offers up a nice thriller mystery and will probably work best for those who have seen the original, although it isn’t a must.
Writer and director: Ole Bornedal Country & year: Denmark, 2023 Original title: Nattevagten – Dæmoner går i arv Actors: Fanny Leander Bornedal, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alex Høgh Andersen, Sara Viktoria Bjerregaard, Kim Bodnia, Vibeke Hastrup, Pelle Emil Hebsgaard, Ulf Pilgaard, Sonja Richter, Paprika Steen IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6318608/
In 1980s NYC, a young dancer at the top of her class is stalked during a lonely night of rehearsing by a shadowy figure wearing red gloves.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’ve seen Red Gloves from 2023, directed by Santiago Saba Salem and written by Santiago Saba Salem and Drew Maxwell Weiss. We’re in the 1980’s, and some dancers in NYC are rehearsing. One of them stays alone in order to keep practicing, and of course, someone’s out to get her! Someone we can’t fully see except from noticing them wearing red gloves in typical giallo-style (well, the usual style is black gloves, but everyone’s got their own fashion preferences). It’s impossible to not notice the apparent Suspiria-vibes in this one, and it’s like a love letter to both the aforementioned film and the giallo genre.
Director: Santiago Saba Salem Writer: Santiago Saba Salem, Drew Maxwell Weiss Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Isabelle Phillips, Ed Malone, Ruth Kavanagh, Madison Grace Johnson, Olivia Greco, Alexandra Osorio, Maya Tsuruki-Holden IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt28499552/
