Leon is a young man who deals with antiques, and inherits his estranged mother’s house and belongings after her suicide. He arrives at the house, and takes a look at the inventory, all the while we get a narration delivered by the deceased. Rosalind Leigh, the mother, gives a monologue about her life where she describes the overwhelming loneliness she felt after her son rejected her due to their difference in faith and his negative religious experiences throughout his childhood. She describes how she, during the remainder of her life, feared he would never regain his faith or return to her, but she kept waiting. While wandering through his mother’s old house and her belongings, he discovers that it was actually she who was his anonymous benefactor who bought all the items of antiquity he sold. The more he looks through his mother’s belongings, the more he feels that he is surrounded by sinister figures and starts having hallucinations that rocks his skeptic foundation to the core.
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh is a horror movie directed by Rodrigo Gudiño, and is one of those typical horror films that is bound to have very split opinions: you’ll either think of it as a sluggish, boring snoozefest, or you’ll be intrigued by the atmosphere, underlying messages and metaphors. And while I have to agree that the film didn’t really tap into all the potential it could have had, I still enjoyed its ominous feeling of unease which was blended so well with the main character’s surroundings. In fact, Rodrigo drove around Toronto looking at houses, until he found one that was owned by a mother and daughter who were eccentric Collectors. And it sure was a perfect fit. It’s filled with knick-knacks, huge statues, old dolls and whatnot. The imagery, cinematography and lightning are all spot-on, and the voice-over by the deceased woman is an excellent touch, with her moody and husky voice.
There are a few flashback scenes presented, where the mother starts seeing a demonic cat-like entity concurrently with her failure to deal with her loneliness. Rosalind appears to have sought some kind of comfort from joining a religious cult, some kind of “angel cult”, taking her religious beliefs and eccentricities to another level. I personally wish this could have been explored a bit further, but we never really got to know too much about this cult she was an apparent member of. We do get more than a few glimpses into Rosalind’s gradually destroyed psyche, however, which is not directly in correlation with the cult, but rather how her faith overpowers her despite being the sole reason for the destruction of the relationship with her son. Leon, on the other hand, is clearly struggling as well. While wandering the house and pretty much attacked with ptsd-triggers all around, he keeps calling his girlfriend psychologist. There’s suffering and sadness all around, coming from both perspectives.
Overall, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh is an atmospheric, gothic ghost story and sombre tale about loneliness and the monster it can turn into, and how faith can not only bring people together, but also bring them completely apart. It’s definitely intended for a mature audience, very low-key, vague and a bit up for interpretation, and we all know that this kind of recipe doesn’t always taste well for everyone. However, it can hit the right strings if you can appreciate this sort of film, and you might find it intriguing and delightful. A pure slow burner indeed, but the atmosphere is plentiful with the creepy house and all the collectables inside.
Writer and director: Rodrigo Gudiño Country & year: Canada, 2012 Actors: Aaron Poole, Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Richings, Stephen Eric McIntyre, Charlotte Sullivan, Mitch Markowitz, Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman, Rodrigo Gudiño, Bob Dorsey, Rogelio Gudiño, IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2332831/
Upon acquiring a vintage toy, the “Peep-Scope”, a man unleashes a ghostly entity from a comic book into his own home.
The Milkman is a really fun horror short that presents part of the story through a cool retro “comic book” viewed in a special device, the “Peep-Scope”.
Director: Vincent Dormani Writer: Vincent Dormani Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Ben Goldman, Larry Thompson Jr. IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt24515514/
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/
Even though we’ve mainly been focusing on older horror movies, we check out newer stuff whenever we have the occasion or access to keep us somewhat updated on the modern, living world and an excuse to drag ourselves out from the crypt to smell some fresh air.
And 2023 seems to be an awesome year of horror with a murderous Winne the Pooh, a dancing doll, three Dracula-related films, and a bunch of kids kicking some alien ass. Here’s some of the titles to look forward to:
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
Blood or honey with your bread? Why not both?
Here’s one of the rare occasions where just the title alone is enough to hit the interest meter up to eleven. But to be honest, I was also one of many who thought this was a fake trailer because Winnie the Pooh as a slasher villain sounds just too far out to be true. But no, it’s an actual film and Winnie the Pooh has some serious business to take care of after he got set free in the public domain where he can finally release his decades of boiled-up anger. And we’re already rooting for him, even before reading a synopsis.
Here we meet a young adult Christopher Robin who takes his girlfriend to 100 acre woods to say hello to his old childhood friends: Piglet, Eeyore and of course Winnie. But something is clearly wrong as they enter the woods and we soon learn that Old Winnie has been suffering some serious abandonment issues after Christopher left him, which made him become a serial killer.
Don’t know what to really expect other than the trailer showing clearly the three acts for the film: the first looks like a dark fantasy, the second as a mediocre teen slasher, the third as a gritty Grindhouse as if it was directed by Rob Zombie. I’m intrigued, at least.
Project Wolf Hunting
Train to Busan, and Peninsula, comes quick to mind here for some reason. But Project Wolf Hunting appears to be something quite else that seems to deal with a bunch of max prisoners being used as guinea pigs for some body-horror experiments. As they get put in cages in a cargo ship to get transported from the The Philippines to South Kora, something goes horribly wrong when they escape and causes a roller-coaster of a riot.
Looks like Con Air meets Under Siege and says hello to The Predator in Splatterhouse? Well, sign me up ’cause this seems like a wild all-inclusive boat ride with a lot of gory action and top-notch filmmaking in general. The original title is Neugdaesanyang.
Thorns
It’s quite impressing that this little indie film trailer already looks ten times much better than most of the Hellraiser sequels.
And speaking of; Thorns seems to take a lot of inspirations from the aforementioned franchise, blended with some Lovecraftian intergalactic, Sci-Fi mayhem. The practical effects also looks pretty tasty with several monster creatures all from a cenobite-looking creature to a toilet monster, and the atmosphere seems to be in place. Doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously either which can be a good or bad thing.
And then we have the man and the legend himself Doug Bradley as … uncle Satan in human disguise, just to take a wild guess? And yes, his appearance looks like it was shot via a zoom call, which makes sense when you really think about it. Even Satan have to keep himself in touch with the technology, you know.
And let’s keep ourselves excited with director Douglas Schulze’s own note with: “Thorns is ripe with physical makeup effects and plenty of gore.” The sufferings will be legendary, in other words.
M3GAN
We all laughed, cringed and almost lost our minds by the first M3GAN trailer. It left us beyond bewildered, and we started to question life on such a high philosophical level that even Socrates would tell us to chill down a bit. It was just too much to take in, even for a trailer. It has already created a million memes on Twitter. It’s insaaane, riight?
And how could the second trailer top the first one? Well, this trailer looks more like a parody of the first trailer which is a great achievement in itself. It also indicates that the tone is going to be all over the place. Is this a comedy, a straight horror, or both, or just pure unintentionally funny dancing turkey of the year to be shred apart with no mercy? It’s hard to tell, but nevertheless, I can’t deny that it looks fun, but for all the wrong reasons. That uncanny dancing, though, still makes me lost for words. It’s like witnessing a TikTok video on the dark web as if the surface TikTok wasn’t disturbing enough.
M3GAN is also written and directed by Gerard Johnstone who made Housebound back in 2014, another silly yet entertaining film. So, we just have to eagerly wait and see.
Kids vs. Aliens
This one just came suddenly from nowhere as a lightening from the sky (pun intended). Kids vs. Aliens is Jason Eiseners very long-awaited follow-up feature since his Grindhouse flick Hobo With a Shotgun from 2011, which I’m a big fan of. He’s also known for his Christmas Horror short Treevenge.
Kids vs. Aliens looks like Stranger Things on acid and seems like an explosive B-movie insanity with a lot of energy and zero compromises, just what we would expect from Json Eisener. It has the same colourful and vibrant look from HWaS, although it (also by juding from the poster) seems more like a light-hearted Halloween party movie and overall silly fun for the whole family to enjoy.
Subspecies: Bloodrise
The most requested sequel to Full Moon Features within the last 20-plus years that’s probably given Charles Band a chronic headache, ulcer, sore toenails and whatnot, but has finally a teaser: Subspecies: Bloodrise with our favourite vampire Radu.
This is a prequel of Radu from my understanding, spanning back to the old times before smartphones and shit. Ted Nicolaou, who wrote and directed the previous four films way back in the 90s is behind the steering wheel.
The visuals looks pretty promising. It has the gothic atmosphere, some sinister-looking vampires with fangs and swords, slices of cheese, and the classic soundtrack from The Aman Folk Orchestra. Full package it seems. And of course the star himself, Anders Hove as Radu with Denise Duff.
Some more anticipated movies for the upcoming year:
Renfield
Nicolas Cage as Dracula? Of course! And even rated R? Hell yeah!
Nosferatu
A remake of Nosferatu from 1922 by The VVitch and The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers. Cool. Also the second remake since Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht from 1979. And just for the occasion; Happy 100th birthday, Orlock, you sleazy old bastard.
Last Voyage of the Demeter
And here’s yet another Nosferatu/Dracula film, this one from our Norwegian Andre Øvredal. This one is based on the sailing ship Demeter that transferred Dracula from his homeland in Wallachia to the seaside town of Whitby in England, a boat trip that didn’t go pretty well for the captain and crew.
Evil Dead Rise
Have no clue what to expect in this sequel to Evil Dead (2013), but judging from the very few still images we’ve been teased with, it surely peaks my interest. This one is directed by Lee Cronin who also made the pretty stylish and atmospheric horror short Ghost Train.
Insidious: Don’t Fear the Dark
We’re not done with The Further yet in this prequel story of the Lambert family. This is the fifth installment in the Insidious franchise, this time directed by Ed Warren Patrick Wilson, and this is his directorial debut. The image is a still from one of the previous films.
Shelby Oaks
The debut of Chris Stuckmann, which is a found-footage film and the most-funded horror film project on Kickstarter so far. According to IMDb, the plot is about a woman’s desperate search for her long-lost sister and falls into obsession upon realizing that the imaginary demon from their childhood may have been real. The film is set to be released in July 2023 and no one can deny that the expectations is on a certain high level.
Sister Death
A sequel to the Spanish possession horror Verónica, which I don’t remember much of. But the images of the creepy nun and the Grindhouse-ish title is more than enough to check it out.
You know you’re about to watch a real Christmas Special when it opens with the theme from Cannibal Holocaust.
Treevenge gives us a terrifying look of what the poor pinetrees has to endure around the time of the holidays. But this time they’ve had enough, and have decided to let everyone without plastic trees regret their choice. They’re not holding back, and who can remember to ever have seen a pinetree assplay someone…?
This jolly horror short is directed by Jason Eisener, the man behind the modern Grindhouse-classic Hobo With a Shotgun and the upcoming Kids vs. Aliens.
Director: Jason Eisener Writers: Rob Cotterill, Jason Eisener Country & year: Canada, 2008 Actors: Jonathan Torrens, Sarah Dunsworth, Maris Morgan, Jayden Taylor, Lex Gigeroff, Mike Cleven, Jason Collins, Timothy Dunn, Shaun Clark, Aria Publicover, Molly Dunsworth IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1343750/
Night Killah … cool title, though. And by taking a look at the tasty cover art for the dvd, you get the impression of some body-horror going on. We also see a house in the night with a big full moon. If the cover itself couldn’t lie more, the title is as misleading as it can get. But this is first and foremost an Italian produced low-budget schlock film. And with that being said, Italian distributors have for a long time been notoriously known for using some of the most misleading titles possible and promote genre films in the home country as a sequel to a more known franchise in hopes of cashing in some more bucks. The most known example is probably Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (a great film, by the way) which tried to cash in on Dario Argento’s cut of Dawn of the Dead, released as simply Zombi in Italy. I can also mention fake clickbait titles as Cannibal Holocaust II (1988), Changeling II: The Revenge (1989), Terminator II (1989), Evil Dead 5 (1990) and the list goes on.
In this case Night Killer was promoted as – and I kid you not – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 in Italy, just prior to Leatherface: The Texas Chaisaw Masscare III which was already released seven months before. So, watching this film must have been like being pranked or Rick Rolled for 85 minutes straight. The distributors must think that the Italian horror audience have mushy pasta for braincells and they should be glad that the internet wasn’t a household thing back then. And of course we have the unofficial sequel of the more obscure 80s horror/fantasy Troll, completely overshadowed by Troll 2 which was made by the same director as Night Killer. We’re of course talking of no one other than the man, the myth and one of the legends of Italians so-bad-it’s good-movies, Claudio Fragasso himself. (Applause)
The film starts off in the middle of an aerobic dance practice where the stressed and unhinged female instructor is far from impressed by the dancers. She has a quick hilarious meltdown, then goes to the bathroom where she encounters a person with a black coat and a face covered by a cheap Freddy Krueger-like mask. He’s already killed one of the dancers by shoving his rubber claws straight through her torso. While it sounds brutal on paper, the effects are, how should I even try to describe it…it’s pure hot garbage and not even on an amateur level, it’s beyond that and filmed in such a close-up and edited down to a split-second, that you’ll miss it if you blink.
Anyway… the instructor gets her throat slit by the killer’s rubber claws. And if you want blood, just forget it. There’s hardly any blood pouring from her throat, as if someone just squeezed the last drops from a ketchup bottle and used the cheapest prosthetic make up one can buy from the discount bin at Walmart. It’s the laziest shit ever. And the funniest thing is that this opening sequence was directed by Bruno Mattei because the studio wanted more gore. He didn’t add anything new other than more inept filmmaking and a perfect foretaste of what to expect for the next 80 minutes. The most notable thing in this opening is that we clearly see that the fresh cut on her throat is magically gone when she is supposed to bleed to death. Continuity error on its finest.
The “plot”, which could be hidden here somewhere, goes something like this: After the extended opening scene we’re in the sunny beachside of Virgina) in the holiday season (oh, how convenient) where we meet the middle-aged Melanie (Tara Buckam) living in her upper-class house. She is soon to be one of the targets of our mysterious Freddy Krueger-masked serial killer. But first she gets a phone call from her ex. He’s drunk and sitting in a bar. She hangs up. Then she stands in front of a mirror with a blank stare, talking to herself while she’s touching her breasts. The phone rings again, this time by the masked killer that has picked her as the new victim. He then says with a slow and cheesy distorted voice “I won’t kill you straight awayyy, first I’m going to fuck your braaains ooouuut. ” She calls the police and the police do what the police does best: nothing. He invades her home, backs her against the wall while pointing a knife to her face. She screams while looking at the camera and… we cut to the next scene where she wakes up in the hospital. Her daughter asks her, with emotions like a robot, when she’s coming home. Soon, she says. When Melanie is suddenly out from the hospital, she’s being stalked and kidnapped by some random dude (Peter Hooten) which I thought was Steve Guttenberg as first glance. While she seems to develop a bizarre stockholm syndrome to this guy in which they have several cringy scenes together, the masked killer continues his business with other victims. It’s like watching two separate movies from here on: a soap opera and something that tries to resemble a slasher film. Confused? There’s also a sideplot with a policeman trying to finally catch the killer.
Bruh … What the fuck is this whack bullshit even supposed to be, you may ask. According to the director himself, who made it under the pseudonym Clyde Anderson, this is actually a psychoanalytical, intimate horror movie, didn’t you already know that? He’s also so proud of the idea of the film which he calls “a brilliant idea, an incredible mental masturbation.” During the interview on the DVD’s extras he says with a straight face that he wanted to make something like an Ingmar Bergman film. I’ve seen some interviews of Mr. Fragasso and there’s just something about him that doesn’t make him easy to read, yet I can catch glimpses of sharp, ironic detachment within his eyes. I’m not a body language expert nor Dr. Phil, but I’ve had this theory that he’s quite self-aware and just trolling us (no pun intended). Because there’s just no way a director in his age can sit and reflect on a complete demented and incomprehensible schlock 30 years later and view it as a flawless piece of cinema work while putting the cherry on top by comparing himself to Steven Spielberg. I just can’t buy it. Sorry. I believe more in Loch Nessie having a baby with Bigfoot.
We can also just speculate how Mr. Fragasso instructs his actors, or if he just pours some green shrooms from Nilbog in their drinks before shooting. The way he makes them perform and convey emotions is nothing but absurd, if not unique, and nothing you see everyday. It’s like watching a bunch of retarded aliens in disguise trying to behave like normal human beings, or human beans like Tommy Wiseau would say. Just like Troll 2, it’s the acting that really does the film with the bonkers line deliveries, stiff, delayed reactions like Oh My GoooooooOOOOD while the actors can’t hide their confused facial expression of “what the hell did I really sign up for? Will this be my legacy?” Fragasso knows exactly what they signed up for and he has the first laugh while he thinks to himself: I now own you forever, bitch.
And then we have the title itself, Night Killer. There was no chainsaw to be see in the Italian release but here we at least have a killer, even though there isn’t much killing to see. There’s only three body counts (as I remember) and they are as tame, weightless and ridiculously ineptly shot that they could easily fit in as segments in Sesame Street between Elmo and Abby’s Flying Fairy School. There’s not a single night scene here either, not even close to it. Every scene is shot like it was either a soap opera or a sitcom with its heavy use of light where in the outdoors scenes the sky is always blue and the sun is shining. Not a single shred of atmosphere or the feeling of looming threat. And then there’s a twist. No spoilers, of course, but when you thought you’ve seen it all and just thought the film couldn’t be more absurd, the twist will make your brain and head shrink (like the Goombas in Super Mario Bros) and leave you speechless. Not even M. Night Shyamalan in his wildest fever dreams could make this shit up. The film also ends with a cliffhanger, or sort of. And since Fragasso are hinting about a comeback as Clyde Anderson in the DVD interview, well, what are you waiting for, maestro? Gives us the sequel so I, among others, finally can recover and grow our heads back, per favore! Until then: Merry Christmas.
Writer and director: Claudio Fragasso Original title: Non aprite quella porta 3 Country & year: Italy, USA, 1990 Actors: Peter Hooten, Tara Buckman, Richard Foster, Mel Davis, Lee Lively, Tova Sardot, Gaby Ford IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0401696/
Not exactly a horror short in the purest sense this one, but it fits perfectly in our Horror Short banner and has a runtime under 25 minutes, so …
Mirror, Mirror is an episode of the anthology TV series Amazing Stories from the 1980s, created by Steven Spielberg. The episode follows the horror writer Jordan Manmouth who claims he is immune to being frightened by the nightmarish creatures he creates. From being a douchebag he gets reduced to a person with crippling fear when he is stalked by a black-caped phantom through mirrors and everything that gives reflections.
This episode is directed by Martin Scorsese and will give everyone with eisoptrophobia a harder time to stand in front of the mirror while brushing their teeth.
Director: Martin Scorsese Writers: Joseph Minion, Steven Spielberg Country & year: USA, 1986 Actors: Sam Waterston, Helen Shaver, Dick Cavett, Tim Robbins IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0511104/
A Russian research vessel, Volkov, is out in the South Pacific and communicates with the orbiting space station Mir. Suddenly, some kind of energy source from space hits the space station, kills the cosmonauts and sends beams down to Volkov, causing an electrical surge that invades the ship’s computer and causes chaos and destruction. A week later, the alcoholic captain Robert Everton (Donald Sutherland) is out with his crew on the tugboat Sea Star in terrible weather, and ends up losing the cargo. Which is uninsured, of course. Matters go from bad to worse when they discover that the engine room is taking in water, and they try to take refuge in the eye of the storm to make repairs. Then, Volkov appears on their radar, like an ominous ghost ship out of nowhere. Of course, the captain knows the ship and its possible worth, and he orders the crew aboard as the tempting thought of millions in salvage could turn this horrible day into a splendid one.
When they get on board they notice that most of the electronics have been destroyed, and the crew appears to be missing. There’s something else lurking onboard, however…a robotic, spider-like creature appear and kills one of them, and they meet a terrified woman who later proves to be Nadia Vinogravoda, the Chief Science Officer on the ship, and she desperately tries to prevent them from turning on the ship’s power. At first they refuse to listen to any of the gibberish nonsense she is telling them, but when a gun-wielding cyborg appears that is supposedly one of the missing crew members on Volkov, they realize that what Nadia tells them is true, and something out of this world has taken over the ship with the intention of killing what it thinks is a “virus” in this world. In other words: kill mankind.
Virus is a science fiction horror movie from 1999, directed by John Bruno and starring a fair share of well-known faces. Despite high competence in visual effects and some famous actors, the movie turned out to be a flop and failed to appease both critics and moviegoers, and with a budget of 75 million dollars the box office ended up with a measly 30.7 million dollars. Ouch. A bunch of merchandise was also created, including action figures, comics, and a survival horror video game called Virus: It is Aware by Cryo Interactive made for the Sony Playstation. Just like the movie, however, the reception was rather poor and caused the game to fall into obscurity. Flop after flop, in other words. Over time, however, the movie has gained a bit of a cult following. Despite the rough reception, it is in hindsight a decent enough sci-fi horror. Not a masterpiece by any means, and yeah, somewhat derivative and unoriginal, but there is a fair amount of action and old-school gore effects. Sometimes that’s all you need for a fun time.
The movie was mostly filmed in Newport News, Virginia, on a ship anchored in the James River. The ship used as the Volkov was actually a retired Missile Range Instrumentation Ship (USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, T-AGM-10), and one of the satellite dish antennas was intentionally damaged for the film’s final scene. John Bruno, the director, is a visual effects artist and has worked on numerous animated movies and TV series, including Heavy Metal (1981), The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974) and the rather obscure Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977). He’s also done visual effects for movies like Poltergeist (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), and the NOS4A2 TV series, just to mention some. So yeah, the old school effects in Virus are solid as hell and even gorier than I remembered. Also, Donald Sutherland works well as a greedy, sadistic and slightly cheesy villain.
There’s been a fair amount of older horror movies that were downright crapped on back when they were released, and are later getting a cult following and some delayed praise for being what they are (Deep Rising, for example, one of my favorite sea-monster movies, fits well into this category). As a techno-bodyhorror B-movie, despite not being great by any means, Virus still holds up well as a gory B-grade popcorn-flick.
Director: John Bruno
Writers: Chuck Pfarrer, Dennis Feldman Country & year: USA, 1999 Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Joanna Pacula, Marshall Bell, Sherman Augustus, Cliff Curtis, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Yuri Chervotkin, Keith Flippen, Olga Rzhepetskaya-Retchin IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0120458/
Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster. A fight ensues but the monster, seeing himself in a mirror, is horrified and runs away. He later returns, entering the new bride’s room, and finds her alone.
This 1910 film based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was originally listed as missing with no copies of it known to exist. It wasn’t until the mid 1970’s that an original nitrate print finally turned up in Wisconsin.
This version was restored in 2017 by the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, with new music by Donald Sosin.
Director: J. Searle Dawley Writer: Mary Shelley (novel “Frankenstein”), J. Searle Dawley Country & year: USA, 1910 Actors: Mary Fuller, Charles Ogle, Augustus Phillips IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0001223/
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/
Leon is a young man who deals with antiques, and inherits his estranged mother’s house and belongings after her suicide. He arrives at the house, and takes a look at the inventory, all the while we get a narration delivered by the deceased. Rosalind Leigh, the mother, gives a monologue about her life where she describes the overwhelming loneliness she felt after her son rejected her due to their difference in faith and his negative religious experiences throughout his childhood. She describes how she, during the remainder of her life, feared he would never regain his faith or return to her, but she kept waiting. While wandering through his mother’s old house and her belongings, he discovers that it was actually she who was his anonymous benefactor who bought all the items of antiquity he sold. The more he looks through his mother’s belongings, the more he feels that he is surrounded by sinister figures and starts having hallucinations that rocks his skeptic foundation to the core.
Blood or honey with your bread? Why not both?
