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/
With the help of a magic cauldron, Mephistopheles conjures up a variety of supernatural characters.
In the previous video update, we posted La maison ensorcelée and said it was most likely the oldest horror short we’d showcase here on Horror Ghouls. After receiving a tip about an even older horror short available, we’ll now change this to say The Haunted Castle (Le manoir du diable), aka The House of the Devil, is most likely the oldest horror short that will ever be showcased here. While it was more amusing than terror-incuding for its audience even back when it was made, Méliès’ use of limited tools to create these effects is quite fascinating.
Director: Georges Méliès Writer: Georges Méliès Country & year: France, 1896 Actors: Jehanne d’Alcy, Jules-Eugène Legris(unconfirmed), Georges Méliès IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0000091/
We’re in 1962, aboard MS Antonia Graza, an Italian ocean liner. People there are having fun with song, dance and food. Katie, a young girl who appears to be alone on the ship, gets an offer from the captain himself to dance with her. All seems to be fun and games for everyone aboard, until all hell quite literally breaks loose. A wire cord severs all the dancing people in two, while the people who were enjoying their meals starts puking their guts out due to poisoning. The only survivor is Katie, who was short enough to avoid the wire from cutting her. The captain, whom she was just dancing with, was not so lucky though…
Forty years later, we get to meet a salvage crew, who is approached by a mysterious guy named Jack Ferriman. He tells them that he’s a weather service pilot, and he spotted a vessel adrift in the Bering Sea…which means that this vessel can be claimed by whoever brings it back. The crew, although not entirely persuaded at first, decides to head out on their salvage tug, the Arctic Warrior. When they approach the vessel, and realize that it’s the Antonia Graza that mysteriously disappeared back in 1962, they’re immediately aware of the riches that can be found on board. And indeed: after boarding it, they soon discover nine boxes, all containing gold bars. But, of course, things go awry pretty quickly after that, and supernatural events start happening. The salvage crew are met with the possibility that the ship’s long-dead passengers are still in board.
Ghost Ship is a horror film from 2002, directed by Steve Beck, whom the year before directed Thir13en Ghosts. Those two were his only full-length movies, both of them being Dark Castle Entertainment films. This year was the film’s 20th anniversary, and how does it hold up? Well…considering that the film received mostly negative reviews, and Julianna Margulies (who had the role of Epps from the salvage crew) even disowned the movie like a bad offspring or something, I would say that taking a look back at it now, it didn’t deserve all the flak it got. While the opening is undoubtedly the best part of the entire movie, and the rest is moving along like a regular slow-burn haunted house story (just set on a boat instead), it’s still entertaining enough for a watch and even manages to pack in a bit of atmosphere as they’re searching the abandoned ship.
Despite what one might think of Ghost Ship as a whole, there’s no doubt that the opening scene remains one of those scenes that are memorable even to this day, and I even dare say that it’s got a place in the horror genre’s best openings. Too bad the rest of the film isn’t quite up to par with it…overall, it’s somewhat cheesy, but it also appears to be fairly self-aware of the fact. And of course, there’s this…twist at the end, which is partly so silly you’ll feel tempted to roll your eyes a little, yet it is also weirdly clever, which makes it work like a little bit of a saving grace by at least offering something more than just a killer (no pun intended) opening scene. Mostly it’s best enjoyed as a slightly cheesy popcorn flick, and I guess I’ve already made it obvious that the appetizer and dessert taste better than the main course. It’s far from being a masterpiece, but far from being truly bad either.
Director: Steve Beck
Writers: Mark Hanlon, John Pogue Country & year: USA, Australia, 2002 Actors:Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington, Alex Dimitriades, Karl Urban, Emily Browning, Francesca Rettondini, Boris Brkic, Bob Ruggiero IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0288477/
Three friends go on a trip and decided to rest at an abandoned house. Everything seems pretty normal until really weird things start to happen.
La maison ensorcelée is most likely the oldest horror short that will ever be showcased here on Horror Ghouls, and is an amusing look into the very earliest usage of stop motion effects.
Director: Segundo de Chomón Writer: Segundo de Chomón Country & year: France, Spain, 1908 IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0449308/
Tess Marshall is going to a job interview and has booked a house through Airbnb, in a rundown Detroit neighborhood. When arriving there in nearly complete darkness as no other house gives off any light in the nearby area, she finds out someone else is already residing inside the house she booked. The other resident is a young man named Keith, who booked through another site. Thus, that house ended up getting double-booked. Not being able to get in contact with the renter, while also being a little unnerved by this young stranger, Tess finds herself in a situation where she doesn’t quite know what to do. Eventually, she warms a little up to him, and after he insists, she stays the night in the bedroom while he takes the sofa. Things seem to be going well after all. The next morning, Tess goes to her job interview, where the woman who interviews her warns her about the place. Tess doesn’t think much about it, and goes back to the house, and finds that Keith is still out. She goes down to the basement, where she accidentally gets locked inside, and here, Tess stumbles upon a hidden door leading to…somewhere…
Barbarian is a horror film directed by Zach Cregger, and it’s also his directorial debut. It stars Bill Skarsgård (as Keith) and Georgina Campbell (as Tess). And the movie’s gotten quite a buzz, which caught our interest, and we noticed that the general consensus seemed to be that it more or less lived up to its hype. So, we Horror Ghouls were eager to check it out, and found it on streaming here in Norway at Disney Plus.
The film is starting off with something that seems to be an ordinary thriller, building up certain expectations already during the first few minutes. Then it effectively throws you off guard and presents something else entirely. And I think Barbarian’s major strength lies in just that: not giving you exactly what you expected, and it does that with a high degree of proficiency, engrossing us in the concept of the totally unknown. You don’t really know much about what is happening, you get thrown a couple red herrings here and there, and while expecting a few clichés at certain moments you end up getting the exact opposite of what you might have been anticipating. While none of the plot “twists” are that unique to catch you completely off guard, there’s something about the storytelling that makes it come more unexpected, as it leaves enough room for wonder throughout the story without revealing its cards too early. There’s enough tension and unsettling atmosphere to keep your mind occupied. Viewing it without any knowledge of plot or twists is the best viewing experience for a film like this, so I will not delve into it any further to avoid spoilers that might ruin the movie experience.
Barbarian had a budget of 4.5 million, and grossed $45 million worldwide. While the majority of the film takes place in Detroit, and several establishing shots were in fact made there (including all the exterior neighborhood shots which were filmed in Brightmoor) the main filming location was in Bulgaria. Zach Cregger got the idea for this film after reading Gavin de Becker’s book “The Gift of Fear”, which encourages women to trust their intuition when confronted by men that are obviously dangerous. Zack wrote a short inspired by it, and liked it well enough to know he wanted to make a longer film. And, while not credited, Jordan Peele was “an invisible hand” in shaping the eventual story and was also shown an early cut of the film.
Overall, Barbarian is a tension-filled horror thriller (although you might find yourself a little underwhelmed if you’ve seen all the hype around it). It is not particularly scary, and some may be put off by the movie’s u-turn after the first act and how it (to be honest) strays a bit from making that much sense all the time, but it has enough creepy atmosphere and will likely keep you second-guessing what is happening if you’ve avoided any spoilers.
Writer and director: Zach Cregger Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, Kurt Braunohler, Jaymes Butler, Sophie Sörensen, Rachel Fowler, J.R. Esposito, Kate Nichols IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt15791034/
Flynn investigates a noise in her cellar and makes a terrifying discovery that forces her to question the nature of her relationship with her girlfriend, Eve.
Two Birds is a simple yet creepy horror short.
Director: Brendan Beachman Writer: Brendan Beachman Country & year: USA, 2017 Actors: Avital Ash, Nea Dune, Sarah Greyson IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt6406792/
Terrifier 2, or A Nightmare on Terrifier Street 2: The Clown Master as a fitting alternative title, starts right off where the previous film ended. And if you haven’t already seen the first one, here comes the spoiler of the century: Art the Clown (still with an energetic and dedicated David Howard Thornton behind the costume) survived, even though he’s got a big hole at the back of his head after a gun shot, which means the supernatural aspects are already well established. To start off the film with the right tone, he slices the coroner’s throat, and finishes him off by crushing his face with a hammer. And if that wasn’t enough, he rips one of his eyes out and plays with it for a few seconds, and places it in his own eye socket. Art hasn’t changed one bit since we saw him back in 2016, that’s for damn sure. As his costume is drenched with blood, he pops into the nearest laundry center where he encounters a twisted, little girly version of himself, also known as The Little Pale Girl (portrayed by the child actress Amelie McLain.) They quickly bond together where it’s like creepy uncle Joker finally meets his creepy, little niece Harley Quinn, to put it that way. It’s a kinda cute little moment they’re having, actually. Kawaii.
But there is no time to waste, and Art heads to the next scenario, with his bag of torture tools which he is carrying over his shoulder, to continue his journey of spreading some cozy family-friendly Halloween spirit. Just kidding. Just like in the first film: get ready for more of the same, just on a much bigger platter packed with a full menu of pain, suffering, goreghasm, worms, wasps, insanity and utter chaos – nicely spiced with a deranged and pitch black sense of humor that requires a certain level of sick cynicism to fully enjoy. After the first ten minutes we already know that this is a grindhouse flick in the purest sense, made only for us sub-humans of horror ghouls and hardcore-fans in general. But the more average surface-horror-goers are welcome, of course. Art likes everyone, you see. Just play with him or at least give him some candy and you’ll have a slight chance to survive.
After the batshit opening sequence we meet the stressed widow mom Barbara (Sarah Voigt) with her two teens, Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) , living in a middle-class suburb. Sienna has been working on her Valkyrie-like Halloween outfit for months, a passion project based on an illustration made by their deceased dad. And when the nerd-looking Jonathan isn’t busy with interviewing aging rockstars, he’s obsessed with serial killers. Especially with a certain clown that has hit the news after the massacre in Miles County, which took place in the previous film. There’s also a mysterious sketchbook that their dad left behind after committing suicide. It’s filled with drawings of monsters, but the most weird of all: Art the Clown and his earlier victims. What connection their dad could have to Art, who knows, but we can assume that this sketchbook is the equivalent of the Necronomicon/Book of the Dead from The Evil Dead that eventually brings them to our killer clown. Already filled with more questions than answers, it all begins when Sienna starts having bizarre lucid nightmares about Art. During her dream, her bedroom is also set on fire which burns the wings of her costume to ashes. Later Jonathan gets chased by hallucinations/visions of Art and his little pale girl, and this all happens before Hell is about to get real.
As minimal as the first one was with basically no story or character development, other than to show us the demented nature of Art, a showcase of competent gore effects, technical competence, this one pays for it. Watching them now back-to-back makes the first one more of a prologue, a warm-up, if you will. Without spoiling anything, we get a tiny nugget of the history about the pale girl we saw in the beginning, which I hope we see more of in the next sequel. Art however… well, we learn that his alias “Terrifier” is attached to a haunted house attraction. More questions than answers, as I earlier said, and don’t look for much logic. The acting is pretty solid and I was a little surprised to even see Felissa Rose (that girl from Sleepaway Camp) acting like an A-lister with the little screen time she had. Lauren LaVera is great as the “final girl” and knows how to kick some clown ass. I also like the “Phoenix Rising” symbolism behind her costume. The chemistry between her and her mother and brother is believable in the middle of all the madness, which shows that Damien Leone is able to depict more in the script other than how Art is going to dismember the next victim.
The first film had a budget of 35.000 dollars, while this had the price of a crowndfunded amount of 250,000. Money well spent, especially on the prosthetic gore effects which is also made by director Leone. The guy has clearly learned from the best. With a much larger budget we also get a more polished look, although Leone has kept enough of the rawness to make it look like the film is straight from the mid 80s to blend with the universe of the first one. The visual esthetics with its use of vibrant color and contrast screams Halloween all the way through. And the retro synthwave soundtrack just fits perfectly.
While the film has a cartoonish and sometimes surreal look to it, the effects make a stark contrast and look as real they can get. I think we have to rewind back at some of the titles from the New French Extremity wave from early 2000’s to find something in the same gritty, realistic nature. It’s also filled with references from probably every single slasher film from the 80s. The most notable is the scalping from Maniac which Art takes to a whole new level of extreme ghoulishness. The infamous “bedroom scene” is the wildest shit I’ve ever witnessed on the silver screen, which have earned the hype alone. The serial killer buffs will also take notice of the homeage to one of the crime-scenes of Jack the Ripper.
So overall, there’s no doubt in hell that writer and director Damien Leone is a die hard fan of the video nasty-era of VHS horror, and Terrifier 2 projects that to the fullest. But I’ve also got an other theory; that the guy is actually sent by a phone booth-shaped time machine from the 80s, sent by Rufus himself to save us from all the modern watered-down and glossy PG-horror that’s been dominating the mainstream for god knows how long. And not to mention the more recent attempts to adapt them to the “current times” of “checklist” movies, which have been nothing but failed flops thus far. Let’s only hope that Terrifier 2, with its global success, has opened the golden can of killer clowns that makes room for a new wave of more extremity like this to hit the mainstream silver screens. If not, well, at least Damien Leone has created his own universe here with a lot of potential to evolve as a lucrative franchise that could be an (annual, if I dare say so) highlight for years to come.
And finally, here’s the million-dollar questions everyone are asking:
Is Terrifier 2 too violent, even for horror fans? Will the film make me puke or faint? Will it cause a heart attack, or even a miscarriage? Will it make my botox lips explode? Will it make my dick fall off?
Yes, to all of them. Joking aside, let’s be serious for just a few split seconds; being concerned if a slasher film is too violent is like expecting a porn film with less porn, even though this is mainly nothing but a cheap, yet effective, marketing strategy that’s been used since the birth of horror cinema and seems to work every time. And thanks to its enormous hype, which I haven’t seen for a slasher at the mainstream surface since way back in 1996 with Wes Craven’s Scream, it managed to sneak its way to the silver screens in our narrow penis shaped home country Norway of all places. My only concern was the unusual long runtime for a film like this, with its 2 hour and 18 minutes, but both I and Miss Ghoul had a blast. The movie theater was almost packed with only kids from Gen Z on a Friday night, where we kind of stood out a little as being old enough to be their parents. The audience reactions should be interesting. A group on the row in front of us giggled nervously here and there, but otherwise it was an awkward dead silence. The best way to describe it as a collective movie experience was to sit on a roller coaster through the Big Gory Mountain with a bunch of mute people. So if any negative physical reaction is to expect, it will slice your vocal cords. So, there’s the only warning, I guess. But just in case, we got handed a barf bag and a cool pin before the screening. Barf bags are a common gimmick, but I cant remember it having been provided in Norway on such an occasion. Not even with Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D, which is objectively the goriest film screened on a regular movie theater in our home country, twelve years before Terrifier 2 broke that record. So, who’s next?
Writer and Director: Damien Leone Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton, Jenna Kanell, Catherine Corcoran, Samantha Scaffidi, Kailey Hyman, Chris Jericho, Casey Hartnett, Katie Maguire, Amelie McLain, Elliott Fullam, Sarah Voigt, Felissa Rose, Jackie Adragna, Griffin Santopietro, Charlie McElveen IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10403420/
