2010s horror movies – Page 5

Ed Gein: The Musical (2010)

Posted on June 16, 2023September 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

♫ ♪ Somebody Framed Meeeeeee ♪ …

– Shut up and quit singing!

Welcome to amateur hour. Today we take a look at Ed Gein: The Musical, a homemade micro-budget horror comedy made for shits n’giggles that was probably a fun time for all those involved. The rest of the world had to wait for ten whole years to finally witness a singing Ed Gein to be released on DVD.

The film starts straight to the point where Ed Gein enters Mary Hagan’s store and then shoots her with a shotgun. After the sinful act, we hear the first notes of Eddie as he sings (with the voice-over of Will Keizer, who wrote most of the songs).

♫ Oooooooooh no, I Did A Bad Thing … And Now They Are Coming For Meeee … There’s Nowhere To Hide … Ooooh Mama, I Did A Bad Thing ♪ …

Eddie takes the corpse to his shed with the second musical number while he chops up some limbs, titled Lonely Feeling, Lonely Reeling, and the energy is as electric as a Sunday evening at the local Bingo hall.

Ed gets arrested by the sheriff, suspected of the murder of Miss Hagan, and brought into the interrogation room. From here on, Ed tells his life story, filled with nothing but delusional fantasies as we dive into more zero-budget, amateur movie madness and two-notes of honky-tonk song numbers mixed with mainly acoustic guitar and not much of the basic understanding of how a musical works. The songs are completely forgettable and performed in the most bland, lifeless karaoke style with a static camera.

We see a quick flashback scene where a young Ed gets abused by his dad for having a picture of a half-naked lady. After getting whipped with the belt, Ed says: When I’m grown I won’t take this crap. When I’m grown I will be a handsome chap. Yeah, you heard that right. We then cut to the current Ed, dressed like a sleazy car-salesman as he sings… a rap-song. The cringe meter is already at its maximum, but it still manages to get worse. Because we haven’t seen the scene with Ed and his mom yet.

We see Ed in various scenarios. In one scene he’s in some hall with elderly people, he’s in the fakest-looking cemetery ever put on film, he sits in a bar, sings some duets with random chicks and more nonsensical buffoonery follows. We also see him in a sitcom setting where they forgot to add the laugh track. All filmed in blurry and out-of-focus images with the sense of filming in general as a blind, drunk sailor man who’s way past his bedtime. As for the comedy goes we laugh more at the film than with it, which is completely fine by me.

The only legit quality to point out is the eye-catching artwork on the DVD cover. For more Ed Gein, check out Deranged (1974), Ed Gein (2000) and the graphic novel Did You Hear What Ed Gein Done? (2021).

Director: Steve Russell
Writer: Dan Davies
Country & year: USA, 2010
Actors: Dan Davies, Clifford Henry, Laurie Friedman-Fannin, Lucia Stevenson, M.J. Marsh, Cindy Yungwirth, James Fairchild, Barbra Alloy, Edie Amundsen, Charlie Bitter, Jason Buss
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1562295/

The Silent House (2010)

Posted on March 3, 2023June 15, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Laura and her father arrives at a secluded cottage which they are going to repair, as the owner wants to put the house out for sale. Having planned to spend the night inside the house, with its unstable and unsafe upper level and windows that are nailed shut, they soon experience that things do (of course) go wrong. A radio starts playing a sinister melody, and after Laura turns it off, her father goes upstairs to check on an other noise. Laura hears a commotion from upstairs, and shortly afterwards she finds her father’s murdered body downstairs. In a state of grief and fear, she tries to escape from the house but someone has locked all the doors. As she moves around in the dark house, trying to find an exit, more sinister things happen around her…

The Silent House (La Casa Muda) is a Uruguayan horror movie directed by Gustavo Hernández and made with a tiny budget of $6,000. The film is made to look like it was filmed in real time, in one continuous 88 minute take, but the real story is that it was actually shot over four days. Despite not being filmed in one take, the length of the takes are still rather impressive though. The film is based on what is supposed to be real events that took place in 1944 in a village in Uruguay, where two brutally tortured men’s bodies, missing their tongues, were found in an old farmhouse. In that regard, one could consider The Silent House as a typical gimmick-film, with the supposedly “single-take” filming as well as the supposedly “true story” (which there is no actual information about to be found anywhere online, it seems). As for the single-take gimmick, there’s been numerous other films going for the same thing while having in fact been edited to appear that way. Most notably, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope from 1948. Movies that rely heavily on gimmicks are often off to a troublesome start, though, and not surprisingly the movie’s reception was quite varied.

The Silent House is mostly leaning heavily on atmosphere, where inside the house the only light comes from two halogen lamps and some candles. The darkness in the house makes the viewer look for clues as to what might be hiding there, as the protagonist keeps cautiously sneaking around. It’s mostly a psychological thriller, with bits of haunted-house clichés like a haunting melody playing, a “don’t go upstairs” caution, and spooky imagery. Despite there not being much of a plot, it still manages to create a very tense atmosphere but the problem is still the pacing, which makes the film a little dull at times and some scenes dragging on for a little bit too long.

Overall, The Silent House is an atmospheric and different little horror film, albeit a little dull at times and offering a twist in the end which does feel a little confusing and ends up leaving more questions than answers.

There was also an english-language remake made in 2011, called Silent House.

Director: Gustavo Hernández
Writers: Oscar Estévez, Gustavo Hernández, Gustavo Rojo
Original title: La casa muda
Country & year: Uruguay, 2010
Actors: Florencia Colucci, Abel Tripaldi, Gustavo Alonso, María Salazar
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1646973/

The Demon’s Rook (2013)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sinister (2012)

Posted on June 11, 2022July 4, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Ellison Oswalt is a true crime writer who moves into a new home with his wife and two children. What he has not told his family prior to moving into the house, however, is that an entire family was murdered there by hanging, and his intention is to write a book about this case. This is something he does in the hopes of regaining his lost fame, as his latest works weren’t very popular and he’s desperate for a new success. There was also a little girl who disappeared following the murders, and he hopes to learn more about her fate so he can include this mystery in his novel. Upon exploring the attic of the house, he finds a box with several reels of Super 8 footage, which are simply labeled as “home movies”. Using the projector which was also located in the attic, he discovers that the films are footage of several families being murdered, all of them filmed by an unseen camera operator. Upon investigation these cases he finds similarities that makes him suspect that both the murders in the house he now inhabits, and the ones from the Super 8 footage, are connected in a sinister way, and dates all the way back to the 1960’s…

Sinister is a 2012 horror movie directed by Scott Derrickson (who will have a new movie hitting the theaters soon, The Black Phone). Scott Derrickson had previously shown his competence in the horror field with Hellraiser: Inferno (his debut film) and later The Exorcism of Emily Rose (which was based on the story of Anneliese Michel).

Sinister is for the most part a highly effective and creepy film, with a steadily growing sense of unease without tossing a bunch of jumpscares at you. There are some genuinely hair-raising moments here, led by solid performances, and the opening scene alone sets the tone right away where we witness the Super 8 footage of the family being hanged. This scene was actually all played by stuntmen, and almost went terribly wrong: when the scene was first done, the stunt coordinator botched the preparations for the scene resulting in the actors being legitimately hanged and choked. Yikes! Fortunately they all survived, and naturally the coordinator got sacked. This wasn’t the only potentially harmful scene either: one of the other “footage” films included a family tied to chairs and pulled underwater, and the filmmakers had to be extremely careful so nobody was harmed while the filming of the scene took place. All of these scenes were also filmed on real Super 8 films camera.

Overall, Sinister is a solidly crafted horror film with loads of atmosphere and a really creepy feel, where some parts are actually outright scary. While it does not have any nudity, very little blood and no cursing because they were aiming for a PG-13 release, it still got an R rating just for the content alone. It is now 10 years since its release, and it’s still one of the most decently crafted horror films from this period.

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writers: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill
Country & year: USA, UK, Canada 2012
Actors: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Michael Hall D’Addario, Clare Foley, Rob Riley, Tavis Smiley, Janet Zappala, Victoria Leigh, Cameron Ocasio, Ethan Haberfield
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1922777/

Final Prayer (2013)

Posted on May 21, 2022November 18, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A team of investigators, consisting of Deacon (a religious brother who is some i kind of skeptic – however that makes sense) Gray (an englishman who is both a layman and a technology expert) and Father Mark (who is, of course, sent by the Vatican to team up with these guys in order to investigate reports of supernatural activity in an old thirteenth century church. The guys arrive at the old church, where they set up their recording equipment and stuff, Ghost Adventures-style. The local priest believes that the things happening inside the church is a miracle, until he later starts questioning what is happening as being something completely different – and leaps to his death from the bell tower. After this, the inhabitants in the village become hostile towards the investigators…

Final Prayer, also known as The Borderlands, is a found-footage horror movie from 2013, directed by Elliot Goldner. While it may look like a very standard supernatural found footage flick, it twists around to something that is more akin to cosmic horror with some obvious lovecraftian vibes. An old decrepit church situated on top of a hill, a village with hostile and weird inhabitants…yeah, if you’ve ever read some of Lovecraft’s works like “Shadow over Innsmouth” and “Rats in the Walls“, you’ll easily spot the resemblances here.

The movie starts a little slow, where the characters (who differs greatly in personalities) try to get along while conducting their investigations. While many found footage horror movies have their characters portrayed with bland or shallow personalities, Final Prayer spends some time with its character development. And that is not a bad thing. It’s overall spooky and creepy enough, with an atmospheric setting and a gradual build-up of suspense. It’s treading customary paths for a while where you easily find yourself thinking this is a run-of-the-mill ghost/demon film…but as strange things keep happening you realize that this is not exactly what you expected. And so do the characters…

Now, what makes this movie stand out a bit from other fount-footage horror movies, is the rather unexpected WTF ending, which does come as a bit of surprise despite that you’ve been getting more than a few hints and reveals as the story progresses which tells us that this is no ordinary “haunting”. There are some scenes during the ending that are shot in some really narrow caves, which actually shows some real fear in the actor’s expressions, as they suffered from those claustrophobic confines. I’m not going to spoil any more, but it was definitely unexpected and kind of weird.

Overall, Final Prayer aka The Borderlands (with the working title “The Devil Lies Beneath“, which is, perhaps, the most fitting title of all) may appear at first glance to be one of those found footage movies that offers nothing more than the usual and over-used tropes…but this does change, and makes this British horror movie well worth a watch.

Writer and director: Elliot Goldner
Also know as: The Borderlands
Country & year: UK, 2013
Actors: Gordon Kennedy, Robin Hill, Aidan McArdle, Sarah Annis, Lee Arnold, Drew Casson, Peter Charlton, Marcus Cunningham, Patrick Godfrey, Kevin Johnson, Luke Neal
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2781832/

Leprechaun Returns (2018)

Posted on May 7, 2022September 15, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

13 years has gone by since the the last Lep with Leprechaun Back 2 tha Hood, and a thing or two have obviously changed since then. Trimark was shut down in 2003, only three movies after Back 2 tha Hood, while Warvick Davis had moved over to Hogwarts with Harry Potter and recently shot the first season of the upcoming Willow series. And yeah, there’s a film called Leprechaun: Origins from 2008, an amateurish nothingburger which has zero to do with the franchise in any shape or form. So we have to jump further in time to 2013 where Leprechaun finally returned, in a direct-sequel to the original, directed by Steven Kostanski.

The plot goes as follows: the teengirl Lila Jenkins is on her way to an old house in North Dakota, where she’s going to spend the summer vacation with a group of college friends (body counts). As she gets a ride with Ozzie, the clumsy redneck from the first film, she tells him that her mom Tori (the protagonist from the first film) had died of cancer the same year. Rest in peace. After putting off Lila by the house, Ozzie suddenly gets some green liquid sprayed on him from the well which Lep fell into 25 years ago. The liquid somehow impregnates Ozzie, which leads to a gory rebirth where Lep punches and kicks his way out of Ozzie’s stomach like a toddler with a tantrum. He then gives a quick return monologue just to ensure us that he, after being trapped in a well for 25 years, is still a witty goofball who hasn’t forgot how to rhyme: “There once was a lad they thought DIED, his flesh had melted off his whole HIDE, but he escaped from the WELL, alive and quite SWELL. And now he’ll be killing in stride!” And he’s excited as a kid on Christmas morning to finally catch up with the killings.

The B-movie insanity that increased all up to eleven and blew out of all proportions in space, are toned-down and back to the roots with the farmland-setting, woods and overall back to the 90s horror campyness. As the eight film in a horror franchise like this, it’s pretty remarkable how more polished and, if not, more professional (for lack of better word) Lep Returns look. Director Steven Kostanski was also co-director on the modern cult-film The Void two years earlier, so there’s clearly some talent behind the camera. There also seemed to finally be some competent special effects artists on set to give Lep some decent kill scenes, and there’s no exaggeration in saying that this is the goriest film in the franchise. Lep eagerly uses some modern technology to slice someone’s throat with drone blades, a whole body gets sliced in two, a fun little nod to Phantasm (I assume) with a mouth getting impaled by a sprinkler faucet. And there’s a … pillow fight.

This being said and all the positives, the film itself is pretty mediocre with the same old cliché slasher characters which you couldn’t give a toss about, and a standard mediocre slasher you’d forgotten about if it wasn’t for the – drumroll – Leprechaun. As they got the same guy who played Ozzie in the first one to reprise his role, they for one last time, also tried to get Jennifer Aniston back. But nah. So, the only curiosity is on Lep, and why he looks more like as if Mortiis had a child. This time he is played by the relative unknown Linden Porco since Warwick Davis had his whatever reasons to pass. As low to non-existent expectations I had, he was quite a surprise and did a good job by mimicking the demeanor of Davis while investing some of his own personal flavor to it. And the most important of all, he seemed to have a fun time. So, my life wouldn’t get absolutely ruined if he signs on any future Lep films.

Director: Steven Kostanski
Writer: Suzanne Keilly
Country & year: USA, 2018
Actors: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, Sai Bennett, Emily Reid, Ben McGregor, Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Mark Holton, Linden Porco, Heather McDonald, Pete Spiros, Leon Clingman
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt8155182/

As Above, So Below (2014)

Posted on March 26, 2022August 1, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Scarlett is a young scholar who continues her dead father’s search for the philosopher’s stone (a legendary alchemical substance discovered by Nicolas Flamel, which supposedly has the powers to turn metals into gold or silver, and granting eternal life). She travels to Paris, and together with her ex boyfriend George and Benji, the cameraman, they go to the Catacombs of Paris. Scarlett had earlier found the “Rose Key”: an artifact that has some codes which, upon using them to solve a riddle on Flame’s headstone, gives them some coordinates that points to an area inside the Catacombs. But of course, this specific area proves to be off-limits. With the help of a stranger, they get in contact with a guide, Papillon, who will take them to an off-limits entrance. Crawling through a narrow tunnel, they are pushed forward as it collapses, and they end up in an area with a blocked tunnel. Finding no other way to leave, they decide to break through the tunnel…and what they find further inside is more hellish than they could have imagined.

As Above, So Below is a found footage horror film from 2014, which was actually the first production ever that secured permission from the French government to film in the catacombs (a place we actually visited some years back, a delightful experience). As part of the promotion for the film, Felix Kjellberg (AKA PewDiePie) traveled through the Paris Catacombs. The film is directed by John Eric Dowdle, who previously directed The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Quarantine, and Devil.

The film incorporates several things, including a little bit of Egyptian history, Knights of Templar, mythology, religion, and of course it draws some obvious inspiration from Dante’s Inferno. Trapped inside some really claustrophobic areas, where the characters are pushed further and further into the complexity of Hell itself, makes for a suspenseful viewing. There’s a lot of atmosphere here and scenes that are both creepy an sometimes even outright scary, with madness and paranoia taking over their resolve. The claustrophobic feeling is genuine and really creepy.

As Above, So Below is a pretty decent found footage horror film with a little bit of an adventurous side to it, which makes it feel like a “National Treasure meets Blair Witch” kind of thing, with a reminiscence of The Descent and The Tunnel. It blends several pieces of mythology with well-executed symbolism, and of course excellent use of scenery as it was filmed in the real Catacombs of Paris with little use of props. Due to its heavy symbolism and use of mythological aspects it may not cater to everyone, of course, but we found it to be a thrilling little ride.

Director: John Erick Dowdle
Writer: John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
Country & year: France, USA, 2014
Actors: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar, Cosme Castro, Hamid Djavadan, Théo Cholbi, Emy Lévy, Roger Van Hool, Olivia Csiky Trnka, Hellyette Bess
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2870612/

The Tunnel (2011)

Posted on March 11, 2022July 15, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The New South Wales State government plans to recycle the huge amounts of trapped water in a network of abandoned train tunnels. However, these plans suddenly come to a halt, and publicly no one is ever told why. Rumors are spreading, like how homeless people using the tunnels end up going missing. This brings a young journalist, Natasha, to start an investigation into what she thinks is some kind of government cover-up. She and her crew decide to enter the tunnels and look for answers, but after being refused entry by a security guard, they do of course find an alternative entrance into the place. While exploring the tunnels, they start hearing strange noises through the audio headphones, and when one of the crew members go missing they eventually realize that they might not be alone in these deep, dark tunnels.

The Tunnel is a crowd-funded Australian horror film made in the mockumentary style (faux documentary), directed by Carlo Ledesma and written by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey. While found footage movies have pretty much become dime-a-dozen these days, it is still a format that can be quite effective. By the time of this movie’s release back in 2011, Australia already had an other gem in their mockumentary-horror repertoire: Lake Mungo from 2008, a movie that’s mostly been obscure and little known but have had some kind of re-discovery as of late. While Lake Mungo is a movie that plays more on loss and grief with some supernatural vibes underneath, The Tunnel hits heavier on the creep-keys with atmospheric scenery and things going wrong in the dark. It does have a fair amount of creep factor and plays a lot on the fear of what might be lurking in the dark, and the creepy setting helps to set the mood. The claustrophobic and dark atmosphere is pretty much what carries the movie, and easily manages to give you a whiff of the heebie jeebies since the darkness implies more than it shows, and leaves a bit to your own imagination.

The movie isn’t fast-paced and spends some time before plunging the characters (and viewers) into the tunnels and the horrors that lurk there, and it also spends some time on “interviews” in order in order to maintain the documentary-style. If you have patience for the somewhat slow build-up and can appreciate that the creep-factor is more focused on what you can imagine instead of actually seeing, then you should be able to enjoy this low-budget Australian mockumentary.

Director: Carlo Ledesma
Writers: Enzo Tedeschi, Julian Harvey
Country & year: Australia, 2011
Actors: Bel Deliá, Andy Rodoreda, Steve Davis, Luke Arnold, Goran D. Kleut, James Caitlin, Ben Maclaine, Peter McAllum, Rebecca Clay, Shannon Harvey, Arianna Gusi, Russell Jeffrey, Jessica Fallico, Ben James
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1735485/

Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe (2010)

Posted on November 20, 2021September 18, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Less Violence – more Shit.

Karl the Butcher has been dead for 25 years, and now spends his time in Hell, chained to a chair in a dark room. He gets a message from Satan that he has to go back to Earth to kill a new potential Butcher (known as Axe). “Make a wish”, Satan says. Karl wants his mask back. A naked blond chick gives him his mask whom he then rips the head off, before he resurrects on the surface. Of course, what else did you expect?

It’s now the year 2023 and world has become an apocalyptic wasteland which has been split into gang communities. Among them, we get the pleasure to meet the female trinity gang led by the complete unfunny nutcase Queen Scara, who captures and ties up men, attaches their dick to a tube connected to a “sperminator” that drains them from sperm (of course) which Scara drinks while she gives the worst and obnoxious performances I have probably ever seen from a woman. It’s actually so bad in the most painfully cringy way possible that the witch from Troll 2 is Oscar worthy in comparison. The two other ladies, and rest of the cast for that matter are just as awful, but Scara really sticks out, and this trinity gang has a lot of unnecessary screen time with scenes that really drags on and on. I didn’t even chuckle once, and it’s obvious that they act bad on purpose. It looks like something you would see on a bad unintentionally unfunny YouTube film/skit.

Where was I… as soon as Karl the Butcher (played by Andreas Schnaas as usual) emerges to planet Earth, he wastes no time to hunt for Axe and other victims. He kills a random naked chick with some really big, solid boobies before he enters one of the gang communities. The word that Karl the Butcher is back from Hell spreads fast, and the female trinity and some other gangs comes to hunt him down. And yeah, who’s this Axe person, you may ask. He’s just some dude who lives with his lady in the woods (played by co-director Timo Rose). He also wears a mask and has a funny-looking axe which looks like a cheap Halloween prop from some Walmart discount bin, and there’s nothing interesting about him. When he finally stumbles upon Karl, the whole premise takes an unexpected turn when The Butcher and Axe rather decides to team up and become buddies, when they realize that the gangs is out to kill them both.

It took two long decades before Andreas Schnaas finally gave us the not-so long anticipated Violent Shit 4: Karl The Butcher vs Axe, co-written and co-directed with Timo Rose. And I have to say I was a bit curios to see what two directors would come up with in the so far final chapter in the Violent Shit series. And it still looks like shit, as it’s probably meant to be, with overall inept directing, and still amateur hour all way through. The biggest sin here is that it’s mostly boring. It’s also the least violent of them all where it’s too far between the killing scenes, or the Violent Shit, if you will. Instead we get less Violence and more Shit with yawn-inducing and terribly written dialogue scenes where the “actors” seem to be bored out of their minds.

The film isn’t completely hopeless, though. It has it’s Snchnaas trademark moments with limbs getting ripped apart, static close-ups of beheading, castrations, bad choreographed fighting scenes with goofy, cartoonish sound effects, and of course some fresh nudity. It’s nothing new to see, but better than nothing, I guess. The final act is the most entertaining part with gunfights, silly video game-style fights, and of course when Karl the Butcher drinks some green liquid and becomes the Super Butcher, just like Super Shredder from Turtles 2. And his jacket-up bicep-costume looks something like this. Yes, really.

And of you still haven’t gotten enough Violent Shit and the murderous adventures of Karl the Butcher, there actually exists an Italian remake from 2015 of the first film, called Violent Shit: The Movie.

Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe is available on DVD from Synapse Films.

Directors: Timo Rose, Andreas Schnaas
Country & year: Germany, 2010
Actors: Andreas Schnaas, Timo Rose, Magdalèna Kalley, Eileen Daly, Eleanor James, Marysia Kay, Marc Rohnstock, Mario Zimmerschitt, Marc Trinkhaus, Timo Fuchs
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1517076/

Prequels:
– Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (1999)
– Violent Shit II (1992)
– Violent Shit (1989)

Impetigore (2019)

Posted on May 21, 2021October 12, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Maya and her friend Dini are working at toll booths, and one night Maya is attacked by one of the drivers who appeared to recognize her: a man who claims he’s from a village called Harjosari, and he’s calling her by another name: Rahayu. Upon attacking her, the man is stopped and killed by the police, but the encounter leaves Maya with a ton of unanswered questions. Since her aunt, who raised her from a very young age, is dead and she’s got no other family to contact, she follows the inscription of an old photo which shows a young Maya with her parents, outside a large house which is supposed by be located somewhere in the Harjosari village. Together with her best friend Dini, they decide to travel from the city and find out if she might inherit that property, hoping that this might be a turn of events for them both. When they enter the secluded village, however, they quickly take notice of one apparent and strange thing about the place: the lack of any children, and a graveyard whose tombstones implies that for many years, no children have survived long after their birth. The villagers also appear to be somewhat hostile, and Maya concludes that it’s best to keep her identity a secret for the time being, representing themselves as students whose intent is interviewing the village elder because of his famous traditional shadow puppetry performances (Wayang Kulit). Maya’s real intent is, of course, to question the elder about her parents and the house, claiming her inheritance. However, as luck would have it he’s away from the village at the moment, and they need to wait until the next day. Upon finding Maya’s abandoned family home, they decide to secretly take residence there…but neither Maya nor Dini was prepared for the danger that awaits them in this village.

Joko Anwar’s previous horror film, Satan’s Slaves (a remake of Satan’s slave from 1980), ended up being the highest grossing horror films in Indonesia, and have received a fair amount of praise abroad as well. And while Impetigore is his second horror movie to be released, the script for it was actually finished back in 2010. The original title of the movie is Perempuan Tanah Jahanam, and the international title Impetigore is actually a combination of two words: Impetigo (a bacterial infection of the skin), and, well…gore, of course, enough of it for Mr. Ghööl to hand out a certain badge.

With a combination of folklore, a curse, an isolated village in the countryside and family secrets, Impetigore is a feast for those who like atmospheric supernatural horror. The scenes featuring a performance of the traditional Indonesian art of Wayang Kulit (a form of shadow puppetry made from animal skin) is beautiful and entrancing to watch, and of course, these puppets also have a significant meaning to the story. The village, the house, all the surroundings make for a visually striking experience.

Like Joko Anwar’s film Satan’s Slaves, he’s using a “vintage” song by The Spouse (Aimee and Tony) who was put together to make the OST for the aforementioned film. The song used in Impetigore is called Pujaan Hati, and together with the rest of the soundtrack for the film it works wonders in amplifying the atmosphere. After all, a creepy (yet beautiful) vintage-styled song fits like a hand in glove when it comes to atmospheric and supernatural-themed horror movies.

The film is available on Shudder, but that is of course no help for those of us who live in no-Shudder land (like Horror Ghouls, who live in Norway where Shudder apparently have no plans of expanding). While we Horror Ghouls are “old fashioned” enough to still favour the physical format (we have it on Blu-ray), there are other alternatives for renting/buying online like for example Google Play, YouTube, Amazon etc. depending on your location.

Director: Joko Anwar
Original title: Perempuan Tanah Jahanam
Country & year: Indonesia, 2019
Actors: Tara Basro, Ario Bayu, Marissa Anita, Christine Hakim, Asmara Abigail, Kiki Narendra, Afrian Aris, Zidni Hakim, Faradina Mufti, Abdurrahman Arif, Muhammad Abe Baasyin, Mursiyanto, Ahmad Ramadhan
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt9000302/