Film Reviews by NP

This is one of those found footage films that does something slightly different with the much-used formula. It's written by Derek Lee and Clif Prowse, who also star and direct. The character of Derek suffers from a rare disease which could kill him at any moment. His situation isn't helped when, during a well-deserved holiday abroad, he is seemingly attacked in a bloody physical assault.

The film charts his subsequent descent (or ascent, depending on which way you look at it) into something ... different. His malady is effectively conveyed, as is the effect it has on others around Derek, Clif and Audrey (Baya Rehaz), his attacker.

Despite the artistic success of this, it seems neither Lee nor Prowse have directed any films after 'Afflicted.'

I highly recommend it.

John Karlen, famous with horror fans as Willie Loomis in the gothic American daytime soap Dark Shadows, here plays Stefan. We're not sure what to make of him. Introduced hopelessly in love with his slightly drippy new bride Valerie (Danielle Ouimet), he reveals himself to have a much darker, violent side to him. And wait until you meet his mother!

Ouirnet is the weakest performer in this otherwise monumental Belgian/French/German production. It embraces the style of the European horrors of the time - much blood, arty direction, lower budget - but also adds a great deal more, much of it supplied by the magnificent Delphine Seyrig. The name of her character, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, might well give away some clues as to her lifestyle, and Seyrig plays it with every last drop of deadly sensuality. Andrea Rau rounds up the central performances as the dark-haired, ultimately tragic Ilona Harczy.

Director ensures that the settings for these icily seductive goings-on match the opulence of the performances by filming Hotel Astoria, Brussels, itself picturesque, from a variety of imaginative angles, to give this out-of-season building a real sense of emptiness, of isolation. Infusing certain scenes with a splash of red - either on clothing, curtains or wine - gives an additional sense of bloodiness.

Eschewing most of its contemporaries and emerging as very much a film on its own, watching Daughters of Darkness is an unsettling, but very haunting experience. Timeless horror at its most bewitching. Fully recommended.

This is a difficult-to-define horror fantasy involving the titular four characters living in a world within a world, where the sexually active (or provocative) children are treated, and behave like, they are about 5 years old. To enjoy it, you have to buy into this eccentric way of life, but don't get too close - because the games played here are deadly.

Award-winning director Freddie Francis, the man behind this, names it as his favourite project. During filming, it became apparent that Vanessa Howard was stealing every scene from her talented co-stars, and so her part was brought more to the fore. In America, where the film performed quite well, the title was shortened simply, to 'Girly.'

In the UK, it suffered the fate of many of the swathe of horror films released around this time - it got lost. The lack of plaudits it received influenced Howard's decision to quit acting not long after, which is a real shame.

Some may not enjoy the fairytale cross between 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' presented here. Others - myself included - thoroughly enjoy the experience. Everyone is dying to meet them ...

Young care nurse Lucie (Chloé Coulloud) is the live-in carer for dying millionairess Deborah Jessel. When she invites her boyfriend Will (Félix Moati) and his brother Ben (Jérémy Kapone) over in order to rob the premises, you just know things aren't going to end well.

Things get progressively weirder from there, with directors (and writers) Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury pulling out all the stops to provide the trio - and the audience - with a truly delirious, arty, strangely beautiful horror experience. Following the intricacies of the story proved too much of a challenge for me, and I simply basked in every nightmarish set piece that is relentlessly displayed.

I'd recommend that approach, because I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My score is 8 out of 10.

This genuinely strange film features a group of friends who have made it their mission to visit as many haunted houses as they possibly can. They decide to film the extravagant journey, which results in this found footage film - so it will depend on how you feel about this genre as to whether you'll enjoy this. I think the approach works well here, creating an additional sense of the chaotic and overwhelming - the deeper you get into this, the more disturbing the endless cavalcade of shrieking grotesques become.

It's often irrational - a lot of horror films are - the way the friends plough on with this, despite things getting genuinely frightening, but you can justify it by the excitement of group mentality (or should that be group stupidity?).

Best not to wonder why they don't all just turn around and go home - instead, enjoy the chuckling mannequins and ghost faces that scamper out of the darkness to unnerve you. And look out for the gloriously creepy doll-faced girl who boards their bus for a while. She might just be the star of the show.

There's no hanging about at the beginning of this one - no lengthy introductions or explanatory backstory. We learn about the characters as we go, holed up in a dark and forbidding prison in an unspecified location.

Into this chamber of torture and abuse enters a fresh inmate - Princess, played powerfully by Tiffany Shepis. She seems a little ... different to the rest.

This is a highly enjoyable horror production from Ivan Zuccon, who among other things, directed 'Herbert West: Re-Animator' in 2017 for disappearing for a while. As I write, he's behind the forthcoming adaption of Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', which promises great things.

There are many potentially humourous moments in this black-and-white Iranian film (Arash coming home from a fancy dress party, dressed as Dracula, chatting up the unnamed girl – not knowing that she is a real vampire who expresses a fondness for the music of Lionel Ritchie), but all of them played absolutely straight. The effect is therefore extremely successful.

Music plays a large part in this film. Thankfully, it isn’t the standard grunge metal fare usually (and tiresomely) associated with horror, but the tracks selected actually succeed in complementing the mood. The cast is terrific, from the repellent pimp Saeed (Dominic Rains), and ravaged Hossain (Marshall Manesh) to the likeable hero Arash (Arash Mirandi). It is Sheila Vand who takes the honours here though. Even in the many moments of silence, she is fragile, sinister and somehow tragic all at once.

This is a hugely recommended film.

Jonathan MacKinlay (Michael Jefferson) has been reduced to a virtual agoraphobic as the result of a car crash. His illness i very well conveyed, and we are allowed to sense the crushing isolation and fear he encounters every day. Only a handful of other characters occasionally enter his life. When 'other things' begin to happen, we're not sure whether they are real, or a figment of his fevered imagination. This theme has been explored many times in the past, but it is all refreshingly produced here.

Even as the story draws to a close, there are several events that remain unexplained, several doors left slightly open, ensuring 'Phobia' lingers in the mind long after the credits have rolled ...

Newlyweds Clark (Ian Duncan) and pregnant Summer (Tess Panzer) are stranded in the middle of the Nevada desert after their car breaks down. Imaginative camera work really sells how desolate the location is, and how far away from civilisation the two characters are.

They make their weary way back to a cluster of abandoned buildings, where a drifter cowboy, Joseph (Andrew Howard) arrives and immediately impresses Summer with his forceful personality. Although Clark is angered and intimidated by this, the two of them agree to traipse back to the car to ‘siphon off the gas’, leaving Summer to discover a room full of photographs, where the various subjects have their eyes blanked out. Among their number is a picture of Summer, Clark and Benny (Summer’s elder child). Startlingly, she turns to see Joseph standing behind her, where he explains he is a kind of angel of retribution, and that her unborn child is his now. Only minutes earlier, Joseph was with Clark at the car, some five miles away … and in the boot/trunk was the body of Benny.

Initially, Joseph’s proclamations of angelic status seem as ridiculous as his accusations of Clark’s alleged ‘sin’ – the ravings of an outcast – but slowly, it seems likely that he may be telling the truth. Quite what sin Clark is guilty of we’re not sure. The body of the child in the car was not there earlier and is likely a metaphor for Clark’s benefit. Summer’s crime, the reason for her punishment, is the sin of apathy – she knew what was going on and did nothing about it.

Child abuse, or child murder, seems likely, although never remotely specified – such things are left to the viewer. Murder is improbable, as Benny’s photograph is unblemished when Joseph hands it back to Summer. The wounds inflicted on Joseph by an enraged Clark also disappear, including the re-growing of three removed fingers, indicating that everything Joseph has said is true.

Andrew Howard in particular is extremely powerful as Joseph. If there are any prosthetics on display, they are very subtle. And yet as his enigmatic persona becomes more convincing, he appears not quite/more than human in certain scenes. The glistening eyes and lack of eyebrows add a certain inhuman menace to his fury.

It's easy to imagine the idea of The Lord of Vampire's owning a dog as a bit of a joke. This film's tagline wouldn't necessarily stray you from that viewpoint - ''There's More To The Legend Than Meets ... The Throat!'

This is certainly a film produced with its tongue in its cheek, but it is a lot more entertaining than many Dracula films that have garnered more respectable views over the years. Putting to one side the curious decision to repeatedly label hero Michael Drake (Michael Pataki) as the 'last of the Dracula line' when he is the proud father of two children, there's a genuine bargain-basement appeal to this.

For a start, the wonderful Reggie Nalder, who has played a number of unpleasant characters over the years (most notably the indomitable Mr Barlow - uncredited, can you believe?? - in 1979's 'Salem's Lot'). José Ferrer plays the Van Helsing-lite Inspector Branco. The rest of the cast delivers universally good performances - even the lad who plays Zoltan.

There's a real spookiness here too, aided very much by Andrew Belling's minimalist score. A definitive work this may not be, but it doesn't pretend to be. My score is 8 out of 10.

It's very difficult to find a horror film that dares to do something different. As a sometimes jaded genre fan, I found this Steven Judd film refreshingly new in its approach. Low budget it may be, but there's a fascinating mix of styles on display here, with even the line between thriller and comedy sometimes blurred - but be assured, this is no laughing matter.

An odd mismatch of characters - including a seedy bus driver, a pouting angry goth, a health fanatic, two gum-chewing teen girl temptresses, and Simon (Damien Puckler) who seems earmarked to be a hero figure of sorts. The situations they find themselves in are every bit as extreme and idiosyncratic as they are.

I enjoyed this very much. The film begins in a certain way, lurches in another direction, and then becomes something else entirely. Such savage unpredictability is rare and dangerous - and well worth seeing.

A satisfying mixture of Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot' and Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds', 'Kaw' deals with the uprising and increasing onslaught of an unkindness of vengeful ravens. CGI brings the majority of these birds to life and although I have deep reservations about such effects used when the budget is less than stellar, the results are convincing enough here.

What really lifts the film, though, is Sheldon Wilson's confident direction, Ben Sztajnkrycer's pacey story and the strong playing of the cast.

'Kaw' doesn't revolutionise the face of horror, or even avian horror, but it tells its story well and presents a convincing atmosphere of growing unease.

George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead (1968)’ ushered in a whole new wave of zombie-flavoured horror films, and many of them rose to stumble from the grave in the early '70s. This is an Italian/Spanish project, which has been released in a variety of strangely jokey titles including ‘Don’t Open the Window’ and ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’.

Ray Lovelock plays hero George, initally in a very difficult-to-like manner not atypical of films of this time. He's especially mean to Edna (Christine Galbo) who admittedly makes a very bad impression of him to begin with. Llumbered with each other's company, they nevertheless become close as gruesome things start to occur.

Jorge Grau directs this twisted, turning story very effectively, making good use of the British location - especially at the beginning - although the police force isn't portrayed in a very sympathetic light. Filmed in Rome and Madrid, with extensive footage shot in Manchester there is the genuine feeling that things are going to get a lot more bloody as the 95 minutes roll on. Giuliano Sorgini also deserves a mention for his highly sinister score.

This is a festive kitchen sink cum horror drama, and as you might imagine from such a description, events are never predictable. Passionately acted, the family squabbles and fights take on a new perspective when a bigger antagonist is at large.

The wonderful Never McKintosh plays the rebellious mother Beth; beau Kieran is played by Shaun Dooley. Beth's lot is a challenging one, brutal and horrific too.

It's perverse to set this around Christmas time. Goodwill is in very short supply, and there are few happy moments. The performances are raw and convincing, and the pacing and production make events compelling viewing.

If the domestic locations seem familiar, that's because the film is shot on the disused sets of axed UK soap opera Brookside. Even that was more cheerful than this terrific chiller!

‘Lamb’ is an extraordinary film from Iceland, which leaves you in no doubt that working on a farm there is hard, relentless and isolated. So when Maria (Noomi Rapace) and her husband Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) are visited by Ingvar’s errant brother Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson), you realise how idyllic their life was, despite the hardships.

The reason for this is, after the loss of their child some unspecified time earlier, they have a new little one. Strange and mysterious: an aberration, it seems, but nevertheless, the apple of their eye. The child’s strangeness provokes a series of reactions from the audience – laughter, incredulity and even revulsion, all of which are accommodated for in the production – and yet, when Pétur is similarly incredulous, we resent what he might do.

The effects in ‘Lamb’ are as wonderful as they can possibly be, and Ada the child (voiced by Lára Björk Hall) is, when we have finally realised what she is, utterly appealing. It’s easy to understand the couple’s attachment to her – so much so that when her maternal mother shows ‘too much’ interest, Maria’s reaction to the perceived intrusion is explosive. So too, is the final, astonishing twist which came as a huge surprise to me, but makes perfect sense.

Not an easy film to define, and it leaves you with several different emotions once it ends, ‘Lamb’ is thoroughly recommended.