Film Reviews by NP

This is a frustrating film to watch. The atmospheric cinematography, creepy sound design and good use of locations is undone by much of the acting, or lack of it. Rachel Daigh as Annabelle is fine, but most of the other actors simply look bored. Antonio Lujak brings some impressive eyebrows to Doctor Loris but very little else. Strangely, the supporting cast delivers much better performances than the main, although some have been very awkwardly dubbed.

There’s often a problem with juvenile actors taking major roles. Annabelle is often reduced to dramatically shouting for her daughter whilst in her underwear; that the little girl is unable to produce any kind of emotion makes her sullen and precocious rather than troubled and needing to be ‘understood.’

There’s a sense of ‘better done elsewhere’ with many of the scare effects – if this is the first horror film you’ve ever seen, it might score a few chills. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ve seen most of the set pieces before. Blurred images stand behind characters; when they turn around, they’re gone. You get the idea. Also, the pacing is leaden and never really picks up.

This Italian production is mildly effective on occasion but is unlikely to give anyone nightmares. My score is 4 out of 10.

2013 brought forth at least two found-footage films based on the Bigfoot legend. As you might imagine, ‘The Woods’ shares similarities with the enjoyable ‘Willow Creek’ – a young couple investigate the legendry Bigfoot mystery, get scared, argue a bit, and record it all for prosperity. Here, Mark & Rebecca (Mark Bacci and Rebecca Davies) intend to record a hoax video, because they don’t believe Bigfoot is real. What do you suppose happens?

This is a straightforward found-footage horror; *very* Blair Witch. It does everything you would expect of such a production, and does it well – the locations are convincingly creepy and the acting conveys the increasing sense of fear well. If you like this kind of film – and I do – you’ll probably like this. However, it won’t convert anyone who feels that this style of film-making is spent.

If I have any problem with this, it’s the false starts. By that, I mean that events reach a kind of crescendo, and then the next morning, we begin another new day with no real explanation of how the previous night’s confrontations played out. Other than that – an enjoyable feature with some creepy moments. 7 out of 10.

In a climate where vampires are popularly portrayed as stylish teens in black leather jackets with a taste for blood, Irina could not be further removed. By night, she walks the streets finding victims and drinks from them, leaving the landlord of the rundown seaside hotel where she 'lives', to destroy the bodies afterwards. Quite what power she has over him isn't clear, and quite what power she then passes onto Pink, a rejected prostitute, isn't clear either, but it seems Irina has passed her curse over to her.

Ultimately, this film has become the first part of a trilogy. 'Queen of Blood (2014)' and 'Blood Dynasty (2017)' are also an acquired taste, but highly recommended.

The titular character was originally meant for Boris Karloff, and the shady Yogami character was earmarked for Bela Lugosi. Whilst these two horror legends would have undoubtedly been tremendous in their respective roles, I find it hard to imagine how the two characters we ended up with could be bettered.

Instead, we are treated to Henry Hull who plays the titular Wilfred Glendon. He is joined by Charlie Chan actor Warner Oland as Yogami. The results are terrific, but underrated - not every film from this period can star Karloff and Lugosi!

Spearheading the idea of the lycanthrope being a tragic, Jekyll-like figure rather than a man of evil has been retained for all Universal Wolf-Man films – the impressive make-up is provided by monster guru Jack Pierce.

When settling down to watch a Jean Rollin film, the viewer is fairly sure it will contain either nude/semi-nude vampires, a beach scene, two young girls as main characters and/or a much surrealist atmosphere. Such things are the staple of the prolific French director.

It’s something of a surprise then, to find none of these elements here. At first, two girls appear to be the film’s main double act, but one of them is killed a couple of scenes later in one of many shocking twists this tale has to offer.

This is Rollin’s most straightforward horror film. My favourite scene involves a decaying man who chases Elisabeth back into her parked car, which naturally fails to start. As she locks the doors, he head-butts the glass to the front door, leaving much of his dissolving forehead on the glass as he recoils to butt it again. Truly stomach churning.

I’ve seen this project labelled as ‘pretentious’ by more than one reviewer. I’m not sure that’s fair. And yet it is difficult to find a label for this film at all. It succeeds in being like nothing I’ve ever seen. Is it even horror? Well, judging by the incredible acting from Reece Shearsmith in one scene alone, I’d say yes.

During one scene, the bullying O’Neill character (Michael Smiley) shows the submissive Whitehead (Shearsmith) a vision of death/hell inside a tent, which the audience does not witness. Instead, we get Whitehead’s subsequent reaction – his mind is damaged by the vision, and yet instead of running from the scene, he emerges from the tent with a death-head smile of disturbing serenity on his face. Shown in slow-motion, it is worth seeing ‘A Field in England’ for this startling scene alone – although it is much more effective in the context of this strange and wonderful project.

Doctor Hersch spearheads research into the capture and subsequent ‘understanding’ of ‘the vampire’ he has named Vlad (although his real name is revealed to be Simon Molinar), but he is killed during the creature’s capture and the project is assigned to his subordinate, Doctor Bassett. Bassett then enlists the help of the idealist Doctor Joe McKay who is entirely new to the project and becomes hazardously sympathetic to the prisoner.

So are Molinar’s monologues while imprisoned truthful, or is he just stalling for time so that he can make his escape? Such conclusions are left open in this highly enjoyable film.

Doctor Hersch spearheads research into the capture and subsequent ‘understanding’ of ‘the vampire’ he has named Vlad (although his real name is revealed to be Simon Molinar), but he is killed during the creature’s capture and the project is assigned to his subordinate, Doctor Bassett. Bassett then enlists the help of the idealist Doctor Joe McKay who is entirely new to the project and becomes hazardously sympathetic to the prisoner.

So are Molinar’s monologues while imprisoned truthful, or is he just stalling for time so that he can make his escape? Such conclusions are left open in this highly enjoyable film.

How to go about talking about Vampyr? This is a film that was made in 1932, but could almost be ten years older – it is mainly silent, with sparse moments of dialogue. Sometimes events seem deliberately obfuscated. There are also intertitles that relay moments and goings-on that might otherwise not be clear.

It isn’t always easy to stay glued to this because not only does it not really follow a pattern, but the style of weirdness gives no assurance that events are ever going to become any clearer. And yet the imagery rewards – the one-legged policeman, the inexplicable deformed old man, the scythe-wielding peasant (Death?) on a ramshackle boat, and Gray and Giselle scampering through the sepia summertime. It is horribly haunting and not easily forgotten.

The extent of initial brutality in this silent film is pretty shocking. There’s something deeply unpalatable about watching the early days of Gwynplaine’s (Conrad Veidt) tragic and troubled life, and the grotesque theatricality of the players only reinforces that. Truly, you needed to be made of stern stuff to watch this kind of film back in the silent era.

Silent films are very much an acquired taste, but I would suggest this is worth anyone’s time. My score is 8 out of 10.

This is a lacklustre title for a nice horror drama, in which the lack of budget is only occasionally betrayed by some of the effects. The three main leads (Richard Harmon as Rodger, Echo Andersson as Jordan and Sara Thompson as Beth) are refreshingly witty and endearingly silly – at least before ‘bad things’ start happening.

I admire writer/director BJ Verot for trying something different with this story, but if I’m honest, I would have preferred it without its subsequent straying into sci-fi territory. The problem is, despite the best attempts of the smoky CGI, it isn’t scary – not even a little bit. If it had confined itself more to the horrors of events, that would have been more satisfying than the unfocussed events, especially toward the finale.

Up until that point, I’d been suitably invested – after which, not quite so much. Even so, this proved to be an enjoyable way of spending 90 minutes. My score is 7 out of 10.

This is a ‘Wrong Turn’ clone, but with less blatant and gratifying horror trappings. The teen crew we meet after the prologue are possibly the sulkiest bunch I’ve ever come across. Whatever relationship breakdowns there might have been prior to events here, this bunch can barely even look at each other, and conversations are restricted to the barest minimum. The ‘butchers’ of the title, when we first meet them, are far more communicative and personable – even if it’s all just enforced jollity to detract from their villainous ways. Whereas in ‘Wrong Turn’, we fell afoul of a group of mutant inbred hillbillies we never got a really good look at, here the antagonists are big lads with beards – who may be comparatively well spoken, but their manners aren’t much improved. There’s also something horrible lurking in the shadows.

Other than undeniable similarities, this is a good, well-paced, violent and brutal horror film. My score is 7 out of 10.

This atmospheric horror film begins well, with a man Ben (Noah Huntley) concerned with the treatment his autistic daughter Sarah (Skye Bennett) is getting at the hospital at which she is being treated. Her doctor is played by Philip Bretherton, who I hoped would have a more substantial role, but sadly this was not the case. Other characters we meet are Tobias (Ronald Pickup), who again I thought would have more to do, and Security poser Rick (Leon Herbert). Apart from growling his lines so deeply as to be virtually incomprehensible, Rick contributes little also – and herein lies my ongoing problem with the film.

The story involves the gang emerging from the hospital elevator to find themselves in a deadly alternative dimension where, for the rest of the running time, ‘things’ happen. The characters are secondary to the story, and that’s a shame, because there’s not much of a tale being told.

Instead, we get frequent attacks from the monsters of the piece, played by members of Finnish death metal outfit Lordi. The main man, Mr Lordi, not only plays the lead monster (a kind of Predator/Klingon hybrid) but co-writes this. There is also a handful of leering CGI faces which, I’m sorry to say, fail to impress. The ending fails to end things on a high, which is a shame. My score is 5 out of 10.

A group of young friends are searching for MacKenzie’s (Hattie Smith) missing sister; mercifully this gang is reasonably free of the usual empty-headedness that often affects such groupings, with the exception of the sole English character Gerrik (Michael Peter Harrison) – clearly designed to be comedic but remarkably annoying. The others laugh at his overplayed snarkiness. I’m surprised they don’t dump him.

The ideas, that verge on creepy sci-fi, are possibly too ambitious for this production, but there are some nice moments where it appears events are contracting out of the control of the group, and Taylor Edwards as Edgar in particular displays some fine acting. My score is 6 out of 10.

I like slow-burning films; the idea of being given enough time to really live in the movie you are watching really appeals to me, often more so than faster-paced, spectacular projects. I also like arthouse films; the atmosphere and characters can often be just as engaging, if not more, than a traditionally linear storyline. Thing is, you need to have at least the semblance of a storyline in a film, otherwise, it’s like buying a loaf of bread and finding no bread in it!

Memoria is deliberately pitched at a snail’s pace. There isn’t a storyline as such, but rather a series of events, some of which we return to. Clearly, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who writes and directs, has a vision for this – together, one would presume, with his cast and crew. For the most part, it leaves me cold, and I find myself trying to imagine how Weerasethakul initially tried to communicate what he is trying to achieve here to his actors. I actually felt the makers were taking the mickey, daring me to stick with this when they have no intention of providing much reason to, or indeed any kind of pay-off.

Some will undoubtedly tell me I don’t ‘get’ it, and that’s almost certainly true, but I can’t honestly see that there is anything *to* get, because with the suspension of disbelief fully installed, all I see here is a group of blandly inoffensive people doing very little except having whispered conversations and being desperately polite to each other in front of an unmoving camera. There were times when I had to wait for someone to blink to convince myself the BluRay hadn’t frozen. This left me cold, I’m afraid. My score is 3 out of 10 for some nicely filmed locations.