Film Reviews by NP

Reviewing a comedy is difficult. If you examine the jokes too much, they fall apart. If you quote various lines out of context, they lose their impact. ‘The Cottage’ is very much of the type that deserves to be watched, enjoyed and left at that.

To skirt over the story, David (Andy Serkis) and Peter (Reece Shearsmith) have kidnapped Tracey (Jennifer Ellison) but the situation becomes more complicated than any of them could imagine. Then, those complications become complicated … and so on. Even in the very last scene, the situation that has taken on such satisfyingly ridiculous proportions becomes … even more complicated.

My one real problem with this are the excessive profanities. At the risk of sounding like everyone’s elderly parents, I found such expletives are shockingly funny to begin with, but become wearisome once they are established as the normal way of speaking. Other than that, this is a fine slice of black comedy. Politically incorrect in places, but mainly the laughs come from the extravagant blood and gore on display.

Tracey’s large breasts only feature once as the focal point of the comedy, serving only as a distraction allowing her to get the better of Peter. The males are the subject of the humour here, their ineptitude and consistent failures causing the mayhem that propels the story. It’s good to see Hellraiser’s Doug Bradley in this, but a shame his appearance is limited to a ‘villager with dog’ credit.

All performances are enjoyable, with the excellent Shearsmith getting the brunt of the gory punishment. With Serkis, it is easy to note his performances as a number of CGI creations in other films, but this is a reminder what a good ‘physical’ actor he is too.

This British/Irish film doesn’t present a particularly reassuring image of the police force, at least not in the remote Scottish village in which the story is set. They are either using their patrol duty for sex opportunities or taking steps to make life as uncomplicated as possible for themselves. This is the environment new recruit PC Rachel Heggie (Polyanna McKintosh so good in 2011’a ‘The Woman’, 2014’s ‘White Settlers’ and the ‘Walking the Dead’ television series) walks into.

A mysterious man, known as Six (the always excellent and intense Liam Cunningham) arrives without explanation at the police station and is placed amongst the other prisoners held there – wife-beater Ralph (Jonathan Watson) and a small time crook Caeser (Brian Vernel). The colour-grading is hugely drab: all dawn raw blue and urine yellow. It induces a slightly sickly atmosphere.

This is superbly directed by Brian O’Malley who manages to create some gory death moments virtually guaranteed to lift you from your seat. The ending, and the true identity of Six, remains enigmatic to the end. And yet there is a sense of closure on this particular night’s events that satisfies whilst appearing to be end only of the first chapter of a continuing narrative.

‘Let us Prey’ is a tremendous production that never slackens its pace and doesn’t put a foot wrong. Love it.

Can you have too much atmosphere? I ask this because I love films that transport the viewer to the fictional world of the production, incite you to shudder at each shadow, marvel at each misty dawn, gasp at the scale of the architecture and actually encourage you to feel you are part of the experience. The very stylish and sublime Swiss rehabilitation centre featured here is extremely scenic and beautiful but at 2 hrs 26 minutes long, your fascination with the mysterious healing base is stretched out too thinly.

Dane DeHaan stars as Lockhart, a character who is, at least initially, difficult to like. Strictly a businessman, an ambitious go-getter, someone whose personality is comprised of spreadsheets and business projections, and who is never out of his shirt and tie, he represents the cogs of industry and is surrounded by, manipulated by and obeys the rules of others just like him. Their mission is purely to ‘get ahead’, to make money, and when he is sent to the mysterious centre of wellness to locate and bring back the man he replaced - Roland Pembroke (Harry Groener) - he considers it a waste of his talents. To balance things, the money he earns helps keep his aged mother in the best care home he can afford. DeHaan plays the role exceptionally well, his ambition slowly being eroded, displaying a semblance of humanity beneath - a nice balance to the apparently benevolent Doctor Volmer (Jason Isaacs), whose ‘journey’ heads in the opposite direction.

For such a driven character, it is ironic that when he is *being* driven to the centre, a mishap with a deer causes a crash that sends him there as a patient. Once there, he experiences the unorthodox, somewhat HP Lovecraft-ian techniques of healing the patients of their alleged maladies. That Lockhart is so arrogant in the face of the peacefulness of the doctors and inmates ensures the audience is far from on his side. Also, the reason The Company need Pembroke back is so they can pin various illegal business activities on him.

The finale is a terrific spectacle of Grand Guignol, with the reason finally revealed for all the atrocities committed. The closing scenes are lovingly crafted by Director and Producer Gore Verbinski. It is just possible Verbinski is too in love with the project, for there is no reason it should last 146 minutes. Possibly this is a major factor why the film failed at the box office. The fact that audience attention is allowed to wander on occasion is a huge shame, as intricate and meticulous scenes will be passed over.

The ending (SPOILER) is satisfying, with Lockhart rejecting both the wellness ‘clinic’ and his former life as a business drone.

Watching a couple of what I can only call Designer Nerds and their girlfriends flirting and arguing in a room can be a less than fascinating experience. The actors are all competent and veer from amusing to irritating alternately, and ultimately into a panicking menagerie when things go wrong. To explain:

Skeet Ulrich plays Brice, who hosts an ‘escape room’ event. Agitated that his project is no longer the popular resort it once was, he buys a ‘skull box’ (a device we are introduced to the film’s prologue, which is almost a movie in itself) thinking that its legendry curse will drum up interest in his business. To this end, Jess, Jeff, Ben and Angie agree to be locked in the room filled with potential clues as to their escape. If they don’t escape, they ‘lose’. However when a masked figure appears, to all intents and purposes a prop, Angie feels – in the film’s lowest point – that it is ‘looking at her boobs’. It isn’t a prop however, it is a killer, and every few minutes, the chain keeping it close to the wall loosens, allowing it to come into closer contact with them in the confines of the room.

A nice touch is when the killer gives a round of applause once the allotted time to escape the ‘escape room’ has come to an end but despite the best efforts of the cast, this exercise is pretty average at best.

SPOILERS

It must have been a challenge to go about a sequel to a film in which the original cast all appeared to die, but to its credit, ‘The Houses October Built 2’ – from here on in, THOB2 - actually begins as the earlier instalment ended – with the group of haunted house ‘enthusiasts’ being buried alive. Pretty soon, the ‘five thrill seekers’ are free once more.

Like the earlier production, this plays with the idea of found footage, in that it cheats with the concept by apparently including scenes that would have been impossible for the characters to film – but when it helps the flow and heightens the chaotic sense of the grotesque brutality to this extent, it is forgivable.

Like the Blair Witch trilogy before it, THOB2 takes the events from the previous movie and treats them as reality; the YouTube exploits of Zack, Mikey, Bobbie and Jeff have made headline news – and made a star out of the sole female of the group Brandy (Brandy Schaefer). Problem is, this new fame pushes the others to go further into the world of haunted houses and realistic funfair demons than ever before – and Brandy, or ‘Coffin Girl’ who has attracted 24 million YouTube hits, assuredly wants no part of it. I don’t like the way the boys cajole Brandy into the gang again, even considering the pressure they are under from their audience. Before, the group were extreme but likeable; now, that appeal has been diminished, although their recklessness proves to be entirely in character. Also, it would be unrealistic if at least one of the gang wasn’t reticent about coming for another journey. To help to understand why people enter into this kind of macabre exhibitionism, Brandy meets Dr Margee Kerr, who engages with scary things to help her ‘grow’. It wouldn’t convince me!

Other than that, it is business ‘as unusual’, as they traverse haunted houses and extreme Halloween attractions much as before. Their travelogue becomes a world where every face is horrifying, around every corner is a new reason to shudder, and fairground horrors become their life. The ‘bigger and better’ scares (and use of a drone to film them) open things up in the way sequels often strive for, but in turn, events lose some of the grimy intimacy of the first film. The enigmatic Blue Skeleton organisation is still trailing the gang, for reasons that are never clearly stated, other than their notoriety. Throughout, the haunted house network encourages them to ‘seek out Hellbent’ (a phrase which is more profound than they imagine) as an example of the most extreme experience you can get. Inevitably, when they arrive there, things are not as they seem …

I thought this was terrific. I’m not sure it topped the weirdness of the first, but Director Bobby Roe certainly tapped into the same vein. My favourite character from the first, the jerky, awful Doll Girl is here briefly and this time there are others like her. As sequels go, this is a good one. But I can’t see – now that the main characters have been exposed in such a way – how there can be any more instalments.

How it must have been for a horror film fan to be of cinema-going age in the early 1970s – this is another Italian giallo film that was released into the already bulging world in 1971. Directed by Mario Bava, it contains all the hallmarks – beautiful locations, beautiful people - and someone dressed in black who is killing them all, one by one.

Bava is lauded as an inspirational to many more modern film-makers, which is great. I find his work a little hit-or-miss. Perhaps his reputation goes against him for me; I try not to read reviews of any kind before I’ve seen a film, but it is difficult to avoid Bava’s status. Perhaps if he were not so revered, I’d (unfairly) be more open to appreciate his work.

That said, this unquestionably contains some gruesome moments and handsome set-pieces for the growing number of killings. Stelvio Cipriani’s very rhythmical soundtrack plays its part in cultivating the unnerving moments too.

As always with Bava, colour is very important. Garish and lurid, even when muted by day-for-night, it presents my main issue with his work. It is too stylised, giving a stage-bound feel, even on location. Such starkness also robs the sumptuous locations of their natural atmosphere and charms.

The story revolves around the lengths people will go to safeguard what they as their inheritance. It’s a thin plot, hardly elevated by a very contrived ending. As giallos go, it has enough memorable moments to make it worthwhile (my favourite involves daft and giggly Brunhilda (Brigitte Skay) skinny-dipping, when a bloated corpse brushes against her – dissolving into hysterics. Her fate is also soon sealed), but it is far from the most compelling in the genre.

I found this to be a genuinely surprising horror; not that possessed children is a particularly new concept, but rather in the way their threat is treated and revealed to us. In the opening moments, a flurry of activity involving a briefly seen horned creature abducting young Joey Girl (Olivier Cavender) from her trailer park home occurs while her mum Anna (Gabrielle Stone) is in bed with her current beau Creighton (Carl Jensen IV). At first it seems that her wayward past has made Anna into a scapegoat for judgemental and very religious townsfolk, who assume she is simply a bad parent and Joey has run away – but it’s a different story when all the children in the neighbourhood disappear too. And then one day, they come back.

Yet something is wrong and the children become increasingly feral. Joey, the only injured youngster, has had her tongue removed and soon begins to exhibit sporadic possessed episodes that increase in frequency. Soon the whole town is in the grip of fear and marauding, demonic youngsters. Things have reached this point so quickly, as does the descent into animal behaviour as the possession grows in intensity; events become hard to follow. But I get the feeling this is a deliberate decision of behalf of Director/Writer Roze to highlight the sense of chaos such a rapid decline has caused.

Children – apart from Joey – are rarely treated as individuals, rather a pack of animalistic hooligans. Pivotal moments like the death of loyal, quiet Creighton happen quickly and without fanfare. Blink and you’ll miss it. This approach is highly unusual in general, and for horror in particular, where such moments of graphic violence and spectacle are usually dwelt upon. Here, we waste no time on incidents – rather, we cut away and move onto the next occurrence.

I enjoyed this unusual, choppy film. The very simple effect of hollow eyed children with black vomit around their faces and clothes is extremely effective – as is the briefly seen demon itself.

A group of young people agree to subject themselves to a 30-day medical trial in order to win themselves £10,000 each. Among them are Rachael, who hides her illness, sensible Sam, Julie who’s every gesture and expression is a tantrum waiting to happen, feisty Tracey and journo Amanda. Among the menfolk are cockney Steve, Scott, massive Martin, non-descript Dave. The trial is conducted not in the controlled environment of a hospital, but the vast rooms of an isolated castle.

This is a low-budget production written and directed by Richard Johnstone. The colour grading and cinematography are exceptional – very bleak and foreboding, but possessed of a kind of melancholic beauty at the same time. It wasn’t until I saw the extras that I realised how much post-production work went into managing the colours and textures of the visuals.

Where the lack of budget does have a detrimental effect, however, is reflected in some of the performances and lack of actual scares. An exception to that is the scene toward the end featuring one vampire character slowly succumbing to the effects of sunlight, which is terrific.

My favourite performances might well come from the evil-doers. The Co-ordinatior (Patrick Wilde), his secretary (Judith Alexander) and especially the little girl Jessica (Holly Newton) all exude a measured level of evil that becomes more blatant and bestial toward the end, when the true nature of the vampires is revealed.

Although ‘Vampires’ doesn’t quite gel together, it is quite clearly made with a lot of skill and love –some scenes (often the simplest) have a real sinister quality about them (Rachael being called to her undoing by a whispering child, for example).

There’s an instantly arresting opening credit sequence to this. Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) playing some dreaded progressive rock with his band, interspersed with a back background punctuated with a graphic beating heart. Ah, this will be directed (and co-written) by Dario Argento then!

The first few scenes are suitably macabre and bizarre also. Gruesome events are witnessed and apparently recorded by a strange figure wearing an outsized doll mask. Like Pete Walker’s later ‘The Comeback (1978)’, a male musician, rather than a female, is the victim of sinister events. In this case, this results in a lack of one of the many merits of giallo – no strong women characters. As Tobias’ wife Nina, Mimsy Farmer seems too weak-willed to stand up to him much of the time, and Nina’s cousin Daria (stunning Francine Racette) is very happy to fall into his arms (in the bath-tub no less). And yet the nervous Tobias is somewhat brash and arrogant, despite Brandon’s convincing portrayal, and this adds to a paucity of characters to identify with, much less side with.

Dario Argento’s occasionally overtly gaudy, wilfully weird set-ups and execution can sometimes actually work against the atmosphere of the films I have seen under his stewardship. This is very much the case here. There are some psychedelic moments, some truly surreal set-pieces and some impressive killings. He has a style which is very much his own, and rightly he has been lauded for his sense of unique imagery. And yet to my tastes, this is at the expense of a narrative I can really get involved in.

This was the final part of the ‘animal trilogy’ that had also included ‘The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)’ and ‘The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971)’, all of which contain traits similar to this. Enjoyable giallo entertainment, but I’m not entirely enamoured of the lurid execution.

Something is amiss in the small town community of Maiden Wood. Animals are going missing, and people are being reduced to dismembered limbs scattered amongst the autumn leaves. In fact, this is a very autumnal film – in many scenes, the colours are bled out of the images, or a subtle filter is placed on the camera, reducing the atmosphere to a dawn coldness. The soundtrack, too, is a mixture of sombre music and what could be the sound of a hollow wind. Director Jack Teller certainly imbues his world with an unsettling unease.

Into this, Sherriff Shields (Kevin Durand) tentatively strides, acting on varied reports of ‘something in the trees’. Shields is played with a kind of weighty sense of unease and disappointment. The emergence of muddied hoof-prints running through the area does nothing to lighten his mood. His estrangement with wife Susan (Bianca Kajlich) and son Adam (Ethan Khusidman) is nicely underscored: two people torn about by a tragedy who were clearly meant to be together. Never over-sentimental, but quietly powerful.

Windiga, a creature from Native American legend, is revealed very slowly, a limb at a time. It finally makes its appearance during a terrific, isolating snowstorm. Sometimes what you don’t see is more effective – but the way the creature is realised doesn’t let anything down. The showdown is terrific. What comes after is even better.

It’s a monster-on-the-loose film, and is an exceptional example of its kind.

Talented artist, college student and waitress Paige (Marina Petrano) is sitting at the edge of a forest alone, while her friends party nearby. Unhappy, she wanders off. Finding a singular piece of rope hanging from the branches of a creepy willow tree, she brushes her hand against it, and recoils at the sensation.

Although clearly made with a miniscule budget, these opening scenes are moderately sinister, but not as (possibly unintentionally) frightening as Paige’s parents, who we meet in the next scene. Her Dad is a slab of clichés concerning studying and ‘the future’, and her mother adopts a sardonic, belittling tone ALL THE TIME. It’s a wonder that Paige and her friends - including love interest Cooper (Nicholas Barrera) and brother Tommy (Christopher Ingle) - are as grounded as they are (at times it seems as if Cooper could be the ghost featured in the title). Paige certainly doesn’t deserve to be terrorised by whatever spirit she brushed against in the woods.

This is not compelling. The slow pacing during the first half requires you to summon up interest in Paige’s day-to-day life, which isn’t made too difficult because she’s likeable. Her visitations are few and far between and consist mainly of shadows moving behind her that she doesn’t see. Things aren’t so dull that I was tempted to switch off or meander, because there’s some nice dialogue, some performances that succeed despite the inexperience of the actors, and the definite feeling I wanted to find out where it was all heading.

At over 100 minutes, this is simply too long. Twenty of those minutes could have been pruned, which would have improved things a lot. Some scenes simply meander without adding anything. Some of the characters’ dialogue is hard to make out, especially in the lengthy scenes explaining (to some extent) the mystery of Borley Woods, which is unfortunate. In contrast to tis, there’s a nice twist at the end, which is perfectly executed.

As someone who wouldn’t have the first idea how to make a film, I commend Stephen McKendree on his work. As a viewer, I would say that with more polish and refinement, this would have been much more consistent in its enjoyment.

I’m not sure what it is about Giallo films. They’re very stylish and often beautifully put together, but have a certain uniform similarity about them: lurid colours, an exotic musical soundtrack, a killer wearing black gloves, glamorous males and females. And yet for all the familiarity, they are always fairly thrilling viewing. I rarely tire of their exotic set-ups of jeopardy, or the rolling locations and arty direction. Here, Dario Argento certainly does not disappoint. Each shadow and reflection has sinister possibilities.

Ennio Morricone provides another in his inexhaustible supply of melancholic, haunting, beautiful musical scores, and the twists that come at the end are once more expertly handled. In fact, it is actually during Inspector Morosini’s (Enrico Maria Salerno) summary explanations of events that the credits roll – almost as if the film’s running time is not enough to contain it!

But there are no errors here. Argento handles everything with precision. My notes about the familiarity of giallo films and their style and structure have little bearing on ‘The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’. There were still plenty more such Italian horror-thrillers to come by this time; it is just that I personally have seen many of them out of order.

Amongst the cast (apart from Salerno’s sterling Inspector) are Tony Musante as main man Sam Dalmas, British Suzy Kendall as Julia and Reggie Nalder stealing all his brief scenes as ‘the assassin’.

This is certainly a curio - a fairly average story sprinkled thinly over lots of softcore sex scenes, with very occasional moments of pretty graphic gore. How does this differ from certain Jess Franco films? Difficult to answer really (Nico Fidenco’s score – a definite highlight of this and his other Emanuelle films - is both wonderful and inappropriate in some of its usage, echoing Franco’s habit of overlaying graphic scenes with the least assuming musical suites that work against the action rather than enhancing it)); superficially they are similar in style. And yet this lacks the fluidly eccentric directorial strokes of Franco. I note this purely as a personal observation; there’s no reason to believe Franco or ‘Emanuelle’ Director Joe D'Amato were in any kind of competition. The dubbing is at times lacking, with such an effort made to match the words with the lips of the actors, sentences often have. Long. Pauses. In the. Middle. Of them.

There’s a moment where Emanuelle and Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti) grimly watch stabbings, flesh-eating, dismemberment and rape before leaving their hiding place saying “Let’s do something.” A little late perhaps!

It would be grossly unfair to condemn this film for its treatment of women; it is guilty, yes, of titillation and exploitation, but it is far from alone in that at the time it was made. You could say it balances it out with the fact that Emanuelle, a female, is the heroine and is responsible for using her sexuality (and skin tone) to ultimately save her group.

This film isn’t as bad as I imagined it might be. It is, however, tonally disjointed with scenes of genuine horror mixed with leisurely sexual antics. There’s no denying that Indonesian-Dutch born Laura Gemser is a definite presence onscreen.

This Emanuelle, or Black Emanuelle, is not to be confused with Emmanuelle, the French soft-core movie character based on the 1959 novel of the same name. This is the Italian variation. By removing one letter from the name, they somehow legally managed to skip through the copyright loophole and produce their own series of films, featuring Gemser.

It is a huge shame that – and this may be considered a spoilers – the make-up for the titular creature is so tatty and unconvincing, because just about everything else about this film is excellent.

Charming couple Valerie (Jennifer Daniel) and Harry Spalding (Ray Barrett) arrive at a remote and unfriendly Cornish village to read the will of Harry’s recently deceased brother. They have been left only ‘the cottage’, a place that the locals spare no time in assuring him is not a place they want to live. Assuring landlord Michael Ripper even says ‘they don’t like strangers round these parts’, as Harry succeeds in emptying his pub on more than one occasion.

The Spaldings are excellently played, and for a ‘second-tier’ Hammer film, they are aided by an exceptional cast. Mighty veterans John Laurie, George Woodbridge, Charles Lloyd Pack, Marne Maitland and a superbly sinister Noel Willman prop up every densely atmospheric scene. Future ‘Blake’s 7’ phenomenon Jacqueline Pearce is exceptional as fragile, frightened Anne Franklin, displaying the same compelling talents as she does in ‘Plague of the Zombies’, which Director John Gilling filmed back-to-back with this, using many of the same sets, and locations.

The Cornish coasts have always been used to great effect in surprisingly few horrors, but they once again prove a perfect fit.

Rosalba Neri looks stately and picturesque when holding a cigarette, but never entirely convincing when smoking. She stars as Eleanora in this exotic, erotic giallo as the wife of novelist Richard Stuart (Farley Granger). Between them, they exude an aloofness that inclines you to believe they know everything that is going on, certainly more than the audience. So when Greta Franklin (Barbara Bouchet) arrives on their stately island near Venice as the new secretary, their initial smoothness soon becomes something more. A crushed tablet in her drinking water, and soon Greta and Eleanour are stripped naked and getting to know each other.

Greta is posing as a secretary to investigate the disappearance of the Stuarts’ former employee, Sally, who was Greta’s lover. The upmarket sleaze and atmosphere of kinkiness prevalent in their stately home can be ascertained when you look at some alternative titles for this: ‘Maniac Mansion’, ‘Leather and Whips’ and ‘Hot Bed of Sex’ give you every reason to believe that the sex quota in this giallo is generous indeed.

Petar Martinovitch is excellent as simple-minded Rocco, a hugely physical fellow who is aroused by the sexuality around him and cannot control the after-effects. Is he a victim in all this? He is certainly deliberately used, and his resultant unrestrained qualities have a large part to play.

This may be Neri’s best role. She’s terrific throughout, and has an incredible presence that dominates the screen. But she’s not given an easy ride by Bouchet, who is compelling and never reduced to being a screaming cypher. As is nearly always the case with giallos, the girls get the best moments. Farley Granger shouldn’t be overlooked though – his delicate flamboyance as Richard masks a villain in the classic line of frustrated weaklings.