Film Reviews by NP

The first few minutes of Rich Ragsdale’s 2022 film had me feeling cautious. I couldn’t see how this cosily directed story about an attractive, slightly annoying young couple could shift in style throughout its 91 minutes enough to be a convincing horror. I think it was about the time that Grace (top screamer Scout Taylor-Compton, probably best known for her enthusiastic turn as Laurie Strode in Rob Zombie’s two enjoyable ‘Halloween’ films) was having a shard of glass removed from the underside of her foot by her plank of a husband Jack (Nolan Gerard Funk). It’s a jarringly gruesome scene, and the camera is in no hurry to move away from it.

I can’t help but notice other reviewers have pointed out that this story is little more than horror set-pieces and clichés taken from other genre films. I can’t really disagree with this – there are certainly some familiar ideas here – but also should point out that you wouldn’t necessarily notice this sense of déjà vu if you weren’t an avid horror film watcher. As such, it’s unfair to expect every genre film to present something entirely unlike the plethora of other horrors seen. There’s bound to be a certain similarity with other like-minded productions, especially those of ‘folk horror’, a niche into which ‘The Long Night’ (also known as ‘The Coven’) happily falls.

There’s also a continuing thread featuring snakes, which doesn’t add hugely to the story, other than to allow a scene during the climax to look extremely unpleasant.

I liked this film a lot. To begin so meekly, and then to develop into something increasingly twisted ensures the gruesomeness during the latter half is satisfyingly unexpected, and its leaning into delirium is powerful indeed. My score is 8 out of 10.

This is a beautifully photographed thriller starring a cast of prolific actors, from Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Cremer (whom I recognised from the wonderful Vanessa Paradis vehicle ‘Noce Blanche/White Wedding’) and Hugues Quester (from Jean Rollin’s extraordinary ‘La Rose de fer/The Iron Rose’). If I was more familiar with French cinema, I’m sure a lot more actors would be recognisable to me.

Rampling does here what she always does – adds a lot more to her role (that of Claire) than is written. Yet, even she cannot make anything compelling out of this wafer-thin story, which involves little more than shunting her from one freezingly stunning location to another. There’s sporadic blood and violence, but the main attraction this has for me is to enjoy the way the story is told, rather than the story itself. Even that becomes somewhat laborious from time to time, sadly. My score is 4 out of 10.

A lonely housewife, bored and isolated in a foreign place, imagines she is being stalked; meanwhile, there are news reports of a killer on the streets. Is she imagining her predicament, or is it real?

Not the most original premise for a plot. It’s been done many times before, but Chloe Okuno directs her story so artily and invests the Bucharest location with such an atmosphere, and the acting is so good, that it’s difficult not to become immersed in this. Every player makes the most of their roles without ever overdoing things. There’s a certain restraint all around, in fact, that the moments of revelation – and there are a few – are that much more powerful. All accompanied by a backdrop of seemingly endless city rain

Kudos to Maika Monroe as Julia, whom no one believes, Karl Glusman as husband Francis, who begins sympathetically before proving to be absolutely useless. Madalina Anea deserves mention as Irina, a welcome shoulder for Julia (at least for a while) to lean on and Burn Gorman as Daniel, whose sly glances and furtive gait are open to interpretation throughout.

‘Watcher’ tells its story well and then leaves the viewer to join the pieces together. Possibly there’s an overuse of un-subtitled Romanian chit-chat to convey Julia’s feelings of exclusion away from home, and it’s true to say that some of the cast could do with speaking up more. But I found this very enjoyable – and yes, it does all make sense. My score is 7 out of 10.

There have been many exorcism films produced in the fifty years since 1973’s ‘The Exorcist’. So how come none have come close to the original? It might seem unfair to compare possession films, but William Friedkin’s take on William Peter Blatty’s screenplay was so wholly dark and horrifying, and cast such a huge shadow, it’s perhaps not astonishing nothing since has come close.

Here we have a fairly formulaic exorcism film, featuring impressive production values and often very strong acting. The story goes through the usual paces and produces a few moments that might chill the viewer. If this is the first such film you ever saw, you might be impressed, if a little bored.

Daniel Stamm’s direction makes good use of the locations and goes through the motions of CGI which works some of the time and looks ludicrous at others. Performances from Posy Taylor as Natalie, Jacqueline Byers as Sestra Ann, Colin Salmon as Ojciec Quinn and a frail-looking Ben Cross as Kardynal Matthews (he died ten days after completion) are notable in a sea of good performances.

Yet ‘Prey for the Devil’ buckles beneath the shadow that falls across it, and remains a box-ticking exercise in emulating scenes from other such productions. My score is 5 out of 10.

I quite enjoyed this low-key tale of a young couple moving into a house in Spain. It has been inherited by Sarah (Elena Delia) much to her surprise, and her and boyfriend Jared’s (Luke Bailey) delight in discovering the spacious rooms and new home comforts endears us to them. So, when inevitably unpleasant things start to happen, we’re on their side.

Unfortunately, these occurrences are far from horrific and this isn’t down to the low budget. Director Nicholas Winter fails to invest anything that might frighten, or indeed much in the way of atmosphere. Instead, it falls to the small cast to react to and fall under the influence of the evil influence Sarah’s dead mother (whose house this was) has left there. This asks too much of the actors, who work hard, but aren’t helped by a lack of any tangible nastiness. My score is 5 out of 10.

Rib Hillis, whose name looks like a typo, has great fun investing the titular character with as much pantomime villainy as possible; he leads the cast of this TV Movie. It has an interesting, if not bizarre, premise. His character Carl Highstrom uses extreme storms to cover up his crimes.

There is an impressive arsenal of effects on display that do their best to convince us there is extreme storm activity, there’s overacting, and there’s a surprisingly undramatic story. Several unevenly staged effects are employed to make Highstrom appear as evil as possible, but he never rises above daytime television nastiness. My score for this is 6 out of 10.

In a film with this kind of title, directed by Jess Franco, it’s no surprise that not ten minutes have gone by before the two main characters are enjoying each other’s company intimately. Emmanuelle and her husband Andreus have chosen a curiously unfrequented wax museum to indulge in some brief sex. Franco regular Antonio Mayans, billed here as Robert Foster plays hubby.

Of all the many females to have adorned Jess Franco’s productions, Muriel Montossé is the one I find the most titillating. That’s a purely personal view of course, but apart from her stunning looks and shape, she is also a very good actress, really capable of selling the allure of the two – surprisingly similar – main characters she has played for Franco. In fact, the similarities between this film (which contains no orgies, by the way – the title is typically provocative more than it is accurate) and the following year’s ‘Cecilia’ are palpable. In both productions, the two actors play an equally fractious couple who find their rocky relationship fuelled by their peccadillos.

Here, we have rugged Tony Skios playing Marqués who the film is eager to show us from the opening voiceover onwards, is an absolute swine. His sharp-dressed swagger and smouldering looks paint him as a very laconic rotter, except other than proving to be less sexually impressive than he believes himself to be, he proves to be as much of a cypher as the other characters. The plot peters out into a flurry of thankfully non-invasive sex scenes, all accompanied by briskly plucked flamenco guitar music. No need to worry about missing any vital parts of the storyline because there aren’t any - but then, any aficionado of Franco would be familiar with this approach. By the end, it is unclear whether the viewer has lost interest in the film, or Franco himself; it does seem very slapdash in its final act.

Muriel Montossé has escaped the fate of some of Jess’s performers and enjoyed a prolific career, and she certainly gives Emmanuelle more overt sexuality and character than we might otherwise have got, but despite the lip-smacking locations, there’s not a huge amount to get excited about here. My score is 5 out of 10.

A 'mockbuster' from the Asylum company, who specialise in making films that have a startling similarity to a current big-budget production, usually of the horror/monster variety.

Eric Roberts has been spliced into this one, featuring in a number of scattered scenes apparently alone, although joined by other cast members toward the end.

There's not a huge amount to say about this that isn't obvious. The effects are variable, with the 'monster' appearing less but more impressively than the 'ape', who has the characteristics of a chimp - more cuddly than menacing. There's a passing plot regarding aliens and UFOs, purely to explain the outsized nature of the beasts, which isn't expanded upon.

The results are a curious mix of styles: a film made for youngsters, but one that is filled with long scenes of people talking that would surely bore younger viewers. The creatures are only briefly shown. My score is 4 out of 10.

The opening scenes are surely a homage to the beginning of 'Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman', but filmed in garish blues and greens. There are many little nods to classic horror, some of which are shown being enjoyed on an old television by the titular characters.

The humour, always difficult and subjective, is mixed. Some moments work, others do not - and often outstay their welcome. The performances take time to make an impact but manage to have an endearing quality, and the chemistry between the leads is good. Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor Who, is good value as butler Igor.

Such is the OTT-ness of it all, it seems churlish to mention inconsistencies, but continuity is not adhered to. For example, one of the main jokes is how terrified 'normal' people react to the Munsters, but in some scenes, like when they move to a new house, people are entirely unconcerned by their appearance.

The three leads - no Marilyn or young Eddie here - are all suitably eccentric and display good, manic comedy timing. They also strike a clever balance between bringing their own portrayal to the fore, but with enough echoes of Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis and Yvonne De Carlo to please those of us who remember the originals. Sherri Moon brings a real other-worldly innocence to her stylised Lily despite the actor's lack of a light touch often necessary in comedy.

Get past the excruciating first few scenes with smart-arsed kids and goofy adolescents and the unfolding story of young Corey is so enjoyable and well-played/written that for a while, you almost forget you're watching a Halloween film - much less, the final (?) film in the trilogy that began with the 2018 reboot.

I might be the wrong demographic for this; Michael Myers was initially an enigmatic force of evil, with a strong suggestion that he might be more than human somehow. The 1978 original showed he was particularly difficult to destroy, but no real answers were given until a stream of sequels had to somehow expand his character without giving too much away - which in my view made him, and the franchise his stories had become, ludicrous. That's why I applaud the way this production kept him very much in the background for the first half.

The kills, when they come, are often disappointing and bloodless, occurring off-camera or 'artfully' in the background. Some impress though - the local DJ, for example, comes to an impressive end.

The acting is suitably intense throughout; Jamie Lee Curtis really does convey a lifetime of fighting an unstoppable enemy. "Evil doesn't die, it just changes shape," she says at one point. In all, I enjoyed this closing caper a lot more than I expected to. After seemingly endless rehashes, the Halloween trilogy ends on a real high - not what many expected but imaginative and effective as far as I'm concerned. And there are a few punch-the-air moments like when John Carpenter's familiar music kicks in during the end credits. My score is 8 out of 10.

One of the best things about going into a film 'blind' - that is, without any previous knowledge of plot details - is that undiscovered delights like this can be enjoyed exactly as the creative team intended. So don't even watch the trailer!

Andrés Baiz's erotic Spanish film allows us to gradually get to know the characters, to get to know their individual predicaments at a leisurely pace. This slow-burning beginning may be a trial for some - but stick with it, because once we think we know what's going on, then the story begins to twist and weave in all kinds of dark and chilling directions.

Quim Gutierrez plays Adrián, a flirty conductor who becomes attracted to attractive waitress Fabiana (Martina Garcia). She helps him cope with a particularly traumatic situation involving Belén (Clara Lago). That's all I'm saying. The cast is excellent, even though I was relying on the subtitles throughout. The plot keeps us on our toes, and goes into some very dark areas, as we ricochet from thriller to chiller, guided by Baiz's very capable direction. My score is 8 out of 10.

A found footage film that uses deceptively simple effects to convince you that, yes, there are monsters. The characters featured are sardonic but appealing enough to carry a story in which things are noticeably 'not quite right'. Often the aberrations are subtle enough not to be immediately noticed ... but they're there.

Director, writer and producer Jay Dahl seems not to have directed anything since 2019's 'Halloween Party'. His skill here is demonstrating a cavalcade of understated horrors that gets under the skin of our protagonists. Once you notice something, you can't un-notice it.

Featuring apparitions not dissimilar to those seen in Aphex Twin's video for 'Come to Daddy' (1997), this gets 8 out of 10 from me.

I wondered if there was some kind of competition going on as we were being introduced to this film’s quota of stoned/horny young characters. “Hey, that’s culturally insensitive,” reprimands one, as her contemporaries attempt to beat their friends’ smart-arsed barbs with smart-arsed barbs of their own. A bunch more willed to be slaughtered by whatever evils Evil Dead Rise produces I have rarely met this side of a Wrong Turn sequel. Why do characters have to be so entirely horrible? Adolescents can be tricky company, but there’s no need to paint them all with the same broad strokes of dreadfulness. Imagine liking some of these characters – just imagine that – and actually caring whether they live or die. It doesn’t happen here (incidentally, there’s no ‘I got to go pee’ moment, but one girl warns us ‘I think I peed my pants’ just over 11 minutes in – so that’s one box ticked. The response? ‘Is it warm?’ Scintillating).

I’m giving the impression I don’t like this film. That’s not entirely true. The run-down apartment block is a good setting and well realised, and the acting is at least intense - but the characters are a real problem – and their lack of appeal isn’t restricted to the younger ones. The story and effects are alright; as a whole, the film does exactly what you’d expect it to, but not an iota more. Curiously, any humorous elements present in the original Evil Dead films are jettisoned here, which is an emission I’m not dissatisfied with – that is, if this version brought in some new elements to replace the dark grins. It doesn’t.

The original film was a notorious independent gore-fest that took years to produce and was a revolutionary horror production. In 2023, the latest reimagining is the same as most other mainstream genre offerings.

Perfunctory. My score is 4 out of 10.

Luke David Blumm as David is a likeable young actor, which is a very good thing, as it is our sympathy for his plight and that of his mother Laura (Andi Matichak) that drives this horror film. Struck with a progressive illness, his scenes are often harrowing, sprinkled throughout the slow-burning story.

Director and writer Ivan Kavanagh plays around with what we think is going on and as such, fuels a story we might have seen variations of before. It’s presented in a low-key manner, the moments of horror sprinkled over events that we are increasingly convinced cannot have a happy ending.

Amid the unravelling of the plot and the occasionally disturbing moments, the question that frequently hits the viewer is: how far would you go to save your son? My score is 8 out of 10.

We’re not quite sure where we are with this often deliriously directed horror thriller. From the opening scene, Adam Randall directs former actor Devon Graye’s twist-packed story with relish, taking every opportunity to infuse the recognisably comfortable home life of the regular family line-up – affable Dad, smiling-through-adversity Mum and bratty, sullen kid. As we discover, they all have their tales to tell. So do other characters we meet later on when perspectives on events change and things become darker still.

Supernatural elements appear to make way for a more tangible, home invasion. But don’t be disheartened; this is a chiller alright, even if doesn’t quite become an outright horror. The camerawork is so sly and suspenseful, you might find yourself leaning forward in your chair trying to see round corners, or behind silhouettes of the characters to get a clearer look as to what is going on. It’s all aided by the terrific soundtrack by William Arcane, which is available to buy.

Some reviewers suggest that ‘I See You’ gets a little lost in its wealth of twists and turns, but I think they are all judged just right. My score is 7 out of 10.