Zombified_660 Reviews

Geisha Assassin (2008)

How to make a martial arts B Movie 101:

[8/10 · 17 August 2010]

Geisha vs Ninjas, or Geisha Assassin as it's known outside of Japan and the USA, is a fresh, exciting example of how to make an exciting martial arts B Movie. It's fast paced, exciting, and it has a constant flow of action and quick progression from one sequence to another.

It takes the martial arts B movie back to basics, assumes rightly that 90% of it's audience will be far less interested in authenticity than they are in seeing some exciting throwdowns, and provides a constant stream of exciting, energetic and refreshingly brutal fight scenes, with a simple but effective story briskly clipping along with them.

There've been two main points made against the flick whenever I read it reviewed, both of which I think are accurate points but also kind of pedantic and moot.

First is about martial arts authenticity. Martial arts geeks have been hasty to point out that the movie is preposterous and historically inaccurate. I'm going to tackle this head on. Geisha vs Ninjas is quite obviously coming from a comic book fantasy angle, and as someone who knows of and understands the principles of various martial arts but also knows that while the professional martial arts performed in a lot of recent movies is excellent and top notch, it makes for incredibly dull, grounded fight scenes. This movie is aimed at people who want to see a full on kicking of many butts like in the comics they read as a kid, not an expert display of dry martial skill like they see in a dojo. If you're going to get sniffy about whether a 5'2 girl can outfight a 6'1 monk with her bare hands or the fact that a ninja pulls down her mask to talk during a fight, you need to go buy Redbelt or Throwdown or something, this is not the movie for you. If you bought or rented a movie called Geisha vs Ninjas and expected authenticity, you are an idiot.

Second is about the technical quality of the film. This is a very fair point. The film is shot on HD video, not film stock. It's directed by Go Ohara, who was responsible for action direction in Versus and the entirety of the direction of Death Trance. The visual of the movie is much like Versus, with it shot on cheap video, but with excellent direction and shot choice. Also pace is maintained throughout, with precious little time wasted or spent philosophising. If you dislike watching movies with very low production values, you'd be better off to watch Death Trance as that is a high budget film, funded by the Japanese/American Fever Dreams production company. The video stock and recording of the film is, in the slower sections, a little distracting. Most of the blacks are in fact low greys, and on my copy seemed to flicker somewhat. Also the frame rate of the movie doesn't seem quite right, with the non-fight sequences seemingly shot at a slower than natural frame rate. However, the counter-argument to this obvious but inobtrusive lack of funds and equipment is that where a lot of movies have tons of equipment and money but squander it, Geisha vs Ninjas is pushing the limits of what you can do with crappy gear and a few locations by making sure direction, action and concepts are in as high gear as humanly possible.

So to summarise the film, yes, it is doubtlessly inaccurate to it's period, yes it is shot on very little money on cheap gear and it shows, but at the end of the day, if you stop looking for problems and concentrate on the actual movie, it's a rip-roaring, brutal, fight-centric revenge thriller with a great female lead, fantastic action direction and some great locations.

Suspiria (1977)

Worth watching for horror completists, but not as classic as it's made out to be.

[6/10 · 19 May 2010]

Being a huge fan of Deep Red, Tenebre and Phenomena, and having seen several other Argento films, I tracked Suspiria down too. At the time I bought it, it was fairly hard to get, and the only copy I could find was an R1 special edition. I figured quids in.

With this being an exhaustive special edition package, and listed on IMDb as the 'fullest' cut of the movie available, I assume outside of watching it on my telly, I watched the best version I could get my mitts on.

Suspiria is an extremely stylish film with a sustained atmosphere and artistic direction that's very powerful. Artistically, outside of some very creaky special make-up effects that look like an art student's attempt at a horror movie, not a real horror movie, the film is hard to fault.

Its soundtrack is a masterpiece. An absolute masterpiece.

Unfortunately as entertainment instead of art, Suspiria is rubbish. The movie runs only 92 minutes, a good 20 minutes shorter than most of Argento's giallos, but feels like an eternity compared to the fleet-footed Phenomena or the well paced epic that is Deep Red. It's dull, uninteresting, and even the much vaunted set-pieces irritate more than impress and are fury-inducingly few and far between.

Horror/stalk and slash set-pieces are gratingly slow, going through tension and into 'god just kill them off already', and go out of imaginative into just plain ludicrous. One girl is murdered after nearly ten minutes of preamble by a disembodied werewolf arm with a knife while inexplicably being seemingly astrally projected between 4 different locations as she absorbs way more stab wounds than any human body could possibly sustain, only to finally die when thrown through a window she wasn't anywhere near attached to a cord that seemed to be wrapped round half her house. An hour later, another girl comes a cropper after nearly 15 minutes by climbing through a window and into a room that has for no obvious reason been used to stock several cubic foot of barbwire, then murdered by another disembodied arm. They are intentionally long, drawn out, and, oddly for Argento, limply shot from unimaginative angles, relying on bizarre colour combinations and 'nails on chalkboard' music to try and make them frightening. Tenebrae this is not. Do not expect any crazed hand-held shots, any 'Axe POV' shots, or even that many close ups. Do expect a chronically bad cardboard heart at one point though.

On top of this, relatable characters do not exist in Suspiria. Jessica Harper is eminently watchable but epically useless, leaving her entire friendship group to die while she languishes in bed with a headache most of the film. Everyone else aside from the head of the school is window-dressing, either props to the dancing school atmosphere or cannon-fodder for the long-winded murder sequences.

The storyline is limp-wristed and unimpressive. Here it is: Oops. I joined a school run by a murderous coven of witches. Better do something about that...once I've taken some paracetamol and someone stops flashing that red light in my eyes. That's about it.

The biggest problem by far though is that the environment Suspiria happens in is so poorly defined. There are no rules or reality at all in this movie. Initially this is terrifying and confusing. By minute 25 you'd kind of expected a storyline to kick in and it hasn't, and you're checking your email at the same time as watching the film.

Point is, most Argento fans are divided by 'is Suspiria best or Deep Red'. I come down on the Deep Red side. Deep Red is a movie. Designed for entertainment purposes by a highly creative and artistically left-of-field director. Suspiria is an indulgent vanity project created with an 'art first, narrative and coherency later' approach. I felt like it was intentionally designed to alienate and confuse instead of entertain and engross, and it was an extremely frustrating and boring, if beautiful 92 minutes.

REC (2007)

Flawed but exciting horror-actioner

[7/10 · 5 November 2008]

Okay, I'm going to cut through some of the hyperbole that's bouncing around REC. If you watch horror films regularly, REC will entertain you but not scare you. There isn't a single thing in this film that you won't have seen elsewhere, up until the final 15 minutes, where there's a scare that Jaume Balaguero fans will be kind of expecting but less familiar horror fans won't. I won't spoil it but even if you hate the first hour, the final act is worth watching.

With that out the way, REC is a refreshing and exciting horror movie. Shot completely on proper home video (not just POV like Diary of the Dead) from the first person perspective of one character, Carlos the cameraman, it takes the format of a 'lost recording' of a 28 Days Later style viral zombie outbreak in a small Spanish apartment building. It's brutal, fast and invigorating.

It's got a largely excellent cast of believable unknowns, with only a few cast members giving way to a bout of the 'for godsakes will somebody eat that woman' (primarily the supporting female cast are REALLY annoying) and excellent usage of realistic settings to generate a bizarre 'real world' feel that makes the movie pretty uneasy viewing.

However. It's got to be pointed out that REC is not perfect. For a start, the inventiveness of the film extends only to the way it plays out and the way it is shot. This is a by the numbers, boring zombie outbreak movie shot from an out of the ordinary, exciting perspective, in an abnormal setting. The actual storyline can be summed up in one sentence 'regular people get trapped in a highrise with a few zombies and deal with it really badly resulting in more zombies' and never really goes any further than that.

The characters act stupidly, arrogantly and selfishly throughout, and really, most of them get what they deserve. It's probably what would happen in a real life quarantine situation, you'd be bound to get a few people who wouldn't take 'stay here and be calm' for an answer and make matters worse, but it doesn't make for good cinema. There are some awful ham-fisted attempts at social commentary too via a Chinese immigrant family and an ageing racist that just add nothing to the pot. There are four likable characters in this movie, and thankfully they take up most of the camera time, but a stronger support cast that you didn't WANT to die would have gone a long way to making this frightening. We've recently seen a move in horror movies toward the sensible conclusion that the better thought out the characters are, the more of a wrench it is if you know some of them are going to snuff it, and it's a shame to get back to the 'Oh look you got eaten alive and now you're a zombie, we TOLD you that was going to happen' approach.

Also, the attempts at 'scares' are things that would only scare a horror virgin or people labouring under the impression that The Ring is 'terrifying' and Hostel was 'shockingly violent'. For your buck here you get a lot of 'I've run out of flashlight battery, let me put another one in ARRRGH THERE'S A ZOMBIE CLIMBING UP MY LEGS' and 'Lady, lady are you okay, Lady...okay I'm going to go and see if she's alright...Lady AAARRRGH! SHE'S EATING MY FACE! HOW SURPRISING!'. It's cheap, it's predictable, and it's only just saved from being laughable by the original feeling of seeing it in first person. If you've played Doom, Silent Hill or FEAR, this movie will have a hard time scaring you, put it that way. In a way, that's very sad, given that director Balaguero has turned in recently the startling, creepy and original Fragile prior to this, which frankly scared me half to death. I couldn't help but feel this should've been better.

Still. REC is at the base of all things, a great ghost-train movie. It isn't a well written or particularly original film, but it is good seat-of-yer-pants entertainment, and provided you can forgive it it's generic nature in the plot and script department, it's a very very fun ride. And it has a great ending.

Shock (1977)

Consistently unnerving and very well made psychological horror.

[7/10 · 18 January 2008]

Mario Bava's Shock is an excellent addition to his canon of films. It almost feels like a more coherent and gritty modern day take on his earlier Kill Baby Kill, using similar lighting and direction tricks to make Daria Nicoldi's creaky house all the more terrifying.

Even with the slightly shoddy transfer of the film I was watching, Shock oozes visual splendour. All shots are carefully composited for maximum impact and every set is fantastically beautifully lit as you would expect from the director. The movie is in effect a Gothic horror moved to a modern day setting, with Daria Nicoldi playing a woman plagued by memories of her dead husband and more than a little amnesia issues.

The way the movie slowly builds an accumulation of signs that either something extremely wrong is going on or Daria's character is losing her mind completely is excellent. A lot of flak has been launched at the film for it's slow pace, but in truth it is no slower than his earlier movies, and the slow pace gives the truly horrific and bloody finale an undeniable punch missing from many 'fast-paced' horrors.

Still. It is dubbed. Atrociously in parts. As with most movies of it's kind the weakest link is the voice-over for the child Marco. He's so unfortunately over the top. Most Italian movies have at least one character that the dubbing didn't quite work out for, and Marco is Shock's. You'll either be OK with it as all these movies have similar issues, or it'll force your hand to the DVD remote halfway through the first act. Ye have been warned.

If you can stomach that issue, it's an excellent movie. It's atmosphere is slightly compromised at times by the dodgy dub but other than that, this is a chiller that won't leave you for a while, especially some of the tragic and truly disturbing images in the final reels. Check it out for a real shiver-down-the-spine horror flick!

Fragile (2005)

Great movie, one of the scariest and best directed western horrors this decade.

[9/10 · 31 December 2007]

Fragile is an excellent film, taut, suspenseful and well written, with excellent acting from the leads, genuinely frightening imagery and direction and an excellent story. The movie's storyline starts off small and mysterious and builds up into one of the best psychological horror climaxes I've seen in years.

Calista Flockhart is excellent, playing a tortured nurse who is grieving over an accident with a previous patient and just getting back on her feet when she's sent to a remote hospital on the Isle of Wight. Trouble is, this hospital is largely empty due to a nearby accident which has seen all the patients except the children's ICU ward evacuated, and the hospital forced into closure. Except something doesn't want them to leave, and is systematically breaking the bones in their bodies to stop them.

Fragile is a great mystery. In a way, this film feels like the video game Silent Hill, with strange goings on happening in a hospital and one plucky individual attempting to unravel them as events rapidly spiral out of supernatural control. The eventual truth of the mystery is horrific and disturbing, and leads to an eventual confrontation that I won't spoil but is one of the most surreal and terrifying sequences I've seen in a long time.

There's only really two things I'd say against it. This is not, in any way shape or form, a nice film. It opens with a child having his leg shattered in bed by an unseen ghostly attacker, and is in many ways one of the most disturbing mainstream films I've seen in a long time, partially because of the very original nature of the horror present in the hospital, but also because the spirits are attacking children.

Indeed this leads me onto my other warning. Like Jaume Balaguero's previous film Darkness, Fragile's American release has suffered heavily at the hands of overzealous in-house censors who saw an opportunity to pump an edited version of the movie out into the cinema with a PG13 to sell to the post-Ring teenage horror audience. Hence the US version has various more menacing sequences removed, some of which are pivotal to understanding what's going on, and I'm told has a lot of swearing replaced with re-dubs like Darkness, which ludicrously had a forced audio track which replaced every f**k in the film with freak instead.

It's a shame that this excellent directors work is not getting through properly due to his directing style. Like Guillermo Del Toro, Balaguero works with a varied age cast and isn't precious about what happens to the cast as relates to age. Also, an element of his directing style is that at points, characters completely lose it in the face of whatever terror is present, and believably swear blindly. We all know how dim a view Hollywood has of children being put in dangerous situations and we all know how actual realistic swearing puts their back up too hence this movie has again been butchered to make it more 'American'.

Watch a European cut of this or if available an Unrated version, and enjoy what I honestly think is the best Western horror I've seen this decade. Great work.

Reincarnation (2005)

A unique take on the J-Horror genre

[8/10 · 27 December 2007]

The easiest way I can think of summing up Reincarnation is as a cross between Ring and The Shining. It's a slow building chiller, directed with a stylish touch by director of The Grudge Takashi Shimizu. While this movie has a few jump moments and some truly creepy ghost moments, it's more of a psychological, supernatural thriller than a haunted house film.

A young woman is starting out on a career as an actress. She auditions for a new horror film based on true events, a massacre at a hotel where a university professor went crazy, murdering his family and the hotel night staff all in one night. She leaves the audition and begins to have visions of a little girl and her doll in impossible places. Soon she gets a call back, and goes to meet the director. As soon as she's cast in the film her visions change and begin to include images of the murders. She starts to investigate into why.

It's a different story to the average 'this place is haunted, I shouldn't go in here...well, maybe a little...OHMIGOD!' stories that J-Horror is famous for, and it makes the film feel fresh. Also the directions it takes are both unexpected and very creepy. I won't give any of them away to avoid spoiling the film, but the movies twists and turns give it a great storyline and structure.

I can't recommend this film enough. Yes it is subtitled, and watching a film this tied up to Japanese culture and beliefs in a dub destroys a lot of the mystique, so I wouldn't recommend it to those who can't sit through subtitled films, but it is an excellent horror, spooky and ultimately quite chilling.

It is worth noting that this movie is also at times quite brutal. The flashbacks to the murders though brief are disturbing and explicit, and often seen through the murderers eyes, so the easily upset be warned.

However, to avoid this movie simply because of a few short sequences of disturbing violence or it's language would be to miss out on a great horror film with a unique feel and excellent atmosphere. Please watch this movie, you won't regret it.

The Burning (1981)

If you only watch one slasher movie...

[8/10 · 26 December 2007]

...The Burning is a firm candidate for the one you should watch.

The honest truth is most horror fans have heard of The Burning because of its infamy and banned status in various countries, but very few have seen it as it's hard to get hold of (probably due to all the banning lol). Having finally seen it, and uncut no less, I'm so glad I tracked it down. In contrast to so many other slashers, The Burning is excellently directed, makes the most of a minimal budget, and despite being a banned movie in various countries is actually pretty tasteful and artistically put together.

Don't get me wrong, The Burning is a violent, at times gruesome movie. Fingers get chopped off, foreheads get slit open and a whole lot of people get their throats cut. It's not for the faint of heart or the squeamish, but BUT...it isn't sensationalist. With the exception of a few minutes of the final confrontation, all of the kill sequences in The Burning are so cleverly directed, so well thought out, that I personally found myself doffing my hat to director Maylam as opposed to being shocked. Also it isn't a kill a minute. Because of the direction, obviously influenced by Italian Giallo films at various points, kills last longer than say Friday the 13th or Halloween, but make up a much smaller part of the film. The Burning has about 7, maybe 8 on screen deaths (nothing compared to the 20-odd kills in Friday the 13th 6) so it's not like it's a gore-fest.

That's what I was so surprised and elated about as I watched it, I was expecting the movie to be a cheesy, dodgy flick with a lot of gore, but in fact it turns out to be a worthy rival to Halloween in terms of the best-made classic slasher. The cast are excellent, made up largely of likable actors who went on to star in other things later and will be familiar to everybody, the soundtrack is unique and in Cropsy, you have an admittedly badly named but truly creepy villain, almost Gothic in nature.

I urge everyone with an interest in horror to watch this. If every slasher flick had been this well thought out in the first place, maybe the genre would have developed differently.

Intelligent, forward thinking horror direction, vastly before it's time. Go watch it now.

Hostel: Part II (2007)

Could've been a clever progression, but feels rushed and over the top.

[5/10 · 26 December 2007]

Straight off the bat a few facts about Hostel 2. It's not by any means an awful movie, it's got it's moments. Secondly, it's better put together than an awful lot of the 2 dimensional horror tat it was rubbing shoulders with at the time. I just wanted to state those things before I let loose my misgivings.

Firstly...cinema violence...a shudder goes round the room. What happens in Hostel 2 in terms of violence is by turns both shocking and stupid, cleverly thought out and goofily rushed. A few bits of this movie are genuinely disturbing and unlike anything you'll see in any other mainstream movie, be warned. Other bits are dumb and blunt and overly graphic to the point of caricature. Also the horrific things happen nonsensically at the start of the movie, meaning the rest of the film seems unavoidably pedestrian after they're out of the way.

Inexcusably rushed film-making is all over the place..certain elements are relied heavily upon but never explained, like the main character going into a rage on hearing the word c**t. Now granted that's a horrible word, but a little more explanation than 'I hate that word' would have elevated that to a possible level of sense and understanding, but as it is it just feels like a dumb joke like 'I don't do guns, they take me to a bad place' in the Rundown. There's annoying little bits like this of undeveloped rough material all over this film, and the whole thing just feels like it's in dire need of a good editor to make a decent story out of it all.

The bones of an interesting genre horror are sat in front of us with this movie but there's nothing holding them together. It's not made any better by the fact that after an hour of a couple of girls wandering around Prague and a train of all places, Eli Roth obviously looked at his runtime, screamed '****! I've only got half an hour to wrap this up!' and crammed everything in at the last minute Stephen King style for the most preposterous, hurried and overblown ending I've seen in a long time.

I had no idea what to expect of this movie as the idea of a Hostel sequel seemed pointless so I wasn't really planning to watch it or anything, and in hindsight, I don't reckon it's an awful film, it's watchable and entertaining if at times sickeningly violent for the sake of it's own bad-boy image, but it's to incoherent to be anything other than another overblown Hollywood sequel. If you've got 90 minutes spare and want to watch something scary and gruesome, you could do a lot better than this. Sorry guys. Better luck next time.

Kill Zone (2005)

A powerful and moody film, similar to classic John Woo.

[9/10 · 25 December 2007]

Kill Zone/SPL is one of the most brutal, powerful pieces of action cinema I have seen in years. Yip's brilliant direction and the stunning, bone-shattering choreography of the fight scenes alone are enough of a reason to recommend it, but the way the film deals with human tragedy at the same time as blowing the whole action genre out of the water has to be seen to be believed.

It has been pointed out by detractors that Kill Zone is unbelievably dramatic, with a lot being made of the fact that no police force on earth would forgo jailing a man because he 'didn't kill' the guy he was beating unconscious with a golf club. If this was intended to be Serpico this would be a fair comment. Still, it isn't really, that comment shows an unwillingness to take the movies OTT Shakespearean tragedy vibe to heart more than an issue within the movie. I see far less believable stuff at home in the cinema and no-one complains about that.

Kill Zone shows both real storytelling strength that hasn't been seen in the HK action genre since Purple Storm all those years back. It may not be totally realistic but it is most definitely powerful and moving. It's accentuated with graphic, gritty action and stunning stunt work from the leads. Donnie Yen is a powerhouse of martial arts power as always, newcomer Wu Jing is fantastic and terrifying to boot as an unspeaking knife-wielding assassin, and Simon Yam is on the best form I've seen him at since Full Contact back in the 90s.

At the end of the day, this is not a crime-thriller, it is an action movie. That this excellent movie has come under fire as being an 'unrealistic crime-thriller' shows how much extra filling and power it has in comparison with other action flicks, as it is so much deeper than the average bear it's been mistaken for an arty crime drama. Next time you want an action movie, rent this, it will stir fry you in it's wok.

Iczer Reborn (1990–1991)

Warm, dramatic anime with likable characters and a lot of action.

[7/10 · 25 December 2007]

Iczer 3 (AKA Iczer Reborn or the awkward UK title The Adventures With Iczer 3) is a deft cross of Robotech/Battle of the Planets style pulp Sci-fi and a little bit of Magical Girl style heroics. A young female robot Iczer 3 is sent down to earth to save the planet from the invasion of alien villainess Neos Gold.

Iczer 3 has a nice mix of psychedelic, powerful and multicoloured fighting action (a bit like a hybrid of Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon) and warm, well observed human drama. The main characters are all well written and believable, and main character Iczer 3 is young and naive in a charming and intelligent fashion, not just a brat with a squeaky voice like so many other teen anime heroines. It's a great ride, and an emotional one at that.

Still it's got a few drawbacks I possibly ought to warn you about. Firstly it's age. As a series that started in 1990 and finished a year later, Iczer 3 is nearly 18 years old. It does unfortunately show as this is a mass production budget series, not a film like the older Akira or Venus Wars. The colours look a little aged, and the character and mecha designs, while they'll induce feelings of nostalgia in older anime-heads, will possibly seem arcane and fussy to newer viewers more used to digital anime and music video animations.

Secondly...the dub is a little strange. In the UK this is only available with a dub track. As with most dub shows, I've kinda subtracted a point because I had to watch it dubbed and the dub has a few flaws, mainly some bizarre or unintentionally hilarious lines that screwed up the atmosphere intermittently and in Iczer's case especially there are points where dialogue is being spoken but nobody is talking on screen. If you don't watch Subs anyway, this is an 8, not a 7 as you won't mind, but I do prefer to watch a sub if possible.

Despite it starting to show it's age and having a slightly dodgy dub, Iczer 3 is a great series with likable characters you actually care for, great fight sequences and explosive action. The animation while a little dated is consistently excellent throughout the series, and unlike newer series, the entire series will only take 3 hours to watch. I'm sure you've got 3 hours lying around somewhere right?

Boo (2005)

A pleasant surprise with good performances and solid scares.

[7/10 · 25 December 2007]

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Boo. The title was pretty non-descript, and the box was covered in the kind of hyperbole every horror movie released in the west has had all over it's sleeve since 1976. About 10 minutes in, Boo was looking like it was going to plough forward like Dead Scared or the Convent without a sense of humour, and I was starting to get a bit bored.

However, 20 minutes in the cast got into the haunted hospital, then it really picked up steam. The interior direction in the film is great, the hospital looks fantastic, almost as good as the hospital sets from Session 9 and Silent Hill, and the movie's atmosphere gets really tight and tense once the obligatory pack of kids is inside the building and the lights are down.

Boo has a lot of little shocks, it's steadily paced so after that initial 10 minute lull you keep stopping and starting every five minutes or so. It doesn't have a lot in terms of scare set-pieces, but it's fast pacing and creepy atmosphere make up for the lack of truly terrifying scenes.

In honesty, some of the movie is a little generic. If I see a post-Ring American psychological-horror that DOESN'T have a scary little kid wandering around it'll be a miracle. Thankfully they don't waste the cliché here and the little girl is pretty spooky, and responsible for what's probably the best scare in the film when one of the cast gets trapped in a room with her .

The cast aren't magnificent either. The main bad guy is more irritating and whiny than fearsome and spooky, and aside from the lead girl the rest of the cast are amiable but completely disposable.

Still, that's not necessarily important in a horror movie, what's key is that the film stays atmospheric and has good pacing and tension. Boo has all that and then some, so honestly you can overlook most of it's flaws.

Scarecrows (1988)

Slow building but exciting hybrid of zombie movie and slasher...

[6/10 · 14 December 2007]

Scarecrows, like many other 80s horror movies takes a while to pick up a full head of steam. Don't hold this against it though, persevere and the movie eventually gets out of first gear and ups the pace. Scarecrows has gained a quite considerable standing as a cult classic and in a way it deserves it, not just because it's been unavailable for so long.

Although it's not an entirely successful attempt, Scarecrows crosses the slasher genre with the zombie movie. Although it's never really explained in the movie how it actually happens, people the initial 3 scarecrows capture and kill then come back as scarecrows themselves. So while the movie starts off with just 3 'crows and 7 humans, by the end of the film, the human cast has joined the scarecrows.

Honestly, this original premise is enough to make the movie an interesting watch in itself. Add to this a tangibly creepy atmosphere, very good make-up and creature design and some truly brutal, disturbing horror action, and the movie is a very solid and entertaining entry into the genre.

Still, it has a few elements that might put some off. Firstly, Scarecrows was, largely because of it's straight to video nature and the fact that it disappeared off the map very shortly after release aside from a few TV showings, left largely alone by censors. This'll cause the more squeamish of you some consternation, as many of the kills are very unpleasant.

It's also directed more like a zombie movie than a slasher, so it doesn't have a lot of tension, despite it's great atmosphere. Also if you do find a copy, it'll be heavily degraded unless you pick up the new DVD copy on region 1. This means a lot of sequences are a bit on the indecipherable side.

Still, it's a payoff, if you can put up with the bad quality the copy will almost inevitably have, or stomach the graphic violence, it's a really solid and original movie with some great ideas and fantastic sequences.

Yesterday (2002)

Enjoyable and tense, but quite slow, and somewhat flawed.

[7/10 · 11 September 2007]

Yesterday is an entertaining sci-fi movie. It's very near to being an excellent film, and in fact is a vast improvement on many recent Hollywood sci-fi flicks. It works really well because the science-fiction takes a back seat to realism and characters.

Yesterday is well acted by the entire cast. It's slow moving, and has a lot more in common with say Heat or Pulp Fiction than your I-Robots or your Serenity's, which may put people off a little. Characters reveal themselves in totality gradually, avoiding you from being able to figure out the entire plot machinations like you could in a more obvious movie.

Action in the movie though sparse is terrific, handled brilliantly from a point of direction and filled with power and excitement. Very few outlandish special effects are used outside of explosions, all of which serves to ground it further in reality.

It's unfortunate then that the film is written in such a way that whenever something big needs to happen, reality gets thrown out of the window. The last twenty minutes turn the film into some over-the-top slasher type premise as serial-killer Goliath systematically demolishes the entire cast other than the two key leads. This is honestly intensely frustrating, as the movie bears the unfortunate hallmark of some Asian cinema that the leads are a little difficult to relate to. It's nowhere near as bad as the earlier Natural City, where I seriously didn't care about anybody in the entire cast, but the main female lead is really bland, and consistently out-shined by the other key female character May, who is preposterously killed off in a frustratingly stupid fashion in the final sequences, almost like Wash in Serenity. You'll watch this and think 'God, you could've sent her off a bit better than that, she would've easily dodged that'. I can't help but feel she got written out so the audience would concentrate on the central lead instead.

This is a good movie, and outside of the way it happens, the end is satisfying. If it wasn't for the slightly desperate final 20 minutes then this could've been a contender for one of the best films I've watched this year. Unfortunately this movie spends 100 minutes as a police thriller then turns into a cheesy slasher movie in the last 20. The ending is great from a story point of view, but the actual events feel more Freddy vs Jason than the Seven meets Heat thriller the rest of the film serves up. It's definitely worth a watch, but be warned it is long, slow and the ending is like suddenly skipping channels mid-film.

Geobreeders (1998– )

Entertainingly zany but imbalanced comedy action.

[7/10 · 6 August 2007]

Okay firstly, Geobreeders is overall a hell of a lot of fun. It falls into the category of 'everything explodes, including the cat' action comedy like Nuku Nuku or Birdy the Mighty. Also for once, main male lead Taba is a really cool likable guy, not a slacker, a womaniser or a silent bishonen type. He's a bit like the little boy from Nuku Nuku grown up a decade.

The artwork is good, the story's bizarre but well put together, and the action is stunning. The last episode in particular honestly has some of the most jaw-dropping set pieces I've seen in anime. It's quite a package.

Looking at it from that angle, it's a shame some of the deal doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For instance the kidnap and torture part of the plot line is played straight and doesn't pull any punches, which is way WAY at odds with the rest of the show's storyline which largely involves a lot of things blowing up and an awful lot of slapstick. In fact the kidnap subplot really got on my nerves, because it seemed totally pointless and took the focus away from the entertaining premise of cyber-cats trying to invade the earth.

Then there's the fan-service. There's not an awful lot, but it is there and I've hit a point where I'm so used to the Japanese' bizarre ideas on what's acceptable during a comedy that Geobreeders seems totally inoffensive on this front. I mean we're talking about 10 seconds of fan-service tops. It's more fan-service from a 'hang on a sec why are these trained security ops turning up to a shoot-out in their swimsuits?' Gunsmith Cats/Burst Angel point of view than a 'ohmigod, I feel dirty now' Agent Aika type angle.

As a final point against it, I've got to point out that with a few exceptions, the female cast are unavoidably vile, funny but vile, and therefore pretty hard to empathise with. They continuously heap indignity after indignity and bill after bill onto male lead Taba and never really seem to have any chemistry with each other, which is funny for a while but they never really develop as characters which is a bit lame. Geobreeders is largely populated entirely by unpleasant people, and that'll either make you laugh or start to grate, and in my case it grated.

So...it's very funny, it's pretty good fun and the action rocks. But you've gotta make sure not to pick at it or expect too much from it in the process. It has barely any explained plot, the main female leads are kinda nasty and at times really irritating, but what it has in spades is hilarious set pieces, and an awesome finale. I sound like I didn't enjoy this much I know, but the last half-hour really pulls it back from the brink. Check it out, and keep your mind open to it's stealthy charms.

Silent Hill (2006)

A decent adaptation of the video game, but kind of lacking in areas, relies heavily on totally mimicking game scenes

[7/10 · 21 July 2007]

Having just re-watched Silent Hill on DVD I'm glad I made the effort to see it in the cinema. This is a movie theatre horror if ever there was one. The set pieces are painstakingly designed to be shown on a large screen with the music and sound blaring out at full whack. On a smaller screen, Silent Hill is an enjoyable and solid addition to the slowly growing 'adapted from a video-game' horror genre, but the loss of the visual excess of seeing it in the cinema exposes a few issues with the film.

Silent Hill suffers the same problems any film adapted from a successful series of books, games or comics does; how do you go about shoehorning in this case a four game series with it's own rules, regulations and atmosphere into one 90 minute film? Writer Roger Avary and director Christophe Gans have done a pretty good job of making a film that feels like Silent Hill, but what they've chosen to omit seems odd.

For instance, there are particular speech patterns that the game characters have, and they attribute to the off kilter, disturbing ambiance. In the Silent Hill games characters often talk in normal voices but with odd tics and mannerisms, and do things like trail off mid sentence and start talking about something else entirely. Everyone in the film speaks like a normal horror film character i.e a lot of redundant 'my god they killed him' type lines and pointless swearing whenever a door's locked or something. In fact all the characters respond to emergencies with a stream of random sh*ts, f**ks and lots of 'C'mon!', which feels less Silent Hill and more Die Hard. Maybe it's just me, but the clichéd script and acting seems bizarre given how perfectly the team have translated the rest of the environment and visual ambiance of the games.

In fact, there's a very random, patchy, almost snatch-and-grab feel to the way it's been adapted. For instance, the film uses a similar plot to Silent Hill 1, but then predominantly uses monsters from Silent Hill 2, and uses the music from Silent Hill 3. It won't make a lot of difference if you've never played a Silent Hill game, but to a fan, it was extremely confusing to be assaulted with Americanised versions of several elements of the game all at once.

The soundtrack frustrates the most. The strongest element of the games has always been their sound and atmosphere, and the fact that the movies soundtrack is lifted entirely from the third game with only a few extra additions feels a tad cheap. Initially you're happy because you settle in at the audio cues, but later, when entire songs from the OST of Silent Hill 3 start pumping out you begin to feel less comfortable and more like the team couldn't be bothered to make their own so stole the ones out of the game. I'm not averse to finally finishing an American horror flick and not getting nearly blown out of my theatre seat by My Chemical Romance (House of Wax, I shake my fist at thee!) or some such, but when the song is something you've already heard and that already means something else to you in a different context it's very irritating and feels like a cheap shot. The theme tune to Silent Hill 3 means to me 'ooh, I've turned on my favourite video game, time to chill out' and I'm happy with that meaning. If they wanted to use it in the movie as well they could have at least remixed it.

These are pretty specialist gripes though, about an otherwise enjoyable and watchable horror movie and despite the facts that some areas of the adaptation are frustratingly handled, this is still a pretty good film. Firstly, although good acting is in short supply, very few scenes are dialogue heavy, and the sparse dialogue is used only to move along the storyline, which is very strong. Also the few good turns in the cast, mainly Kim Coates and the little girl who acts Alessa/Sharon, are excellent, the latter bringing an understated creepiness to her role that no amount of make-up could produce.

It's also worth noting that they didn't scrimp on the scary stuff. Without necessarily being a straight 'scary' movie, Silent Hill is packed to the gills with disturbing set-pieces. It also has an impressive amount of the red stuff flowing around for a 15. I remember coming out of the flick in the cinema and commenting to a friend 'whoa, that was pretty harsh, wonder if that'll still be a 15 once it hits DVD?'. Miraculously, especially given that less brutal or disturbing films like Reeker and Wilderness have remained 15s in the UK but been upgraded to 18s for Northern Ireland, Silent Hill is still a 15 across the board, even for the slightly more conservative NI board of classification (buy a UK DVD and it has both on the box). Impressive for a film definitely not for the faint of heart, which involves among other things several cut throats, people being burnt alive and a final set-piece showdown that has to be seen to be believed.

Ignoring my history with the video-games, Silent Hill is a fun genre flick, with convincing monsters, an extremely dark plot and a nice mix of full-pelt action horror and some juicy psychological scares. It won't win any Oscars, but it's a fun ride all the same. It probably won't be a film you'll watch more than twice, as if you own any of the games, well I'd honestly rather play them for 90 minutes than make another revisit, and the cheesiness of the dialogue and some of the acting spoils the dark splendour of the visuals, but watch it once and you'll be spooked and shocked, and hopefully have a good time in the process.

Shadow Skill (1995)

Enjoyable and exciting martial arts/fantasy anime. Flawed but a lot of fun.

[8/10 · 29 December 2006]

I saw Shadow Skill: The Movie early in my anime fandom, and totally loved it. It's an entertaining, exciting movie, with great action scenes and intriguing characters. Approach it expecting a new Spirited Away or Akira, and you will unfortunately be disappointed, but in honesty, over time I have watched the less weighty but more straightforward Shadow Skill 4 or 5 times, more than I can say for Spirited Away, which I've only watched a handful of times since I bought it. Great film, but doesn't repay repeat viewings the way this does. It's an easy movie to watch just purely because of the enjoyment.

Basic story is as such, a teenage boy Gau is attempting to learn and master a fighting style known as the 'Shadow Skill', a skill mastered by his fiery and cocky older sister Ella, who is an arena gladiator. When their house is destroyed by a vengeful rival, Ella and Gau strike out on their own. They then have a set of adventures, eventually accumulating in a battle with a powerful wood spirit. It plays out a lot like a violent, older teens version of something like Willow.

Shadow Skill's fun factor will win over the less cynical viewer, but there are some flaws and sticking points to the movie. For instance, Shadow Skill is episodic in nature, and despite being honestly designed as a movie it has the jump-starting narrative of edited-together serial episodes. This makes it a little on the awkward side.

On top of this, Shadow Skill is visually polarising. As a big fan I find it's jagged art style, visual super-heroics and walls of blood quite comforting each repeat viewing. Still, it is, in comparison to more restrained anime, and in fact it's own sequel, a little cheesy and so ragged and raw it could be easily misconstrued as a badly drawn exercise in excess. This initial movie certainly veers more toward comic book affairs like FLCL and Voltage Fighter Gowcaiser than high-end stuff like Noir or Ghost in the Shell, and there's a touch of the anything goes designs of Dead Leaves in there too. Put simply, Shadow Skill is visually like Marmite, people seem to love it or hate it.

Still, provided these minor flaws don't stick in your craw, Shadow Skill is highly recommended. It's a fast paced, dark fantasy/martial arts blockbuster style story that's worthy of any open-minded anime fan-boy or fan-girl's attention. Give it a chance, and if you enjoy this be sure to check out the excellent sequel (buy the UK DVD and this comes packed with it anyway) which is even better than this first instalment.

The Ring Two (2005)

High budget schmaltz can't save it from the bum rush...

[5/10 · 27 December 2006]

Okay, looking at The Ring Two, there would be no necessary reason to condemn it to the raspberry list. Lets face it, given that this sequel is directed by J-Horror grand-daddy Hideo Nakata (the original Ring, Dark Water etc etc), stars all the surviving cast members of the original film and is produced by the prodigious Dreamworks stable, you would expect it to be at the very least a watchable and entertaining horror flick. In a way, you'd be right. It's certainly watchable, and it gets the blood moving a little so it is entertaining.

But still, it's disappointing. It's obvious from step one for instance, that going from Japanese STV straight to a full-pelt Hollywood blockbuster budget is too much too fast for Nakata. He eschews his trademark restraint in favour of a cheesy pop-horror atmosphere that's more I Know What You Did Last Summer than Ju-On. In a way that's understandable, but what set Verbinski's original Ring remake apart from the slew of also-ran psychological horrors we see every day was it's different feel and intelligent writing. Between Nakata's inexplicable decision to direct like Wes Craven on a bad day this time round and Ehren Kruger's X-Files episode writ large script, Ring Two is a clichéd and underwhelming experience.

To counter this, it still has it's moments. There's a bit more of Samara (who is inexplicably being acted by an older girl this time. Fair do's but she's a GHOST, it's not like she'd have aged guys!) and she's a lot more aggressive, leading to some hair-raising moments, especially a high-creep factor sequence in the family's house. Still, Samara and her tape get lost under a heap of stolen, overblown and often unintentionally hilarious so-called 'scare' set-pieces. Possessed CG moose anyone? Or how about a couple of all-American teenagers getting' it on before Samara appears in an unnecessary teaser segment. Hey, there's even a crazy old woman in a mental hospital who 'knows the truth!'. If this movie regurgitated any more 'classic' horror iconography, it'd need 20ccs of Pepto-Bismol. Stat.

I wanted to like this. I really did, and hell, it passed an hour and a half better than many other dodgy horrors, but it's so unbelievable and so full of plot-holes and rotten ideas that it comes off looking like a 4 year old block of Emmental, not the halfway-decent sequel the excellent remake deserved. The original remake is one of the few 'reimaginings' of recent years that actually succeeded in escaping the shadow of the original. This however, is like a particularly nasty car crash between Omen, The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street, and if it shambles your way be sure to shoot it on sight.

Yogen (2004)

Comes on like a creepy, higher budget episode of Outer Limits

[8/10 · 24 December 2006]

Premonition is good fun. Whether it's a 'great' horror movie, well it's your choice, in many ways it's more surreal than scary. But never let it be said this movie isn't an enjoyable, entertaining horror flick. Whether it's the surreal lead-up to it's final conclusion that gets you, or the brilliant rubber-faced, terrified and bereaved performance of the main lead, this movie is entertaining creepy fun throughout.

Don't get this confused with the J-Horror 'onryo' vengeful ghost style of films. If you want a ghost flick this isn't it. Premonition is like the previous 'J-horror Theatre' installment Infection in that it's a straight psychological horror flick, more in keeping with western films like Mothman Prophecies and its ilk.

Premonition concerns a couple who lose their daughter in a horrible car wreck. Seconds before, the father reads a newspaper informing him of the event, but he's too late to react and stop the accident. 3 years later, he begins to get new papers informing him of more horrific events. He attempts to stop them and unravel the mysteries surrounding these papers with the help of his now ex-wife.

The strange events are excellent, each revelation regarding the papers chilling and spooky. However, the events he's informed of are maybe not as scary as they could be. Because of a low budget, most of the events happen out of scene, and at times the effects are a little shaky. For instance, the return of the father's child as a hideously burnt ghost is a shocking scene with great prosthetics and brilliant acting, but a later scene where a colleague appears to him with no face just looks silly. Worth noting at this point, though not a hugely tense movie, Premonition is quiet sick and macabre at points, definitely not for the squeamish.

Where Premonition differs from the earlier Infection is a strong story and great acting. Infection was quite ropey in these aspects, but Premonition has a very strong cast and a powerful yet warm script. This makes it a very watchable and enjoyable movie to sit through.

On the negative side, the ending is a little bit scattergun and at points kind of silly, but other than that, I can't think of much to put it down over, it's a very good horror film.

'Chô' kowai hanashi A: yami no karasu (2004)

Spooky and eventually rewarding straight to video horror from Japan.

[7/10 · 29 October 2006]

It's first important that I tell you that Cursed is very low budget. Why? Because the UK release has impressive box art that suggests this is an A-Movie with an A-Movie budget. It's not, it's a B-Movie with an unknown cast and low production values. It's very well made given it's budget, and some of Japan's best horror moments (Kairo, Ringu, Dark Water) are fairly low-budget by US/UK standards anyway, so by no means hold it's budget against it, but it IS very low budget.

Warnings aside, Cursed is a very odd, off-kilter horror. Being a Japanese film, Cursed does provide many of the things you'd expect, like lank haired, slow moving girl-ghosts, and bizarre signs and twists that lead your detective work from one side of the street to another continuously. However, it's the new elements that make it interesting. In terms of vibe and style, Cursed draws more from directors like Lynch, Shinya Tsukamoto and Miike Takashi than the key players in the J-Horror genre. If you're expecting a stop gap till they crank out the third Grudge, stop here. This ain't Ringu, it ain't Ju-on. It's a new beast entirely.

It goes like this. There's a convenience store where protagonist Nao works, and it's got a curse on it. When your items come up to any variant of 666 or 999, something follows you home from the store and messes up your life in one way or another. Mostly the victims get killed, but one or two have something different happen to them, and they're never followed by the same spirit, so each haunting/killing is different and unique. This is the second thing other than the direction that sets it apart from the rest of the J-Horror crowd. In the Ring films and others of their ilk, the horror is in wondering at what point the ghost will appear, whereas in Cursed, while you know something is gonna turn nasty at any moment, anything could happen, so you're more on edge.

Still, despite it being fresh and new in style, there are a few niggling factors that got on my nerves. The hypnotic, trippy visuals make the hauntings and deaths more hallucinatory than scary, so in honesty Cursed is not a hugely frightening movie. It's far less overblown or cliché than something like Shutter or One Missed Call, but in it's experimentalist nature it loses a lot of the ghost-house fun of a straight horror movie. I got annoyed at times with the random bouts of cartoon violence as well, there's a few scenes that aren't as horrific as they could be with a little more restraint, and when there is blood (and to be honest this movie earns it's 18 certificate quite admirably with one scene alone) there's too much and it collapses into Brian Yuzna style comic book violence.

Minor issues with an otherwise brave and very creepy entry into the J-Horror library. It isn't a thrill ride, but Cursed is a spooky, psychedelic and above all believably dark tale that's well worth anyone's time.

Dynamite Fighters (1987)

Enjoyable, silly, but kinda anti-climactic...

[7/10 · 7 October 2006]

Magnificent Warriors is an enjoyable and entertaining movie with a lot to recommend it, especially the excellent, athletic prescence of the fantastic Michelle Yeoh. Still, it drags and feels a little limp in places. For instance, the two opening fights during the plot setup are explosive, impactful and a lot of fun, but after that nothing really happens action-wise until 20 minutes later.

The film stop-starts all the way through, making it a bit frustrating for an experienced viewer. It's no more stop-starty or inconsistent than US or European action fare like Transporter or Red Siren, but it seems patchy and messy in comparison to other Hong-Kong adrenaline-rides like Full Contact or Yeoh's later Wing Chun. Both movies keep a consistent level of action without sacrificing their story lines.

They also have strong, non-wacky story lines. Magnificent Warriors is a horrific mess in the plot department. Take Indiana Jones, substitute the Japanese for the Nazis and substitute Michelle Yeoh for Harrison Ford and you'd think it'd rock. You'd almost be right, but the director and his writers decided to try and make some political points with it and turn it into a patriotic pro-China movie...as such it gets kind of messy and biased.

Still, it's a Michelle Yeoh film. If you're a fan, which I most certainly am, you won't be disappointed with this. Yeah, OK MW blows its two best fights in the first 20 minutes, but there's a lot of good solid action going on here, and though Yeoh isn't as central as I would have liked to preceedings (given she's the only one here who can act her way out of a paper bag) she has some fantastic set pieces and humorous lines to fight/charm her way through.

If you like Michelle Yeoh, watch this, it's a good film and above all it's fun and she showcases both her fighting talent and her charm in equal measure. If you're indifferent to her and just want an OTT blast, there are much better HK actioners out there, you'd probably fare better with say Eastern Condors or Full Contact, both of which are off their rocker and full of chop-socky and gun-play.

Ultraviolet (2006)

Eeesh...like watching lots of bad blockbusters go round in a blender.

[3/10 · 29 August 2006]

If there's a 'should've been better' box in the movie archives, Ultraviolet is in it. In theory, all Kurt Wimmer had to do with this movie was make Equilibrium with Milla Jovovich in it instead of Christian Bale, as in effect the two movies are pretty similar. However, while Equilibrium was an unexpected joy, at least a 7 or an 8, Ultraviolet takes all the 'cool' visual elements of Wimmer's previous movie and jettisons the little subtleties and nuances in favour of a flavour-of-the-week Matrix CG 'my effect is bigger than yours' showcase.

If there was one thing that made Matrix lose points with me, it was that the characters, once self-aware, could do what they wanted when inside the Matrix itself. In the Matrix, that's a plot element and although I didn't like the fact that the characters were more or less invincible I could accept it as part of the storyline. Well, Milla Jovovich's Violet seems to be invincible for no reason ever explained. The only time she gets hurt is a couple of little scratches during a sword-fight. It's the same rock that the Resident Evil movies get scuttled on (and with the same actress!), you need to feel that the main character is vulnerable in some sense in order to root for them, you need a feeling that they're in danger, otherwise any action sequence is downgraded into a nice little dance/pyrotechnics display. Hell, they shoot her point blank in the back of the head in this and she even survives that without a scratch.

So, on an action level, this is nothing more than eye-candy. Same with Equilibrium so far, I mean, Bale was physically unstoppable, but struggling against the powers that be in an epic fashion plot-wise. Violet, well, the only thing she's struggling with is a sudden pang of maternal instinct, and she doesn't let that get in the way of all the punching and sword-swinging. Frankly, this movie is pretty much exactly the same story as the B-Movie Chameleon, but other than a lack of visual artillery, that out-guns Ultraviolet all over the shop. It even has a better-looking star.

Basically, visually this movie is fairly sumptuous, but at the expense of any real substance. If you like things that explode prettily and dystopian future settings, stick with the Matrix series. If you tune in expecting an entertaining Kung-Fu sci-fi B feature, you'd be much better off with the aforementioned Equilibrium or one of the Chameleon series. I never thought there'd come the day where something made Chameleon look like an under-rated classic, but the storyline is the same, and it does it much better with far more realistic (and violent) fight sequences. And, if you're watching for ze ladiez, Bobby Philips is way hotter than Milla Jovovich any day of the week.

Spiral (1998)

The Ring concept taken in a deeper, more scientific direction.

[9/10 · 31 July 2006]

Having eventually got round to watching the Ring's 'awkward, contradictory pseudo-sequel' I can honestly say that Spiral is more enjoyable than any of the other Ring sequels or remakes, thanks in part to the fact that it's completely different to the original film. It's a surrealist chiller in the David Lynch mould, with a little bit of a sci-fi edge. Also, much of the film is aimed squarely at a much older, more clued-in audience.

Joji Iida's clever mature direction takes the whole Ring mythology away from the urban ghost story vibe of Ring and into a deeper horror, the true intent of Sadako and her world plan. In a similar fashion to Kairo, Spiral begins as a ghost story and develops into apocalyptic Sci-fi. Personally I found Spiral much more impactful than Ring, purely because you realise how clever and truly unstoppable Sadako is becoming. It's also interesting that a large portion of this movie was cannibalised for Nakata's own US Ring Two.

Simply put, Spiral is a clever, smartly made and humane chiller that deals with deeper emotions and maturer themes than your average Joe horror flick. It isn't without it's shortcomings though. The version I watched had an awful transfer, making certain parts of the movie look like I was watching some kind of VCD knock-off, and I'm told this is the only print with English subtitles available. So, be prepared to put some work in to get your enjoyment out of it. Eyestrain could be a near certainty.

The other key issue is that if you're a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the first series of movies, then this is, as they say, totally contradictory. Sadako is in her early twenties when she dies for instance, and is fully capable of communication. In a way, this makes her all the more frightening, as she is arrogant, manipulative and obviously in complete control of proceedings. Then there's the complete canyon of difference between the tapes and their effects. Still, it's understandable given that Spiral and Ring were actually made back to back with the only common factors being certain cast members and the books used for source material. Also, the erotic edge given to Sadako will probably make more prudish viewers very uncomfortable.

Still, Iida has succeeded where many fail, in making a horror movie with a very strong plot and mature themes. Personally I loved Spiral, and was glad to find a movie that didn't treat me like a child because the main audience they envisaged for it wasn't out of high-school yet. Spiral is a creepy, atmospheric underground treat. Check it out.

Hiruko the Goblin (1991)

Daft horror yarn that loses its way thanks to a lazy script and arty direction

[5/10 · 22 July 2006]

If you were going to pick a director to helm a zany comedy horror, Shinya Tsukamoto would not be high up your list. Though a master artist and a consummate professional, Tsukamoto's mainstay is obscure art-film like Tetsuo and Bullet Ballet. Yes Tetsuo is effectively a horror and is as balls-to-the-wall frenetic as you're ever likely to see, but it's not a straight horror and it certainly isn't funny past the madcap energy it's possessed with.

This is why Hiruko just plain doesn't work. It's apparently Tsukamoto's only foray into studio movies, and I can see why they never brought him back. For practically the entire movie, Hiruko threatens to A: Make the characters believable and B: Let loose with the creatures and the silliness, but Tsukamoto gets distracted every time by the possibility of a well-shot flashback or artistically edited kill sequence. Newsflash, if you're going to decapitate somebody in a horror movie, do it properly. No one will be shocked, so get on with it and don't hack it into 75 different shots to try and justify the violence.

Hiruko manages to at times pick up the psychotic pacing and energy of the Evil Dead series, and Tsukamoto is obviously influenced by Raimi's style, but hasn't picked up on the silliness of the Evil Dead films. The gleeful overkill and total disrespect for realism they showed is in part present in Hiruko. However, sequences like when the goblin traps itself under a saucepan and wanders about aimlessly, or another bit where a character crawls away from the goblin at speed and accidentally traps his arms in a cardbard box are genius, but they're sandwiched between constant dull plot exposition.

And oh lord, the dullness. Instead of concentrating on the cool things about the characters and plot, like Hieda's habit of making anti-goblin equipment out of his kitchen utensils or the fact that the other fella is growing little heads on his body every time the goblin kills someone, Tsukamoto falls into textbook Asian horror cliché A. What is that folks? C'mon, you know it and so do I! That's right! The 'oh god I did something awful and must atone for it by fighting with supernatural forces beyond my comprehension and OH LORDY you appear to be some kind of reincarnation/chosen one and ALONE have the power to stop this' cliché. My god, if I see one more film from Japan where the main character accidentally let someone die and their mate has to save them I will resign and start watching romantic comedies. Seriously, write something else, and preferably don't make yer horrors overly complicated. Basically, splatter horror (which this basically is, arty and overly-complicated as it is) is like R-Type. It sure as hell didn't need much of a storyline in the 80s and it still doesn't now. Leave the clever stuff to psych-horror like Shutter.

Hiruko the Goblin is unfortunately a textbook exercise in how to over-think making a genre flick. If Tsukamoto stopped thinking (unnecessarily) about an incredibly ropey plot and minor details and concentrated on making a kick-ass horror comedy about head-stealing spider-goblins (which this movie could so easily become with a few minor tweaks) it would have rocked, but unfortunately it just stands as an awkward and at times extremely dull art-house stab at a genre movie.

The Forgotten (2004)

Slick Hollywood thriller with a lot of style but not much substance.

[6/10 · 29 June 2006]

If you want to watch an undemanding, entertaining, high gloss horror thriller, The Forgotten will probably tick all your boxes. It has a plucky heroine fighting against insurmountable odds, a good sense of melodramatics and tension, and above all is impeccably made and won't have you still trying to work out bits of it on your way out of the theatre.

Still, if you're expecting much more out of it, you'll have trouble. What appears to be a highbrow and intelligent movie is actually a pretty basic sci-fi flick hiding behind a facade of being an intelligent psychological thriller. Personally I found slowly watching this facade unravel a bit painful, my heart slowly sinking as I realised how cheesy the eventual conclusion was gonna be. The Forgotten is effectively little more than an attempt to hop on the recent psychological horror bandwagon, as typified by The Ring and The Grudge, and their Asian counterparts, and as such it's derivative and drops plot holes like so much spare confetti.

Still, if you can determinedly suspend your disbelief, it's got it's moments. It has one of the most effective car crashes I've ever seen, which reputedly scared the hell out of a lot of the movie's audiences, it's well made and good-looking throughout, and despite the story's obvious shortcomings in the intelligence department, the characters and scenarios are still pretty well written and directed.

Personally, I'm lukewarm about The Forgotten. On the one hand I like the style and direction of the film, and enjoyed a lot of the action segments, but on the other hand, it doesn't grip in the way it ought to, Julianne Moore is a little too melodramatic and preachy for my liking, and it genuinely feels like a hanger on of the Asian horror boom. To be honest, it demonstrates quite well why there are a dozen horror/thriller movies a day but only a handful ever get very far. Anyone can write one of these films, but it's much harder to make them believable or resonate with a large audience.

So, like I say, if you want to see a slick Hollywood thriller with a bit of brainwork involved, but aren't going to be wanting for anything more, The Forgotten should float your boat. If you want to see something a little out there, something quite inventive, something scary or just something that isn't quite so...safe, check out something else. The Forgotten is a good Hollywood thriller, but as a psychological horror it's a dull imitation. If you definitely want a psychological horror movie, check out something like Phone or Shutter. They're clever and very scary.

Dead Meat (2004)

Some good ideas, nice gore, but it's badly made and ends abruptly.

[4/10 · 29 June 2006]

It seems weird that I find myself complaining this movie is too short, given how many movies are at least an hour too long these days, but Dead Meat really needed more space. It's tiny 70 minute run time barely gives it time to introduce characters, let alone explain it's whacked-out plot-line.

While Dead Meat is getting itself cracking, it's pretty cool. For one, it's daylight, which is a little different for these movies, and the sprightly camera work recalls movies like Braindead and the Evil Dead series (if a little less proficient than those two.). Still, it already has problems. The plot suggests that it's trying to be funny, but aside from a few bad taste laughs at gore shots, you won't be finding this movie remotely funny. It's got more in common with Night of the Living Dead than Bad Taste, and almost all the laughs come at the expense of the gore-shots, which are messy but very derivative (aside from one fantastic instance involving a vacuum cleaner and an eyeball.) and no gore-hound will be particularly impressed with what's on offer, originality wise.

It sucks at being scary too. Zombie attacks are badly handled, with no real scares to speak of and shoddy lighting and direction leading to a lot of confusion as to who's fighting who. Not that you'll care, with the exception of undertaker Des, the characters are weak and badly written, not that you'd notice given most of them are packing effected accents that garble half their lines. I'm not talking about the Irish guys either. Main character Helena is indecipherable for a lot of the run-time.

I wish this film had carried through on it's excellent first half, but once a plot has to come out, it just doesn't have the goods. The only real joy you can pull out of this movie is if you view it as a cheap gore flick and go in for the blood, as it has a lot, and it's surprisingly nasty for a 15. If you REALLY dig gore and don't care how bad movies are if they have good gore shots, check this out, if not, I'd avoid it. Oh, and on a side note, the ending sucks. Do yourself a favour, avoid this and rent Versus or Undead instead.