Curse of the Crimson Alter

An antiques dealer, Mark Eden, goes off in search of his missing brother only to become wrapped up in a Lovecraftian horror.

This is perhaps an underrated Christopher Lee caper, and you can see why. Whilst it has some charm with its Lovecraftian horror it feels perhaps the most dated of Lee’s output that I have recently seen. By that I mean the first scene of the film with the creature looks awful, the costume and the lighting both contribute to this. I know that these films were made on a shoe string budget but even still it looks bad.

The plot is also a little thin on the ground as it has the effect of feeling like it is simply a lot of things happening without much rhyme or reason to connect them or make them make sense. Again I gave it some leniency due to the type of film it is, but come the end credits I would be hard pressed not to mention the fact it doesn’t make any coherent sense.

Overall, the sort of budget period horror film that only the most die hard fan could enjoy

2/5

Pros.

Some fun moments

It tries to be different and edgy

Cons.

The horror doesn’t work

It doesn’t make a lot of sense

It is silly when it should be creepy

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Salem’s Lot: No One Can Do King’s Books Justice

Summary

Another King book is given the straight to streaming treatment.

This film is fine that’s about all I can say about it. It is one of those sort of films that doesn’t stick with you after and that you only half remember watching.

It was an odd choice to give a lot of the characters from the book smaller roles in order to give a story to a new character, clearly they didn’t care much about it being a faithful adaption. I don’t really know why we need the story of a little boy, Jordan Preston Carter, who decides he is going to go and wipe out all the vampires on his own. Perhaps they thought it would get kids to watch.

There are some good scares early on but then it just becomes silly, the vampires are wiping out adults left and right yet this little boy manages to just easily destroy many of them single handedly. This takes away from any sense of fear you might have as you just go ‘oh they were clearly really easy to beat then’. It also makes the adult characters look weak and stupid.

Overall, a serviceable if weak adaption.

2.5/5

Pros.

It is watchable

It has some good moments

It pays some faith to the book

Cons.

It makes bad changes to the book as well

It focuses too much on a random kid

It makes the vampires seem weak

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MR Sandman: Freddy Has Competetion

Summary

A young girl, Hailey Kate Schmidt, must survive a nocturnal nightmare.

A hell of a lot has been done already when it comes to kids having scary experiences at night, be they real or imagined, in film. However, this film managed to surprise me, I found myself somewhat taken a back at times at the direction with which this film went as I wasn’t expecting to go there. It is not subversive in a way that ruins the experience and makes you feel cheated but rather in a way that reinvents the form. I hope that more kid has bad dreams/ bad experiences at night horror films learn from this film.

I thought the horror in this film was quite smart and well developed, it wasn’t a jump scare sort of film and instead built its horror slowly through a creeping sense of dread and theat. I appreciated the film taking this approach as far too often in modern horror scares are related to oh did you see that person show up behind her with a music spike.

Overall, this film is truly new and novel.

4/5

Pros.

It is scary

The child acting is good

It is well done

It will stick with you

Cons.

It could do with being longer maybe about another 15 to build up more tension

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Ghostwatch: The British Blair Witch

Summary

A BBC crew investigate a haunted house little do they know the entity wants them there.

So Ghostwatch is something of a legend in the UK it was a found footage film that many people thought was real as it was shown on TV to look as real as possible and that caused a lot of social commotion. It was Blair Witch before Blair Witch.

The film takes the form of a televised ghost hunt, we have a traditional old fashioned BBC presenter leading us through a night that will prove whether ghosts exist or not. However, as the night progresses things start to go awry in a very Late Night With The Devil sort of way.

What works so well about this film is just how real it appears it does genuinely feel like it’s an actual televised ghost encounter. If I had been shown this at the time on live television I would had thought this was real too. There is some elements that might look a little dated by today’s effect standards but on the whole it holds up very well.

I liked the film’s atmosphere and its non-reliance on jump scares, however, for anyone familiar with the Enfield Poltergeist there are a number of familiar elements which might make the film seem a bit obvious, though this is made up for with quite a different ending to how that case went.

Overall, a British horror gem.

4/5

Pros.

It is scary

It seems real

It has a good ending

It makes the most with a limited budget

Cons.

Too many nods to Enfield

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Dr Terror’s House Of Horror: Don’t Do Tarot Kids

Summary

Christopher Lee and his friends board a train, wherein they meet a fortune teller, Peter Cushing, little do they know it will change their lives forever.

There is just something about old school British horror that you can’t quite replicate anymore. Maybe it is the setting or the creepy edge that the lives of the upper classes seem to have in these films- meaning perhaps too many films these days are focused on the working class and the plight of poverty rather than excess.

I liked the wrap around story telling device and the fact that each story also worked on its own, both things are important in an anthology. The stories themselves were a mixed bag as often is the case with these short of films, I found a few of them to be good and a few entertaining but flawed. I would suggest that the Voodoo one is the weakest as it doesn’t have much more beyond its central conceit.

I would say that the stories themselves and the effects still hold up, yes you can see strings in a few shots or things look a bit low-fi here and there but on the whole it still works well.

Overall, a good way to spend Halloween.

3/5

Pros

It has a lot of charm

Terrific performances

Some good scares

Cons.

It looks a little dated at times

The stories are a mixed bag

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Aging Like Fine Wine

Summary

The Juice, Michael Keaton, may have aged, but much like wine it has got better not worse.

This film truly felt like a blast from the past, it doesn’t feel like we get films like this anymore, silly and fun with no mention to politics of moralising. It was nice to see the world that we all remember from the 80’s original further expanded, I thought that this film added a lot of much needed clarity and hopefully if we do get a 3^rd film it can do more of this.

The returning cast all gave great turns, and Jenna Ortega did feel like a natural addition to this world and the family, however, I would say her sub-plot was the weakest of the film. On that note some of the more interesting plot lines such as Beetlejuice’s wife, Monica Bellucci, do feel a bit short changed as they don’t go anywhere meaningful.

It is nice to see Tim Burton being Tim Burton again and I would say for fans of the director this is a must see return to form, it feels like everything he was doing in his pre 2012 career again rather than some of his more questionable recent turns.

Overall a fun film that won’t set the world on fire.

3/5

Pros.

It is fun

It explores the world

The returning cast

Cons.

Some weaker plot lines and some unfinished ones

It never hits the heights of the first

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Terrifier 3: Blowing Up Kid’s Christmas

Summary

Art the Clown, David Howard Thorton, is back and this time he is dressed like Santa Claus.

So if you want to write this film off as just another gore fest then I would say to you what did you expect? Did you watch the last two film? Personally, I think that is just people trying to be trendy by being contrarian to a popular new release.

I found this to be an improvement over the second film, but I would say that some of its issues were still there. Namely that the film has pacing problems and has Art get away in the end, this is problematic as it just feels like we are then going to have to wait for yet another sequel which is going to be yet another showdown between Art and his nemesis, Lauren LaVera. I think at this point there battle should already be over and Art should have moved onto a new group of victims ala Freddy or Jason.

I did enjoy how over the top this film took the gore, I thought the mall scene with the bomb was pretty funny, as was freezing Santa Clause, I liked the black mirror it held up to the holiday of Christmas and took every opportunity to make it as nasty as possible.

Overall, if you are a fan of the franchise you will like this one.

3.5/5

The black mirror

The gore

The comedy

Some great kills

Cons.

It is badly paced

Art got away

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Strange Harvest: The Strangest Day Of A Cops Life

Summary

A serial killer carries out an occult murder spree in California.

I thought this was an incredibly engaging horror film, it took the whole true crime craze and mixed it with found footage to do something new and fresh.

The idea of a evil serial killer is already morbidly fascinating but then mix in that they have occult powers and are trying to bring in an ancient evil God to the world and you have the recipe for a great film. For the most part the film delivers on this and is a strong horror film, particularly the final third.

However, my issue with this film is that some of its sub-plots are either knowingly or unknowingly comedic. You don’t want to laugh but they are so unintentionally funny at times that you cannot help but to. I think that this mismatch hurts the film but isn’t major enough to cause serious issues with it widely.

Overall, a fun mixing of genres but not perfect.

3/5

Pros.

A good mixing of sub-genres

It feels fresh

It has a great ending

Cons.

Pacing problems

Issues with tone

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Transformers One: A Film No One Wanted

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Transformers prequel no one needed.

Who wanted to see Optimus Prime, Voiced by Chris Hemsworth, and Megatron, voiced by Brian Tyree Henry, as slacker bros before becoming enemies? A grand total of no one. The idea of seeing them almost as spoofs of themselves entirely unserious on Cybertron does take away from them as character and seems frankly incredibly out of character.

Moreover, the fact that they can transform makes no sense as the earliest reference point had them scanning earth vehicles in order to assume disguises, yet now they just turn into cars for no reason, they don’t even have a reference point as they haven’t been to Earth yet.

The fact that after this much time they can’t figure out how to make a crowd pleasing Transformers film is frankly baffling. Bring the cartoon, the original, to life have giant robots fighting and maybe a human side kick for good measure if you need to, they shouldn’t be lead, and the baddies should be bad, not this weak stuff.

Overall, a massive misstep.

1/5

Pros.

It has a few endearing moments

Cons.

It is unnecessary

It makes little sense

It ruins the lore of the series

It is dumb

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Star Wars Revenge Of The Sith: Who Really Has The High Ground?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The era of the Republic comes to an end.

In many ways this is the best of the prequels, though I would still personally put it behind Phantom Menace but that is just me. By best I mean the most meme worthy, a lot of memes came out of this thing. Joking aside I do think that the effects look better here than in the rest of the trilogy and that that helps to add a sense of immersion that is lost when the CGI effects look bad.

I think that the action here is also a lot better, you open straight too it and get the Dooku, Christopher Lee, fight which is well done. I think the best action sequence is possible the beach landing on the Wookie home world in terms of sheer scale though nothing can beat the Anakin, Hayden Christensen, Obi-Wan, Ewan McGregor, fight at the end.

I would argue that the dialogue is better than in the last film though it still has moments where in veers into bad territory. I think some of the early scenes with Anakin and Padme, Natalie Portman, are especially bad for this.

Overall, it is a good ending for the trilogy but the script could have done with another draft

3.5/5

Pros.

The fights

The effects

The stakes

The pacing

Cons.

The dialogue

A few needless side plots and characters

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