The Last Sacrifice: Rural England Is Really Pretty Wild

A documentary about a murder in rural England and its connections to the folk horror boom of the Seventies.

I had been interested in this documentary for some time, so to my delight when I looked and saw it had come out on digital I immediately gave it a watch.

I have to say I was disappointed with it, there are some interesting insights presented, and the final story about how the Teletubbies was connected to it is funny, but the documentary just doesn’t go deep enough for me.

In that I mean that a lot of the observations and comments made, strike you in the ‘yes obviously’ sort of range, these are all things that many people who know a lick about horror films and history already know. Whilst I can understand that this is made for a mass audience not someone who watches probably close to one hundred horror films a year, if you include rewatches, and who reads books on the genre space, I did find that it felt pedestrian.

Moreover, the film clearly cut a lot out, but what it leaves in raises ground for pause, as there are throw away segments and lines of inquiry that seem to go nowhere, and it makes you think the film should have been edited down even more to remove these loose ends, but as it stands it wasn’t.

Overall, if you are looking for something more casual or don’t know much about horror you will likely enjoy it, if you want a more thorough look I would recommend the folk horror documentary on Shudder.

3/5

Pros.

It has some interesting points

It feels like a love letter to folk horror

It sets up other better documentaries

Cons.

It does not go far enough

It has multiple dead ends

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Good Boy: Animal Abuse

Summary

A dog watches the haunting of its master.

This film is truly horrible, in many ways. The dog is mistreated by the owner and is in peril from the supernatural entity as well, whilst you could argue that the owner only does this as he knows he is getting sicker and sicker and is lashing out at the things around him, it is hard to watch.

Moreover, whilst the idea of having the film be from the dog’s viewpoint may seem novel, it quickly becomes a bunch of haunted house/possession sub-genre tropes that we have seen before, the fact it is from a different point of view does not change that.

The shorter than average run time helps somewhat to make this film more palatable as you don’t have to hear and see the dog’s distress for too long, but even then it is hard to get through.

Overall, as someone who likes animals I found this film to be incredibly hard to get through and if I wasn’t reviewing it would likely have left.

1.5/5

Pros.

It tries to do something new with the shifted perspective

The dog is wonderful

Cons.

It is upsetting

The owner treats the dog horribly

The ending is depressing

It repeats sub-genre tropes

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The Witches/Devil’s Own: Terror In The Home Counties

Summary

Witches in an English village , why I never thought I would see the day.

After a very unnecessary and confusing segment in Africa, Joan Fontaine’s quiet teacher ends up working in an English village and wouldn’t you know there is witchcraft. In many ways this film feels like a forbearer for films like the Wickerman or Virgin Witch that would come later, but unlike them it did not go as far as they would go, in either the shocks department or in exploring the subject matter.

There are some interesting moments wherein you see certain aspects of witchcraft such as the stuff with the dolls, which is like voodoo but different enough, however, the film fails to explore them in much depth. This is particularly true of the African witchcraft elements the start of the film introduces.

My issue with this film is the pacing, whilst there are entertaining parts of the film, the pace was so glacial slow at other times that you started to lose interest and that really hurts the film.

Overall, if you are a fan of folk horror you will get something out of this, otherwise the dryness of it might be a bit off putting.

3/5

Pros.

The weirdness

The proto folk vibes

The performances

Cons.

It doesn’t explore its mythology enough

The opening is really not needed

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To The Devil A Daughter: Nightmare Orgasms

Summary

Christopher Lee leads a satanic cult, intent on bringing a demon into the world.

At this stage I am cleaning up, these next few days will be the last of my Halloween watches before we get back into more regularly scheduled programming. As you know I am a big Lee fan, as such I couldn’t let Halloween pass without watching a Lee film. Here we are on that front.

I have to say this is not one of the strongest Hammer entries, I feel that The Devil Rides Out is much stronger, and gives Lee more to do. He is the antagonist here, and other than a few mind powers scenes that mimic his Rasputin film, he is not given much of substance to do, other than look evil.

The plot around this young lady from Germany and her parents involvement in a satanic cult, is not so much a head scratcher, as a film that leaves you entirely baffled it is so convoluted that you don’t know which way is up by the end of it, and have no idea what has remotely happened.

There is one scene that I would be remiss not to mention which is Hammer in all of their late seventies weirdness, and in this scene the central young lady is supposed to be having a bad dream yet is moaning like she is in the throws of sex, this scene lasts a long time. Take that as you will.

Overall, a good idea ruined by trying to do too much.

2/5

Pros.

There is some great unintentional comedy

Lee is a good villain even if he is given nothing to do

Cons.

It is convoluted

It has needless nudity and sexual elements that do seem to serve a purpose

The characters are not well developed

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Shelby Oaks: Chris Struckman Doesn’t Like Women It Appears

Summary

Youtube film critic Chris Struckman decides to become the filmmaker.

I have to report straight up that this film is problematic, the whole plot revolves around a woman’s quest to find her missing sister. When she does find said sister she finds out that she has been raped and has a demon baby now. Yet when our lead finds this out she immediately falls in love with the baby and wants to take her home, as I guess Chris thinks all women are just baby crazy. At the end of the film the captured sister tries to kill her baby as she knows it is demonic and evil, yet the lead stops her to the point of pushing her sister who she had been looking for all film out the window to protect the demon rape baby. As women aren’t lifting up other women they are just breeders and mothers who will do anything for their/or in this case their sister’s baby. The one thing I will say for this film positively is that it revealed to us all what a hypocrite Struckman is. He has attacked the right wing labelling them as bigots and evil for a long, long time, and now it appears it was all an effort in projection.

Outside of the deeply sexist undertone, the film is basically The Blair Witch, Hell House LLC and Paranormal Activity stitched together. It is clear that rather than being a creative project Struckman and co simply stitched together a lot of scenes they like from horror and called it a film. This is not a creative film this is plagiarism, this is not from the mind of someone who has an idea they want to make into a film, it is from the mind of someone who has seen a lot of films and wants to rip them off. The worst thing of all is that it doesn’t even manage to get right the things those films mentioned above do, it is the knock off version of a better project.

As other reviewers have said the film really falls apart when you get to the third act, as the writing, plot direction, integrity, all of it just seems to collapse in on itself.

Overall, a youtuber thinking they are a creative gets brought back down to Earth.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is unintentionally funny

Cons.

It is sexist

It is a rip off

You have seen it all before

The third act is a mess

The characters are one dimensional

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Rasputin The Mad Monk: The Holy Power Of Mind Control

Summary

Did you know that Rasputin had a British accent.

I thought this film was a lot of fun, it was silly and had a number of good funny moments, they weren’t intentional sure but that doesn’t stop it from being funny.

I thought Christopher Lee did a good job in the role and managed to make Rasputin and his magical powers seem threatening. I would have liked if they had gone full John Carpenter and in the final shot when they look out of the window to see if they killed Rasputin for him to have just been gone.

There was an awful lot of focus placed on Rasputin’s way with women and whilst I suppose that makes some sense there has to be a question about who they are doing that for, it feels once again as though the audience is trying to give its teenage fans a giddy thrill.

Overall, if you enjoy the pomp and the absurdity of Hammer in its heyday then you will like this, not necessarily super scary but still a lot of fun.

3/5

Pros.

Christopher Lee

It is a lot of fun

It is over the top

Cons.

A bit too focused on pleasing the teens

It missed the chance to set up a sequel

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The Black Phone Two: Possibly Too Far

Summary

As some of you may know I recently move to Belgium for a work opportunity, and during my first few weeks here other than attending a film festival for smaller profile releases, I’ve not had a huge amount of time to check out new releases. This the first film I’ve watched since the move, and I must say maybe it was a bad choice.

Edit for further reference I am seeing this first but my review of Strangers Chapter Two which I will be seeing in a few days, my second film here, will be released earlier this is just down to my release order and wanting to tie up that loose end which came out for a lot of people much earlier than it did here.

This film is dark, the grainy sort of film quality they project onto some scenes makes them feel like snuff films, the fact that you are seeing little kids getting hacked into pieces only adds to this. It really doesn’t shy away from showing horrific child abuse and slaughter.

I liked that the film developed a lot of the ideas from the first film and really pushed into more of a supernatural direction. There was of course supernatural elements to the first film, but they were mostly in the background, this went full on Nightmare On Elm Street. Therein lies the problem, part of this film wants to be incredibly serious, Ethan Hawke’s character goes on long monologues about what hell is like, but then comes out ice skating and twirling, clearly going for the comedy. This film really needed to decide on one tone before filming began.

Overall, I enjoyed that this film built out elements from the first, but I think that the tone is distracting and that child mutilation may be a bit much for some.

2.5/5

Pros.

It expands the supernatural storyline

The acting is okay

The location is interesting

Cons.

It is depressing

The tone is all over the place

The acting is just okay

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Final Destination 5: Death VS Corporate America

Summary

Death decides to attack corporate America.

I enjoyed that this film tried to tie itself into the previous films, even if the idea it is a prequel makes little to no sense. I also thought it was sweet to see some of the highlights from across the franchise in the films end credits.

I would say that the plot was a little thin on the ground here, much like with the fourth film, however, at least they brought back Tony Todd as William Bloodsworth for a meaty role.

The deaths were good particularly the massage parlour crushing, however, I can see why they retired the franchise for a while after this, the deaths have lost some of their creepiness and creativity, and it does just seem like they were going for gross out shock value.

My main issue with the film was that there was too much talking and melodrama, the film seemed to be more focused on this than Death getting its vengeance at times.

I would argue that this is better than the fourth and sixth films in the franchise but worse than the original trilogy.

Overall, a mixed bag of a film.

3/5

Pros.

The ending

The love for past films

The massage parlour death

Cons.

Too much melodrama

A thin plot

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The Strangers Chapter Two: Destroying The Myth Of The Franchise

Summary

The Strangers are back.

Did you want to know that the Strangers met at a Christian school? No, well maybe this film is not for you. So this film is incredibly intent on trying to tease out and explain the origins of the Strangers, the people behind the mask, and when it gives you that information it is the most generic thing you could imagine.

There was absolutely no need to make this a trilogy, really the Strangers as a brand should have been left alone after Prey At Night, we didn’t need this. If anything this effort is just ruining the brand by overly explaining everything.

Then there is the pacing as you can imagine, remember, trilogy, this film is slow to the point of being off putting. It is basically just one long chase sequence of the Strangers going after the one who got away, the film starts and ends like that, there is no final showdown in the film it is clearly an in-between effort.

Really the only cool thing here is when the Strangers set a blood hound boar onto the lead in an effort to track her down and presumably kill her. That was unexpected and fun, but that was it.

Overall, this was a bad idea.

0.5/5

Pros.

The boar scene

Cons.

The plot

The reveal of who the Strangers are

The pacing

The scares

The filler new characters

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The Thing: Action And Horror Don’t Mix Well

Summary

The Thing is deeply overrated, I just want to say that now and get it out of the way.

Let’s move past the anger.

Whilst the film may have been impressive at the time, and whilst I can appreciate the lonely and haunting beauty of the polar landscape it takes place in, nothing can remove the fact it is terribly paced. The film takes a long time to get going and when it does it spends a lot of time meandering, hanging out in rooms talking rather than actually having the characters spend all that much time with the creature.

The creature effects are okay, I always prefer practical effects over CGI, so I will give it its credit for that. However, it is not the scariest thing in the world, it is grotesque but not anything more than that.

Personally, I think that The Fog is a much better John Carpenter horror film.

Overall, it is brutally long, and boring.

1.5/5

Pros.

The setting

The score

Cons.

It is far too long

It isn’t scary

The action and the horror are not blended well together

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