Gwen: The Horrors Of Rural Wales

2/5

Reviewed by Luke Barnes

Summary

A family in period Wales must try and keep it together in the face of hostile forces, both from within and outside

In many ways, this film wants to be the vvitch, which is evidenced by a lot of thematic borrowing, but it can’t even come close.

This film’s big problem is that you are never quite sure whether it is a horror film or a drama, that shouldn’t be a question that I am still asking even after watching. The horrors of this film come from its incredibly slow pace, which is almost torturous at times, rather than anything else.

That is not to say there aren’t any good scares here, there are one or two interesting scenes that mesh old and new folk horror elements together to create something that feels refreshing, however, the issue with this is that though those scenes are good they are far too few and far between.

Moreover, the ending doesn’t make any sense at all and leaves you going ‘wait what’ which is always a red flag.

Overall, an incredibly slow film that has a few brief moments of promise.

Pros.

A few good scares

Cox

Cons.

The pace

The ending

Is it a horror or a drama

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Bride Of Chucky: Chucky Settles Down

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Chucky, played by Brad Dourif, rekindles a romance with his ex-Tiffany, played by Jennifer Tilly.

This and Seed are some what love them or hate them, you either appreciate them for the darkly camp masterpieces they are, or you think they are too silly and lose the plot. I fall into the former and think that Bride Of Chucky may be one of the best comedy horror films of all time and is easily the best of the franchise.

I think a big part of the reason for this is that the domestic comedy pairs so well with the over the top kills and violence of the franchise in a surprising way. Chucky and Tiffany make for an instantly iconic on-screen couple.

Jennifer Tilly is easily a scene stealer here and makes this film entirely her own giving Dourif a fight for the limelight. Tiffany is a welcome addition to the franchise and could easily headline a film of her own without Chucky, I’d watch it.

Overall, a strong horror comedy that brings the laughs as well as everything you would want from the franchise.

Pros.

Tilly

Tiffany as a character and her chemistry with Chucky

The jokes

The kills and gore

Cons.

It could have done with more set up in the first act

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Fresh: There Is Something Worse Than Finding Out Your Partner Is Already Married

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young woman, played by Daisy Edgar Jones, finally thinks she has met a nice normal guy, played by Sebastian Stan, who she can fall in love with, this all changes when he starts selling her meat to cannibals online.

This film is both unsettling and wonderfully twisted in equal measure. There are scenes that make your skin crawl and that make you feel physically sick, and then there are scene so far out there, like Stan’s character dancing around his kitchen chopping up parts of people to send out, that they become darkly comedic. You might think these two aspects would clash with one another but they actually work really well together.

Stan really revels in the gory spectacle here and plays manic very well, he is both charming and menacing at the same time. Jones is likewise as good and becomes a strong character that you can’t help but root for, I was getting some scream queen/ final girl vibes from her and I think this could be the start of something special if Jones returns to the horror genre again.

The commentary on relationships, dating and what life is like for young women seem to be accurate, I can only speak to parts of that obviously, but as I was watching the film my girlfriend voiced her agreement with a number of the points raised so I am going to assume the commentary is fairly spot on.

The only thing that for me stopped this film from getting higher marks was that some of the elements felt repetitive, which lessened my interest in those sections.

Overall, a fun and well done horror film.

Pros.

Jones

Stan

The commentary

The originality

Cons.

A bit repetitive in places.

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Evil Dead 2: Beware The Evil Hand At Work

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Ash, played by Bruce Campbell, once again runs afoul of the Book of the Dead.

For the most part I thought this was more of the same, in a good way. However, I didn’t like that this film went even further with the jarring and out of place claymation. It felt to me like Raimi was going a little wild on his first proper big budget, as a lot of the time these claymation elements added little to the film overall.

Furthermore, I also thought the narrative of the film suffered some issues as it makes no sense that Ash would bring a date back to the Cabin wherein he had lost all of his friends, or that he would hit play once again on the tape which releases the demonic spirits. I had to look up what was going on as I was honestly baffled by it and still don’t really understand why it went that way.

That said however, I thought the film was still a lot of fun. It managed to balance its horror and its humour well and deliver on each in equal measure, I would say the first film was slightly more funny but that is just my specific taste.

Additionally, Campbell is still a lot of fun to watch on-screen. If anything he takes the wackiness up a notch in his performance and executes a wonderful sense of mania.

Overall, in many ways more of the good stuff, but a few issues are becoming apparent.

Pros.

The wackiness

Campbell

The gore

The humour and the scares

Cons.

Too much claymation

Plot issues

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Killing Old Women Through The Power Of Social Justice

1.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Hollywood just can’t seem to let a franchise die and as such we get this.

Before watching I had heard bad things about this film, but it managed to exceed my negative expectations.

Firstly, the characters are all annoying as hell, they are clearly a caricature of the young social justice crowd judging everyone and act as though everyone who is not as comfortably suburban and middle class as them is a racist bumpkin. Honestly, if I were a southern American person I would find this film offensive.

Adding to this the film decides it is going to rip off the plot of the rebooted Halloween from a few years back and brings back the series original final girl, played by Olwen Fouere, for a fight with big bad Leatherface, played by Mark Burnham. There is no point in doing this as not only is it blatant plagiarism, but also the actor who played the final girl in every other one of her appearances is dead, so without looking it up you don’t know who Fouere is supposed to be.

The only good aspect of this film is that they don’t hold back on the gore and Leatherface is able to run wild, as such we get quite a few nice gnarly images with good effects work.

Overall, the forced social commentary nearly kills the film straight off, but then when it decides to rip off its better you know The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is officially dead.

Pros.

The gore

A few unintentional laughs

Cons.

The social commentary

The deeply unlikeable characters

Ripping off Halloween

The ending

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The Evil Dead: Is It Still Groovy?

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of young people go up to a cabin in the woods and boom a cult classic is born.

This is my first time watching The Evil Dead in a long time and I have to say it really holds up.

Part of what works so well about this film is that it nails the balance between comedy and horror splendidly, there are both laughs and scares to be had but neither comes at the expense of the other. Also there was an uncanniness to the dark humour a lot of the time that really served to mine the middle ground between the two aspects of the film.

The whole cast were good; however Bruce Campbell stole the show entirely. Obviously Campbell’s Ash is the main character for the franchise so it might be hard for him to steal scenes that are already given to him, but what I mean is that his performance is so instantly iconic that it is hard not to leave the film talking about him. His facial acting is off the charts and he manages to court both the everyman and the superhero like appeal.

My only criticism of the film would be that some of the claymation stuff towards the end of the film comes off as a little jarring. Yes, I know this film was made on a budget and is several decades old, but still when I saw the tongue of the Book of The Dead at the end it almost felt silly: luckily these sort of effects were only used sparingly.

Overall, a cult classic that still holds up.

Pros.

Campbell

The scares

The laughs

Nailing the tone

The makeup effects

Cons.

The stop-motion effects didn’t work for me

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Ghosts Of The Ozarks: The 90s Want Their CGI Back

1/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

In post-civil war Arkansas supernatural frights seem to be around every turn.

I understand that not every film is given a multimillion dollar budget, but this film looks like it was made from the change found down the back of someone’s sofa. I won’t harp on about this, but I do think even with a small budget this film could have done a lot more with its effects and scares if it possessed some more imagination, sadly money doesn’t seem to be the only thing in short supply.

I have no idea why David Arquette and Tim Blake Nelson are in this film, maybe it is a Movie 43 type deal and they are being coerced. Neither is given very much to do and both have to suffer through a terrible script. Which for the most part is a hodgepodge of different genre cliches and stereotypes with nothing ever coming close to originality.

There was a brief moment after I realised that this film was bad wherein I was optimistic that maybe it would be so bad it is good, however that optimism was soon stripped from me and I was just left with a mediocre bad film.

Overall, this film should probably have come out in January, it would have fit right in.

Pros.

A few interesting ideas

Cons.

Said cool idea remain undeveloped

It isn’t scary

It looks awful

It wastes its cast

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Piranha 3DD: How Many Sex Jokes Does It Take To Be Funny? This Film Never Found Out

1/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A film about objectifying women and then watching evil fish rip them apart.

Just from looking at a poster you know that this film knows who it is playing to…. Horny people going to get their titillation at the cinema, as well as those of us whose guilty pleasure is schlocky B movie esque horror. Both of whom will be slightly let down by this film.

In many ways this film tries to be tongue in cheek with its vulgar voyeuristic side, but struggles often to make its creepy camera angles feel in any way like self-satire or parody. In this vein the film is awash with poor female representation, despite having a female lead in Danielle Panabaker, it’s female characters are mostly given stereotypical roles and are ranked in importance under how they look more so than anything else.

Panabaker’s involvement with this is disappointing as she has proven from her other roles that she is a really talented actor, so here it feels as though she is slumming it. Yes, maybe she just wanted the cash, but it still saddens me to see her brought low like this.

Overall, self-referencing your own perviness does not somehow make it less bad.

Pros.

Some B movie esque charm to be found if you look deep enough.

Cons.

The poor female representation

It does nothing to distinguish itself from its predecessor

Panabaker deserves better

It has pacing issues

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Bite Me: The Love Between A Vampire And Her Auditor

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A vampire, played by Naomi McDougall Jones, and her IRS auditor, played by Christian Coulson, fall in love.

Surprisingly, I thought this was both a good vampire film as well as a touching romantic comedy. Often horror romance films are difficult to land, Life After Beth, did a good job of it, but many others have tried and failed, this however, gets it right.

I really enjoyed the absurdity of the premise, a vampire who gets audited and then falls in love. The very idea makes me laugh. Moreover, I enjoyed the rom-com elements and thought that the two leads had great chemistry together and became more and more of a believable couple as the film progressed.

As far as it being a vampire film, it certainly fell more into the comedy horror sub-genre than anything more hardcore. There certainly is What We Do In The Shadows vibes here, and these are used to great effect for a number of good jokes and set ups.

Overall, a lovely, refreshingly original film.

Pros.

It is funny

It is sweet

I enjoy what they do with the vampire element

The leads have good chemistry

Cons.

Minor pacing issues

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Warhunt: Beware Strange Women In The Woods

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of American soldiers are sent deep into the Black Forest during WWII in order to receive a mysterious package, after they arrive they start to realise that there is something supernatural a foot,

This was dumb schlocky fun in the vein of Wolf Soldiers. For the most part the film is benefited by not taking itself too seriously, however when it does shoot for tension or even scares these also land with surprising effectiveness.

I thought the evil witches were interesting villains, the monster design was good and gave them a distinctive other worldly feeling. Moreover, I bought them as a credible threat to these experienced soldiers, which was nice as it turned the tables on standard tropes.

Furthermore, I thought the film addressed the relationship between men and women, in this case witches, during war time well. In many films we see soldiers taking advantage of women in war zones and often the women are powerless against them, here however that is flipped the witches go on the offensive and flip the paradigm as it is now the males soldiers powerless to really stop them. Maybe I red into it too much.

Overall, a fun horror war movie that fans of the genre will enjoy.

Pros.

It is fun

It nails the scares

The witches are threatening and well designed

The ending

Cons.

Pacing issues

Mickey Rourke doesn’t get much screen time

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