Come True (Canada 2020: Dir Anthony Scott Burns)

Like A Nightmare on Elm Street reimagined by Nicolas Winding Refn or a younger Michael Mann, Burns's second feature is a woozy, protracted sci-drama starring newcomer Julia Sarah Stone as Sarah, a young girl whose difficult relationship with her mother (she can't even sleep in the same house as her) leads her to sign up for a sleep trial at the local university just to get some shuteye.

The sleep study, due to last for two months, requires nothing more from elfin Sarah than to turn up, strap herself into a sensor rigged suit and start counting sheep. Her questions about the project are deflected; she only knows that she's one of six (two girls, four boys); Emily, the other girl, goes missing after the first night.

Sarah has recently been subject to a number of dreams - almost nightmares - in which a strange male figure features, often located inside a mountain or organic looking constructions.

After her first night, Sarah runs into a guy in a bookstore who recommends Philip K. Dick ("totally paranoid", he tells her). The man is Jeremy (Landon Laboiron), one of the study team, who turns out either to have a soft spot for her, or to have mistaken scientific interest for attraction. After her second night Sarah is shown a set of photographs, one of which she recognises - the stranger from her dreams - and which induces a panic attack. Sarah learns that the scientific team have developed a method of being able to record and transmit the study subjects' dreams. More disturbingly all of the volunteers have dreamt about the same man, a menacing figure with glowing eyes, whose motives are unclear but possibly predatory.

Come True is split into three parts: 'The Persona', 'The Shadow' and 'The Self'. The almost Jungian suggestions thrown up by these sub-titles are reflected in the rather earnest but oblique unfolding of the drama. Much is made of the moral dilemma associated with the team's research; the programme director worries about doing the right thing by the test subjects and that the scientists will either be "hailed or crucified" by what they're doing. 

Most of the focus here is on Sarah; 23 year old Stone here plays an 18 year old (but looks younger; the affirmation of her age shortly before she has sex with Jeremy seems as much to do with pacifying the audience as it does the plot) with, for the most part, a kind of disaffected ambivalence; there are clearly dark waters here - and maybe the suggestion of abuse - but nothing is made clear.

Ultimately Come True moves to an uncertain but atmospheric climax as a somnambulistic Sarah escapes the facility, tracked by Jeremy and assistant Anita (Carlee Ryski), faced with that age old problem of when, and if, to awaken a sleepwalker, as the Mann like strings on the soundtrack reach fever pitch. The movie's conclusion is as enigmatic as the rest of the thing; Come True is a difficult movie to like. Its glacial pace and woolly science will either intrigue you or leave you cold; stylish though the movie is, there just wasn't enough to hook me in.

Come True will be released via Lightbulb Distribution on Digital Download from 15 March, and on limited edition Blu-ray from 5 April.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #14: Reviews of COVID 25 - The Virus Has Mutated! (UK 2020), A Little More Flesh (UK 2020), From the Ground (UK 2020), Iso-pocalyptis (UK 2020), The Young Cannibals (UK 2020) and A Very 2020 Christmas Carol (UK 2020)

COVID 25 - The Virus Has Mutated! (UK 2020: Dir Tim Goodfellow) When I had a look on IMDB to confirm some details for this film, I was staggered to see the amount of titles listed, whether or not actually filmed, with 'COVID' in the title. So well done to Tim for actually getting something in the can despite the restrictions placed on filmmakers at the moment. 

Based on current events, the film's premise is that, rather than the second wave of the pandemic being brought under control, it has mutated into COVID-20, transforming the infected into 'violent, rage filled monsters known as cronos.' A team of soldiers from the Anti Virus Squad (AVS) have been despatched to test a new vaccine, but all but one have been killed by the cronos.

The last of the squad (Goodfellow) holes up in an empty house, with the infected lurking outside and possibly inside. He radios in to HQ using a toy model of the Green Goblin (no, me neither) and accounts for the failure of his mission to administer the virus antidote. He finds out that there's been further mutations into COVID-21s, but he has worse news; one of his group tried to use the failed anti virus vaccine on himself and mutated to an extreme strain - COVID 25 - and wiped out nearly everyone else. He now has to survive for 3 to 4 hours in the house to await extraction, a place full of severed limbs and hidden terrors.

The rest of the film details the soldier's fight to stay alive, which would be rather patience testing except for the range of visual and audio tricks that get thrown our way. Saturated colours, black and white footage, some quite terrifying audio sequences, random old school computer generated images, stock news footage, an occasional Hi NRG soundtrack and a garage full of power tools are paraded to dizzying and disjointed effect. 

This is the cinematic equivalent of a a fanzine put together with a John Bull printing set and Copydex, but its guerilla credentials count in its favour. Goodfellow, who's clearly having some fun here ("Goddam cronos - they're almost as bad as SJWs" he says at one point) has created his film as part of a wider media project including spinoff films and, the director tells me, a graphic novel. As someone who grew up embracing punk filmmaking in all its guises, I liked this ragged but entertaining movie a lot, and you can watch both the movie and one of its episodic offshoots here. Good luck!

A Little More Flesh (UK 2020: Dir Sam Ashurst) Writer/director/producer Ashurst is both a media journalist and a regular on the Arrow Video podcasts, a guy who knows his genre movies, so it's unsurprising that he should take on, as the subject matter for his second feature (his first was the excellent Frankenstein's Creature from 2018) a faux audio commentary.

We're in the company of sleazy Stanley Durall (voiced by the director) providing a commentary for his first, banned film 'God's Lonely Woman' dating back to the 1970s (a great opening sequence by Olly Gibbs sets the scene); the print we're watching also combines some behind the scenes footage from the accompanying documentary 'God's Lonely God.' Durall tells us that he wanted to make an "erotic drama that didn't compromise on emotion" and that perhaps he "was a little too successful." He also drops several hints that there's an infamous final scene to the movie, to which he urges viewers not to fast forward.

It's obvious from the get go that Durall is one of that breed of directors highlighted by the #metoo movement. 'God's Lonely Woman' is, on the face of it, a rather tedious arthouse exercise, like a minor Rollin film, although (to the director's chagrin) unleavened by nudity. GLM's lead is Isabella Dotterson (Elf Lyons, who also produced the film) and it is clear that Dotterson was an actress unprepared for any misogynistic nonsense, which immediately sets Durall up against her. The director's frustration that Isabella and her co-star Candice (Hazel Townsend) are unprepared to get it on in the name of art gives rise to Durall's rising enmity toward both actresses.

Candice's later suicide on set is treated as a minor annoyance, as is his prurient attitude to an extended sequence where Isabella remains 'frigid' despite being dosed with LSD for a wigout scene. Swanton's note perfect depiction of the amoral self absorbed director oscillates between cringeworthy and laugh out loud funny, with lines like "lovely legs there, despite the attitude problem" and, of his own talent, "I do like actors who don't take attention away from the director," and "I'm a cineaste, which is a fancy term for people with taste as good as mine."

Of course no good can come of this, and as the film progresses Durall finds himself locked in his editing suite and hearing unexplained noises. The denoument is a gloriously meta moment in which the director is trapped on film at the mercy of his late lamented lead, with a particularly leg crossing special effect provided by Dan Martin. Powerful stuff.

From the Ground (UK 2020: Dir Luke King Abbott) It's 1990 and the Hughes family are in mourning: Caroline (Emily Carding) and Dennis (Jason Collins) have discovered that their daughter, Jazmin (Jaz Paris Collins), who had gone missing fifteen years previously, is dead; she was murdered (the viewer has already witnesseed her death by hanging, a rather shocking scene). Jasmine's brother Joe, who was born after his sister's disappearance, so never knew her, has visions of a dead girl; it's Jazmin, and the spirit that appears to Joe has the marks of strangulation round her neck. They communicate via Joe's 'Etch a Sketch' (a nice touch) and Jaz tells him that she wants to be at rest. 

Fifteen years later Joe is a grown man (Joe Evans); his dad, still wracked with remorse over his daughter's death, seems unable to come to terms with the world. Joe's mother has just died but on the the day of her funeral Dennis can't face going; he retains a bitterness about Jaz appearing to Joe all those years ago and holds it against him. But for Joe, who's in therapy for social anxiety issues and trying to lead a 'normal' life, all that's in the past, particularly when he befriends Faith (Jemma Carlin-Wells), the woman who lives in the next door flat. But when Joe starts to see visions of Jaz again, he's anything but comforted, and her appearance triggers a relapse of his mental health issues. 

From the Ground is an ambitious (for the budget), heartlfelt look at grief and the harm that families can do to each other. The developing bond of friendship between Jaz and young Joe, one forged psychically without them having ever met, is very poignant, in contrast to the effect on adult Joe once his dead sister reappears years later. The film plays with the links between the supernatural, grief and guilt, and is careful not to come down clearly on one side or the other. The acting might be a little tentative (although Joe Evans impresses as young Joe and Collins is suitably enigmatic as the ghost girl - both tough roles for young actors) but the mood of the piece is impressive and Abbott's directorial hand remains confident.

Iso-pocalyptis (UK 2020: Dir J D Roth-round) In JD Roth-round's debut feature, filmed for £1000 in lockdown, Daniel (Roth-round) returns home to find his house in the middle of building works and his partner Maz and daughter Casey both dead. Quickly descending into an alcoholic haze as a result of the trauma Daniel, unwilling to accept the death of his family, oscillates between mundane household activity and increasingly frenzied drunken outbursts (including pulling out his own teeth), before achieving a final act to unite himself with his departed partner.

It's a slight shame that the house chosen as the single location for Iso-pocalyptis should be some form of hostel (multiple extinguishers on the walls, clearly labelled fire doors etc.) because it slightly detracts from the otherwise authentic and involving story of one man's descent into personal hell. Bit part actor turned director Roth-round made this during the pandemic and it's pretty much a one role movie, but the guy's no holds barred performance is of the variety that people used to call 'brave'. 

Roth-round punctuates the restless movements of his camera, and footage of his more primal urges, with some poignant moments, like finding his dead daughter's hair stuck in her hairbrush, or discovering a present she'd bought in anticipation of his birthday tucked away in a drawer. While Dan Williams' instrumental soundtrack elements are very effective, there are occasionally some free music archive derived, thuddingly inappropriate songs, which flatten, rather than enhance the sombre mood of the piece. A rather clever twist ending points back to the very beginning of the movie as a clue to what this is all about. Good effort JD!

The Young Cannibals (UK 2020: Dir Kris Carr, Sam Fowler) In René Cardona's 1976 movie Survive! (the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team, whose plane crashed in the Andes and who were forced to stay alive by eating their dead fellow passengers), the director spends a good fifty minutes or so building to the inevitable chow down. Carr and Fowler's debut feature gets to the meat, if you'll forgive the phrase, right away, in a snowy prologue featuring two blokes noshing on the remains of a third.

Sadly that's all of the (overt) cannibalism that you get here, which feels a bit of a swizz considering the title (it was originally named 'Eaten Alive'). Instead we have the story of Nat (Megan Purvis, Don't Knock Twice) who's been sectioned following a suicide attempt after the death of her mother. Her friend Ethan (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni) springs her from hospital so she can rejoin her friends for a birthday camping trip. 

Two of the group manage to obtain some burgers made by Blackwood (David Patrick Stucky), the owner of a nearby house. What they don't know is that a) the burgers are actually made from human flesh and b) the bloke who made them is one of the cannibals we saw in the prologue. As the chums happily consume the burgers, they fulfil a handed down curse; as newly defined cannibals they're about to be stalked and killed by an evil entity (ok a guy in a monster suit) who's after anyone who has deprived him of human meat.

What follows is an hour plus of the group walking around some admittedly attractively lit woods trying, and failing in the case of most of the characters, to escape the clutches of the beast, followed by a marginally more exciting final reel chase sequence. A thinner premise for walking around aimlessly I haven't met since the last time I saw a film where the cast fumbled about in darkened woodland. 

The product of a group of Bournemouth based filmmakers and actors, The Young Cannibals is that to be feared thing: a well made movie punching above its budget visually, with some credible acting but a paper thin plot and, despite its technical merits, overlong and with very little atmosphere, despite the night shooting and some grungy practical effects. One standout is American composer Gabe Castro's electronic music, which is a very fine thing indeed; a bit of Simonetti here, some Carpenter there, a pounding relentless score that frankly should be soundtracking a much better movie.

A Very 2020 Christmas Carol (UK 2020: Dir Ian Austin) It was Austin, you may recall, who made the rather challenging to sit through Barbatachthian. Well here's his second feature for 2020, a loose adaptation of the Dickens novella, filmed again during lockdown (or 'the monkey disease from Outbreak' as he refers to it).

Austin plays uncle Scrooge (Ian with a hat on) and his cousin Fred (at least he knows his characters); they're having an argument about Scrooge being mean and not giving Fred's mum a break with the rent on the house he owns and in which she lives. 

That night Jacob Marley appears to Scrooge (Ian with - I think and hope - chocolate sauce down his arm and on his face) as does Bob Cratchit (Ian in another hat) whose wife is angry about his long hours of work and the lack of NHS support for Tiny Tim. Thereafter the three ghosts of Christmas appear, the first of which is voiced by Holly Schelkens (the only other person to be involved in this apart from someone called 'Stuart' as Tiny Tim), leading to Scrooge's extended breakdown.

Watching Ian at work is like observing a child making up an adventure in their own head; at once excitable and incomprehensible, it's difficult to dislike this guy; his sheer unwillingness to create anything resembling a watchable film, complete with terrible (and terribly odd) special effects, weird ad breaks, and a newsflash banging on about The Memorial Murderer, which draws in the cast of Barbatachthian. Footage (and sound) is slowed down for no reason, images become superimposed, and it's all very difficult to follow. I'll wager that you've never seen an adaptation of  'A Christmas Carol' featuring Thor and Odin ("You're not Odin, you're a teddy bear"). I'd understand it more if Austin appeared to be some stoned aesthete or full on visual anarchist; but he just looks like someone who works in local government and gets by on nothing stronger than Typhoo tea and jaffa cakes. Bewildering.

Wrong Turn (Germany/USA/UK 2021: Dir Mike P. Nelson)

The original Wrong Turn, released back in 2003, was a brisk, nasty cabin in the woods feature, a sly, dark variation on Eli Roth's Cabin Fever released around the same time, which gave rise to a series of increasingly unwelcome DTV sequels. 

Nelson's re-boot uses the 'young people missing in the Appalachians' setup as a jumping off point for something eventually quite different from what went before.

Scott (Matthew Modine) is, when the film opens, already out looking for his daughter Jennifer (Charlotte Vega) who, with her boyfriend of colour Darius (Adain Bradley) and four other chums, have gone off-grid while hiking in the area. Scott has arrived at the place where he last had contact with his daughter; it's the kind of suspicious small town where the police chief isn't that keen to file a missing persons report, and where the locals utter statements like "nature eats everything it catches".

We flash back slightly to the group's initial mountain explorations. As well as Jen and Darius's mixed race relationship, two of the other friends, Luis (Adrian Favela) and Gary (Vardaan Arora) are a gay couple; they're a group not best suited for hanging out in small US towns. "Keep to the marked trail" advises one local, "the land here can be...unforgiving." They fare little better in a local bar, where they're branded 'hipster freaks.' But when one of the barflies starts to cause trouble, accusing them of never having done a day's work in their lives, the movie's key narrative point is made; rather than ignorning his taunts, Jen reels off the decidedly 21st century jobs that the friends have; these of course mean nothing to the harasser, and the group add insult to injury when one of them, medical student Milla (Emma Dumont), makes a rather negative assessment of the bar fly's state of health. It's a pivotal moment for the audience because it's now hard to feel sympathy for this entitled bunch; and that's before the mayhem begins.

Their trek through the Appalachians results in almost immediate calamity when one of their number is crushed to death by a supposedly random tumbling tree trunk (a very good example of the spare but effective special effects provided by Kyle Roberts and the Tolin FX crew), and it's not long before the alpha male of the group, Adam (Dylan McTee) sparks off about 'white trash hillbillies' and vows revenge when he thinks that Milla has been abducted. The revenge is swift and bloody and the repercussions for the group ominous when they are captured by a technology eschewing hill community who call themselves 'The Foundation', descended from some 19th century folk who went into hiding until the Civil War had blown itself out. Jen and the survivors of her group must remain resourceful if they're to escape the clutches of the hill cult and its enigmatic leader Samuel (Chris Hahn).

"This isn't happening!" says Jen at one point, exasperated; her response is as much a reaction to the situation she finds herself in as a rejection of a scenario which doesn't fit in with her parentally nurtured world view. It's not hard to see the political inference of the situation; decent, upstanding citizens taking issue with a group of back to basic puritans who only want to make America great again. 

While the very 'on point' reworking of the basic Wrong Turn story is, in principle, a clever one, its execution remains terribly unnuanced and increasingly plodding. Some of the pacing is way off and, despite the rather overlong running time, there is little persepective given to 'The Foundation' which confuses the audience's sympathies even more. A slightly bungled, unsatisfying ending also doesn't help. But the Appalchian Ohio settings look great, and Vega and her co-stars really do make for an unlikeable group. 

Wrong Turn is released by Signature Entertainment on Digital release from 26 February and on DVD from 3 May.

What Lies Below (USA 2020: Dir Braden R. Duemmler)

Nerdy young Liberty (Ema Horvath) is met from archeology camp by her mother, perky Michelle (Mena Suvari) who is a romance writer fallen on lean times. While Liberty has been away her mother has met a new guy, John (Trey Tucker), who's an aquatic geneticist. John seems a little bit too good to be true, no more so than when, on first meeting, he gives Liberty a Navajo bracelet, having found out that she's interested in the past. Liberty is a mess of teenage hormones and John stirs some strange feelings in her.

John is - and there's a big clue here - studying the dilemma of the low ratio of freshwater to seawater in the world and the increasing level of salinity because of global warming. He's looking at enabling certain freshwater species to survive in a saltwater world. Later Liberty gatecrashes his work; a study of lamprey eels - which are parasitic and can latch on to and adapt to their prey - to which John seems particularly, pardon the pun, attached.

Liberty feels torn between wanting to like the new man in her mother's life (helped by their bond of interest in science and his seemingly genuine interest in the natural world) and remaining suspicious of him. John's presence revives past resentments between mother and daughter, but he seems aware of the difficulties his arrival has brought. But an incident when John and Liberty are out together on a small boat point to John being a little on the odd side; Michelle's announcement of their forthcoming marriage occurs at a point where Liberty's mother becomes weak and bedridden, and it isn't long before John's real nature shows its scaly face.

For a rather formulaic movie What Lies Below plays its hand cleverly, aided by effective performances from Horvath, Suvari and Tucker. First time feature director Duemmler has obviously been watching the right movies, as this has the ring of 1990s creature features and 'stepfather from hell' movies: there's also what I think might be one of the first post President Trump references in a fiction movie, where Liberty refers to an incident where a certain part of her anatomy is 'grabbed'. 

It's perhaps a shame that the budget didn't stretch to some last reel monstrosities (or perhaps it was the filmmakers' attempts to keep the drama human focused) but an unexpectedly gloomy ending and a claustrophobic three hander setup made this a more interesting prospect than maybe I was expecting.

Signature Entertainment presents What Lies Below on Digital Platforms from 22 February.

The Sinners (Canada 2020: Dir Courtney Paige)

"My name is Aubrey Miller and this is how my body ended up at the bottom of a lake." So opens Paige's feature debut, a movie chock full of unreliable narrators and religious oppression.

Miller (Brenna Llewellyn) is a somewhat reluctant member of 'The Sins', a group of schoolgirls surviving under the yoke of stern religious tutelage who have decided to quietly rebel against the Christian teachings both scholastically and at home ("there is no church vs state because church already won," comments Miller of the town). Ostensibly led by Grace Carver (Kaitlyn Bernard), whose father is the town pastor, each of the members of 'The Sins' has taken on, as the title suggests, one of the seven deadly sins as their gang name: Miller is 'pride' (she is the most devout of the group, and owns two bibles, one for home and one for school) and Grace is 'lust,' a complex appelation as she is a virgin. 

The other members of the 'The Sins' are Grace's best frend Tori (Brenna Coates), with whom Grace started the gang, and whose anger management issues dub her 'wrath', Katie (Keilani Elizabeth Rose) as 'greed', Stacey (Jasmine Randhawa) as 'envy', Robyn (Natalie Malaika) as 'sloth' and Molly (Carly Fawcett) as 'gluttony.' 

The gang are rumbled when Miller confesses their existence to Grace's dad, Pastor Dean (Tahmoh Penikett). The Pastor is already deeply suspicious of Grace's behaviour, not least that she's been hanging round with slacker loser Kit (Dylan Playfair). 'The Sins' steal Grace's journal and read her disclosure about the confession; deciding to teach her a lesson the group kidnap Aubrey with a view to scaring her into keeping her mouth shut, but she manages to escape after being taken to the woods. Now missing, the town focuses on the search for Miller, but it's not long before members of 'the Sins' start turning up dead, one deadly sin after the other.

The Sinners is almost two separate films; the first half is a very David Lynchian assessment of small town life, full of quirky characters like the guy who runs a craft shop from his Airstream, and the town sherriff, Fred Middleton (Aleks Paunovic) whose seemingly oversexed wife is merely trying to get pregnant. These roles are no more more vital to the story than a requirement to provide 'local colour.' Paige soundtracks her film with breathy singer/songwriters and while 'The Sins' subtext may suggest something more devilish, the mood of the film for the most part avoids a dark path. 

It's only in the second part of the movie, where the murders commence, that it starts to feel a little shaky. Someone has etched the seven deadly sins on a desk at school and is mysteriously crossing them out after each corresponding death; it's a pretty clumsy idea, which has you questioning the logistics of being able to get away with doing it, rather than it suggesting anything more mysterious. There's the usual red herring suspects, and two of Middleton's past colleagues turn up and start ragging on him for no particular reason. 

The omnipresent voice of Aubrey Miller, hovering over the proceedings and commenting on the action, is a nice idea (if not particularly original) but is later found to be a faulty narrative device, and it's this muddled thought and lack of character clarity which ultimately brings the film down. The Sinners looks good but its uneven tone and lack of cohesion count against it. Shame.

Signature Entertainment releases What Lies Below on Digital Platforms from 22 February.

Dark Eyes Retrovision #25: Hellraiser: Judgment (USA/UK 2018: Dir Gary J. Tunnicliffe)

Thirty years after the first movie, here's the sequel that everyone hoped would happen; just not in the way it did. 2011's Hellraiser: Revelations, which was pretty ropey, was of course made so that Dimension Films could contractually retain the rights to the movie's characters; they had plans for a bigger budgeted follow up, but somewhere along the line all the life got sucked out of that project. Gary Tunnicliffe, makeup supervisor on all the Hellraiser movies since the third, Hell on Earth, was scriptwriter on the last movie in the franchise (Revelations, which was the first of the series not to star Doug Bradley as 'Pinhead'), and appointed as director on this one. Back in 2017, when I covered all the previous Hellraiser films for an extended piece in DEoL, Judgment had already been completed for a year or so, but it's taken an extra four years to be released in the UK. Was it worth the wait?

Judgment begins with a conversation between Pinhead (Paul T. Taylor) and The Auditor (Tunicliffe himself, playing a new, rather unctuous Cenobite) bemoaning the fact that technology has made it possible for "lust to be sated electronically" (I think he's talking about internet porn), rendering the Lament Configuration obsolete. But all is not lost; sin is still sin and in the 21st century there's a lot of it about.

Case in point: child killer Mr Watkins (Jeff Fenter) gets a written summons to come to 55 Ludovico Place (which has moved from Dollis Hill in London to Oklahoma and completely changed its shape - Cenobite fixer uppers at work). Inside he's tied to a chair and The Auditor makes him confess his crimes. He's then passed along a weird production line; first to The Assessor (John Gulager) who soaks the killer's typed confession in tears of children, eats the results and sicks it up into a funnel; the sick flows into a trough which three naked women, with flesh stripped from their faces called The Jury, grub around in and then deliver a verdict: guilty! Watkins is strapped to a table, touched up by some older naked ladies called The Cleaners and finally a figure in rubber wear and a gas mask flays all the skin from his body. Whoa!

Meanwhile two detectives, who are brothers, are on the track of a murderer and not doing that well; they're joined by a third, Detective Egerton (Alexandra Harris) who has been bussed in by someone higher up to move the case along. They're on the track of a serial killer called the Preceptor whose murders are inspired by The Ten Commandments. Detective Sean Carter (Damon Carney) is a combat vet with PTSD and a pissed off wife; his brother is the far more smartly suited David (Randy Wayne). The detectives' work leads them to Watkins, the house in Ludovico Street and the Cenobites; because a serial killer ticks all their "we have such sights to show you" boxes.

This isn't the first time that Dimension have dusted down an old crime script from their vaults and jazzed it up with some Cenobite action; previous Hellraiser sequels have done the same, with the same result as this one; they feel like two films shoehorned into one. Judgment is full of stylistic touches that recall movies like 1995's Se7en - murky rooms, lots of offal, quasi-literary script - and while this is much better than Revelations, sadly that's not saying much: there's some playing around with Cenobite law and a final scene, with one of the hell-based characters ending up on skid row, hints strongly that Dimension feel there's life in the old box yet.

Hellraiser: Judgment is available from Lionsgate UK on Digital Download from 22 February and Blu-ray/DVD  from 1 March. DVD/Blu-ray extras:  Deleted and Extended Scenes; Gag Reel

Butchers (Canada 2020: Dir Adrian Langley)

It's getting on for fifty years since Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre introduced audiences to the then innovative depiction of a rural cannibalistic household; as well as a very loose adaptation of the life and work of real life killer Ed Gein, the movie's murderous family were themselves a warped stereotypical re-definition of the archetypal American crime family.

And now in yet another version of the 'family that slays together, degenerates together' cinematic motif, Butchers' brutal prologue introduces brothers Owen (Simon Phillips) and Oswald (Michael Swatton), who've recently lost their mother (as we meet them they've just buried her in what looks like a makeshift cemetery). Opportunity presents itself when a young couple's car breaks down on a snowy road near their broken down home. The male of the couple is killed but the female is held captive and, eventually, impregnated. By who, it is unclear: the voluble Owen, his considerably regressed brother Oswald, or maybe even the strange misshapen third sibling Oxford (Jonathan Largy), heard rather than seen, lumbering around their shack? 

Flash forward slightly to 1998, and four young friends are out on the road when their car breaks down, possibly in much the same spot. Chris (Frederik Storm) and Jenna (Julie Mainville) wait by the car, while Jenna's boyfriend Mike (James Hicks) and Taylor (Anne-Carolyne Binette) head off to find help. Jenna uses 'the facilities' and trips a wire attached to a bell which alerts Owen and Oswald to company. She sees a bloody handprint on a tree, which is odd, because, she concludes, "it's not hunting season." Yet.

Meanwhile Mike and Taylor get a little romantically sidetracked; yes they've been having a thing, even though Taylor is supposedly Jenna's best friend. They eventually find a garage, managed by Owen, who arranges for a tow truck to come and collect their car (this will be driven by family member Willard (Nick Allan), who, one won't be surprised, is more adjusted than the rest of his kin). Chris and Jenna, still waiting by the automobile, spy a character in the woods, watching them and taking Polaroids (a TCM reference). Things are about to get very unpleasant for all four of the unsuspecting youngsters.

While Langley's Canadian filmed and located feature (and oh it so desperately wants to give off a small town US feel, despite in part being filmed in an Ottowa Heritage Village) tries to do something a little different with a very familiar setup, Butchers feels like a movie out of time (mind you I thought the 'Wrong Turn' franchise had pretty much worn out the theme, and even that movie series has been re-booted this year). The director wants us to draw parallels between Mike's lustful leanings - Jenna, who's clearly aware what's going on, feels that men just can't help themselves - and the urges of Oswald and his clan (although the cannibalistic side seems to be reserved for Oxford). He also shows the brothers as an exercise in degeneration: Oswald is cultured and urbane (ok, that's a relative term here), whereas drooling debased Owen represents the next rung down (there's a scene in which he's learning to read, using 'Hamlet' as his chosen text, which Oswald clearly knows word for word), and Oxford is the geek locked up except for special occasions.

But underneath this Butchers is still just another entry of the pain and misery porn variety, even if the gore is lighter than expected and the cast get to keep their clothes on. It's well made but rather lacking in tension, which is maybe down to the fact that I've seen this story so many times before. Not great then.

Butchers is released on Digital download from 22 February and DVD from 8 March 2021.

Get the Hell Out (Taiwan 2020: Dir I - Fan Wang)

Wang’s debut feature is that rare thing, a Taiwanese horror movie, and while the jumping off point for its blend of shocks and yocks might be some of the livelier genre examples from Japan and North Korea, its (sort of) neighbours, Get the Hell Out is in a league of its own.

Tough no-nonsense Hsiung Ying-ying is a Member of Parliament, easy to rile and quick with her fists of fury. She’s been drawn to the noble profession because of the need to oppose the plans of a dodgy company, St. Arian, who want to build a chemical plant near her coastal home (and whose plant is rumoured to be contaminated with rabies). Ying-ying’s vocal opposition to the scheme makes her unpopular, and her downfall -  attacking a press corp whipped up by rival politician, the garishly suited playboy Li Ku-chung – leaves the way for witless Wang You-wei, a security guard with a nose bleeding disorder - to be inserted as her puppet replacement. Mr Li thinks he can win the new MP over to his side, and give the plant the go ahead, but You-wei is sweet on Ying-ying, which she exploits to try and manipulate him to vote against the scheme.

As the minutes tick down to the heavily signalled zombie invasion, and You-wei looks like he’s siding with Ying-ying leading up to the crucial vote, unbeknownst to all St. Arian’s president has become rabidly infected and started biting people. The military lock down the whole chamber, forcing the opposing political sides to battle each other and the growing numbers of zombies. But does luckless You-wei hold the key to their salvation?

Get the Hell Out is a gruesome dayglo delight; a hyperactive – and extremely, if broadly, funny – zombie caper that takes side swipes at politics, corruption, national pride and yes Coronavirus, a film where the underdogs are championed and the bad guys get theirs in arterial spraying glory. Often it's like a live action beat 'em up video game (occasionally literally so), relentlessly inventive and fast moving. 

The small but well developed cast of characters is fleshed out by some great supports, such as HR Dragon Wang Feng-hua, a formidable woman with a limited life expectancy, Ying-ying’s dad, a gardener by trade, who shows where his daughter gets her aggression from, and desperate to please receptionist (and substitute military serviceman) Ku Te-you, with his ludicrous bowl haircut.

Subtle this ain’t but it’s an enormous amount of fun, and it's so crammed with little bits of detail, great sight gags and eccentric sound design (including a brilliantly quirky soundtrack) that you’ll doubtless want to see it again immediately afterwards, if only to pick up the bits you missed first time round. Fantastic.

Get the Hell Out will screen at the Bloody Flicks Awards on 20 February 2021.

Broil (USA 2020: Dir Edward Drake)

Drake's latest movie fuses two 2018 sources - the 'supernatural goings on under the cloak of respectability' shenanigans of Ali Larter's flick Hereditary (a film which, despite its lukewarm reception, is often used as a critical touchpoint these days); and the rich family in crisis machinations of Jesse Armstrong's TV series Succession - to tell its story of the Sinclair family.

Broken down into separate chapters, like a fairytale gone wrong, we meet schoolgirl Chance Sinclair (Avery Konrad) who is prone to getting suspensions from school for retaliating against getting picked on. Chance has an acute medical condition requiring her to have regular blood transfusions and stay out of direct sunlight, but it doesn't stop her being strong enough to knock the teeth out of a classmate when teased. She has been told that she is special, but knows little about her family and the dynastic destiny that awaits her.

Chance's mum and dad, June (Annette Reilly) and December (Nels Lennarson), are engaged in putting together a business plan with the head of the Sinclair family, August (a ripe, almost pantomimic performance from Timothy V. Murphy - remember Al Pacino in 1997's The Devil's Advocate?), in anticipation of their daughter's soon come 18th birthday, which is to be celebrated in style. June and December want to break from the family and the price they have to pay is twofold; the procurement of one more soul to be sacrificed - the harvesting of souls being a regular thing in the Sinclair household - and the handing over of Chance to August.

But behind the scenes Chance's parents are planning something more dramatic, namely the death of the patriarch, and to enact this have roped in local chef, occasional assassin and poison specialist Sydney (Jonathan Lipnicki turning in on the spectrum performance where he almost manages to avoid making eye contact with every other cast member) to cater for a spectacular dinner party which will mark the overthrow of the family. But August has other plans.

The various other members of the famille Sinclair, including sword wielding Uncle November (Corey Large) who also goes by the name of 'Molloch' and 'Titan' and befanged May (Alyson Bath) crop up and deepen, or confuse, the family mystery further. At times Chance seems to disappear into an alternative world where she learns a little more about her family from a woman, Luck (Abby Ross). Are the Sinclairs vampires or some quasi rich breed descended from a Bret Easton Ellis short story? Happily some mordant humour - that Hereditary reference again - lets you question how seriously the viewer should be taking all this. 

Drake builds a convincing atmosphere of patriarchal dominance but frustrates with a fractured storyline and a whole load of characters who just aren't very nice. Broil is a movie more to admire than enjoy but its wry humour often saves it from its introspective nature and there's a sumptuous score from Hugh Wiellenga to add an extra layer of class.

Broil is released on DVD and Digital from Signature Entertainment on February 15, 2021

Bloody Flicks Awards 2021

For those of you who don't know, Bloody Flicks is a very fne horror/fantastic films site to which I'm immensely proud to contribute from time to time. In addition to running the thing site owner Paul Downey is now in the second year of mounting an annual awards ceremony, celebrating the best in genre short films and new features. This year Paul has given me a sneaky peek of all the entries; decisions will be made on the winners at the event, which will of course be online for the obvious reasons. If you're interested in attending, tickets are here on the day of the event; 20 - 21 February 2021.

So here's the rundown of the longlist of 20 shorts (there's also a surprise short which I'll unveil on the day of the awards):

Overkill (USA 2019: 14 mins) A very funny, sharply observed deconstruction of slasher movie cliches, with the knowingness of the Scream franchise combined with annoying millennial trigger speak, and a killer who just won't die, causing the resourceful final girl to dig deep for her supply of one liners.

Swipe (Netherlands 2019: 5 mins) A young girl picks a guy on a dating app who immediately stalks her via her phone, on the subway and finally in her own home. Creepy.

Cruel Tale, Friday Kills (France : 27 mins) Two hotel owners have closed shop for the season and are looking forward to a quiet vacation, once they dispose of the bodies of the couple they're just killed, of course. But their plans are thwarted by the arrival of a business couple who pay them handsomely for the use of their conference room. They invite three marketing strategists to meet with them, but they have an unusual request of the team; downsizing the company avoiding redundancies; they're asked to provide a list of the ten most expendable employees. A typically French short, packed with arch characters, nudity and graphic gore.

No One is Coming (USA 2020: 7 mins) Ellen drives to a cabin in the woods to meet her boyfriend on Halloween. But instead of finding him there she's menaced by a figure. Great 80s seasonal vibes and another resourceful heroine makes this short a real standout. 

Script (Italy 2018: 8mins) A very meta short in which two writers of horror scripts discuss the plots of their creations and expand on each others' tales to avoid them being cliched; but the stories start to predict real life, and before they know if they're being they're faced with the killers from their own stories. Cleverly edited, if not an entirely original idea.

Shared Document (UK 2020: 12 mins) I guess it wouldn't be long before the Host inspired movies came our way. Jim and Andi, brother and sister, separated one assumes during lockdown, are working on a shared document, a eulogy to their recently deceased father with whom they had a complicated relationship. They're joined in the document by a 'Professor Platypus' but it's not a public document. They log out and in again, but PP is back, wipes the text off screen and replaces it with a series of words which predict what's about to happen. And it's not good.

First Date of the Dead (UK 2020: 6 mins) If the walking dead had a dating app, of course it would be called 'Necromancer.' In this very sweet short, which manages to be funnier in its 6 minutes than the entirety of 2013's zomromcom Warm Bodies, a male zombie gets a match with a female zombie big on undead rights and they arrange a date at a restaurant, their grunting dialogue subtitled, in which they are as awkward as any new couple. They trade stories about how they were turned and whether they'd been shot. And guess what the restaurant is serving as a special? Great them tune too.

Atrophy (Sweden 2019: 17 mins) Freja, a personal carer, has been appointed to look after Alma, a young woman who can't move anything but her eyes, following a sudden collapse. But the longer Freja stays in the house, the more creeped out she gets. Her sleep is troubled, marks appear on her legs, and, worse still, strange figures haunt her dreams. Could she be going the same way as Alma? A haunting short with a great score by Lukas Markström.

Unusual Attachment (USA 2020: 14 mins) Hunter met a guy online on the website 'Man-Bingo' but a power surge separated them before they could exchange details; he searches the site endlessly, encountering various random uptight blokes until he finally hooks up with mystery man. But when the guy sends him an attachment, things are about to get very deadly. A very clever and funny lockdown filmed short

Sins of the Father (UK 2020: 9 mins) Well in every chocolate box there are likely to be one or two you don't like. This is nine minutes or so of watching a dishevelled priest running around a graveyard desperately overemoting. One assumes he's dead and has sinned during his life; well now he's wanted for crimes against acting too. It cost £6 to make, apparently.

Guest (UK 2020: 12 mins) A welcome rewatch of this unsettling short. A woman finds an older girl, Mary, in the bathroom of her house, and brings her to hospital. Mary has been trying to escape from a being called 'the Guest' who is a tall, bald headed entity with bulgy eyes, a little like the 'Momo' sculpture with less hair. Mary uses bleach to pour in her eyes to avoid seeing the creature, but she can still hear it breathing so she stabs at her own ears to block out the sound (don't worry, this is all offscreen). But will this be enough to drive the vision away? Seriously disquieting stuff.

She of the Land (UK 2020: 15 mins) Atmospheric modern day take on occult beliefs. There is a curse on Thomas's wife Mary so Thomas sets about to capture the woman that placed it and burn her. But which witch is which?

The Ferals (UK 2020: 9 mins) Filmed in the Seychelles. A guy wakes up on a deserted beach with an injury to his leg. Can he make it off the island to a waiting plane before its denizens get him?

Fright Corner (UK 2017: 7 mins) An independent film company are making a movie - a Scooby Doo/Hammer horror mashup - in the haunted village of Pluckley, a place where a previous crew have gone missing without a trace. Guest appearance from Billy Chainsaw. Pretty scrappy.

La Llorona (India 2019  ; 23 mins) La Llorona (translated as 'the crying woman' or 'the crying bride') must be the most overused title in the horror genre at the moment. But in this comedy things are a little different. Sati, a woman who continues to try and hang herself (she's already dead) after being spurned by a lover, returns to her home town to wreak revenge. However she meets with unlucky in love Pranay and they form a bizarre relationship. Very, very funny.

The Witch Hunters Are Coming (UK 2019: 10 mins) Brilliant mockumentary following the work of two witchfinders, Siddarth and his intern Dorothy from Kansas (!) who work for the Occult management department of Wandsworth Council. The pair are employed to seek out evil doings on the mean streets of south London. They visit Agatha Blair who is alleged to be a witch and to have turned a neighbour into a dog (she is and she has). This 10 minute short, as well as being hilarious, also mercilessly pins down both reality TV's stupidity and small town suburban life. Excellent work!

Static (UK 2020: 3 mins) Alison is desperate to bring her late boyfriend back from the grave, resorting to spells she's found on the internet do do so. But this one works, with horrendous results.

Deadly Scare (UK 2020: 7 mins) Talking its initial influence from What We Do in the Shadows, Mike Wiener is a professional scarer (and worse) and this film acts as a promotional tool for his work, which involves him donning his facial disguise (bandages basically), prepping his horror house for willing victims and, well, other things. Nasty.

Make A Wish (USA 8 mins) It's Freddy's 30th birthday and his girlfriend has baked him a cake with candles. Make a wish Freddy! But his rather unhinged partner Lexie has a rather different idea about the perfect present than he does, namely bringing home and tying up Freddy's former school bully Brock for her boyfriend to torture.

Malakout (Iran 2020: 10 mins) Ah some animation! And stunning animation at that. A pianist's wife dies. Obsessively he wishes her to return from the dead and strikes a deal with the devil to enable this to happen; he will lose both of his hands as a forfeit. He becomes the recepient of a transplant but, The Beast With Five Fingers style, the new hands belonged to a hanged murderer! This is a glittering, atmospheric short, stunning in its execution.

Temple of Devilbuster (Taiwan 2020: 24 mins) Hot on the heels of I-Fan Wang's Get the Hell Out, which also screened at the Bloody Flicks awards, here's the director's other release from last year, a typically crazy short from this enigmatic director. In the middle of down-town Taipei, a guy called Tai-Bao and a bald-headed woman, A-Queen are both the reincarnations of the Devil Star. As the two try to escape the criminal underworld, the police and an abusive 'father' who wants to take Tai-Bao back to the temple where the deity, the Holy Mother, is using them to take the blame for other people's sin, give chase. A dazzling short film with an electric soundtrack; of course it makes no sense but it's dazzling.

Willy's Wonderland (USA 2021: Dir Kevin Lewis)

These days if you're going to watch a movie with Nicolas Cage in the cast, a lot of your enjoyment of that film is going to be based on the extent to which you like Mr C, so front and centred is he in the roles he lands these days. In Willy's Wonderland the actor originally born Nicolas Kim Coppola is 'The Janitor', an almost dialogue free part which allows him to regularly kick arse and chug beer, unhampered by the kind of dialogue which can be his undoing.

Cage is a a drifter, who swings into the little town of Hayesville in his flash car; or more accurately comes a cropper when his tyres are blown out by a stinger laid across the road. The local garage can fix the vehicle but it'll cost him $1000, bills only; no cards, no internet in Hayesville. Cash strapped Cage is offered a deal; if he'll stay overnight and help clean up 'Willy's Wonderland' all debts will be considered settled and he can drive away on four brand new radials. Hey, he even gets a company T shirt.

'Willy's Wonderland' is a shut down restaurant with animatronic animals to delight the kids. Only it doesn't have such a great reputation in town, evidenced by the graffiti on the walls which reads 'Gateway to Hell' and 'Kid Killers'; it's also maybe why perky teen Liv (Emily Tosta) is trying to set fire to it; that is until she's escorted off the premises and taken home to her foster mother, who just happens to be the town sheriff (Beth Grant). 

So Cage, now living up to his 'Janitor' title, settles into the 'Wonderland' building and begins the cleanup. It seems that the operation was shut down following a couple of lawsuits being served on the owner, Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz) because of injuries to kids by the automatons. Cage quickly finds out that the machines do indeed have a life of their own; one of them, Ozzie the Ostrich, attacks our hero but ends up with its head bashed in and its mechanical guts pulled out, courtesy of the 'Janitor.'

Liv's friends release her from incarceration and accompany her back to the restaurant so she can finish the incendiary deed. Unsurprisingly they fall through the roof and end up, via the soft play area, in the heat of the action. It's just them and the Janitor versus a horde of marauding life sized mechanical animals in a fight to the death.

There is of course a reason behind the rampaging auto-beasts, involving serial killers and black magic, but we don't really care about that; we're here to see Nicolas Cage, with nary a sneer in sight, silently take out the automatons, fuelled only by his bare hands and craft beer. The fact that he's an effective kick arse machine, while the ineffective young people - with the exception of Liv - become victims of Willy the Weasel, Tito Turtle and the rest is interesting. Early on in the movie, where the origin of the mechanical menagerie is discussed, Liv describes the original owner of 'Willy's Wonderland' as "one of the last century's most sick and sadistic serial killers." Wait a minute, last century? Ouch; way to make a viewer feel old. And yet it's the old fart (Cage) who's the hero of the day! Go figure.

Anyhow, as mentioned this is Cage's movie. A silent hero who also finds time to buff his nails and both resurrect and get in some serious leisure time on a pinball machine, he's way less annoying than some of his other recent cinematic incarnations (Red Miller, I'm looking at you). This bizarre little movie plunders, in no particular order, Meet the Feebles (1989) and a couple of recent reboots from 2019, Lars Klevberg's Child's Play and The Banana Splits Movie by Daniella Esterhazy. As those influences suggest it's a film best seen with a crowd and while it's a lot of fun, it misses opportunities to send up commercialism and/or or small town politics which would give it a bit of an extra dimension. Great soundtrack by Émoi though with a really earwormy theme.

Sator (USA 2019: Dir Jordan Graham)

The second feature from Jordan Graham is an extraordinary mix of reality and fiction, a succession of startling images with a rising sense of the sinister. It’s also nigh on impossible to explain exactly what happens in the film: it’s an oblique and personal experience better seen than read about, although the director assured me when I spoke to him after the movie's debut screening at the 2019 Soho Horror Film Festival, that, although the film feels difficult, every shot is vital to its understanding.

Adam (Gabe Nicholson) lives in a cabin in the woods. By day he checks cameras for sightings of deer, and tries to summon them using a carved reed whistle: he also receives occasional visits from his brother Pete (Michael Daniel) and Pete's decidedly ethereal girlfriend Evie (Rachel Johnson). All are mourning, in different ways, the passing of their grandmother – or ‘Nani’ as she’s referred to (June Peterson), a woman who in her later years indulged in spirit writing, the results of which made constant reference to a being named ‘Sator’ who may or may not be a guardian spirit. Adam and Pete's mother has gone missing, their father isn't around and their sister Deborah (Aurora Lowe) may also be a missing presence; technically the three 'children' are orphans. 'Nani' describes Sator as a being "who was in charge of everything..." and who commands fear and respect, cloaking his disciples in the skin of animals; an omnipresence. 

One night while out in the woods Adam thinks he sees something, and when he later reviews the deercam footage, three shadowy robed figures can be vaguely glimpsed. At night he listens to tapes of the spirit writing being read back by his grandmother. “Sator talks to me. He watches what I’m doing and I get messages,” she explains. As the mentions of Sator increase, so do the visions. Adam's grief, and the desire to hold on to his grandmother's voice, means that Sator becomes more and more real in his eyes; are the visions he sees real or something internal within Adam?

The nightmarish opening scenes of Sator, stunningly shot in black and white, with the forest backdrop offering up flickering images of levitating bodies and a burning man, set up the mood of this strange film. The movie switches from 4:3 to widescreen, colour to black and white, past to present and combines reality and fiction, to the point where the viewer cannot separate the two. 

But there's an intensely personal aspect to this movie that is quite unusual: the Hi-8 shot footage of 'Nani' is in reality Graham’s grandmother, who was diagnosed with dementia towards the end of her life and took up spirit writing at the suggestion of a medium; the authenticity extends to the concept of Sator, who appeared within her writings, and the film of her explanations is integrated into the film.

In the Q&A after the screening I attended Graham admitted that this aspect of his grandmother’s life had been hushed up by the rest of the family, so it was a bold movie not only to include the footage but to combine reality and fiction in the way he does in the film. Is it exploitative? Not in the least: Sator is both a memorial to his dead relative and an extended meditation on visions, dreams and the power of the mind.

Sator won’t be a film for everyone; its pace is languid, even funereal at times. But it's an enthralling watch which rewards your attention, pulled together by an amazing sound design (also by Graham), and a succession of images that stay with you long after the film has ended.

Sator is released on UK Digital Download platforms from 15 February, with a DVD release from 22 February courtesy of Lightbulb Film Distribution.