Olivia (Sarah Alexander Marks, The Killing Tree, Manor of Darkness and a whole load of others) is searching for her mother, who has gone missing while on the hunt for her own father, an adventurer journalist who also vanished in the same place; a cave system on the Welsh border. All have been investigating the legend of the 'Bone Keeper'.
Determined to track mum down using maps in family journals, Olivia teams up with some friends, and arranges a trip. Along for the ride are cocky TA trailed Ethan (Louis James, Bogieville), Olivia's friend Annabelle (Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, The Lockdown Hauntings), Nick (Tyler Winchcombe, Piglet) and science nerds Nadia (Sophie Eleni, Walking Against the Rain) and Ravi (Danny Rahim in his first British 'fantastic' film role). En route to meet Professor Harrison (John Rhys-Davies, G-Loc, those Lord of the Rings films) they pickup a hitchhiking woman, travel blogger Ashley aka 'Bitchhiker' (Sarah T Cohen, Cinderella's Curse, Alien Invasion) whose addition can give the mission a bit of much needed publicity.
Harrison's 'be careful in the caves' entreaties fall on deaf ears as Olivia and the gang tool up for a bit of spelunking; but the tentacular entity they discover deep in the rocks turns out to be nastier than any of them imagined.
Ford's movie is one of two distinct halves. In the first the bickering and emoting amongst friends is very familiar territory (pretty much all of the flicks mentioned above include similar character developing techniques), and for a while David Engellau's score almost manages to drown out the drama. But when the caves loom into view (enigmatically filmed in the Forest of Dean) Ford really finds his feet. The underground scenes carry a real tension and the creature, a mix of CGI and practical effects, is impressive both in production and intent.
I could have done without the rather silly prologue in which the origin of the creature is established (and a little more detail on how it manages its hybridity would have been welcome), but Bone Keeper manages to shrug off its early scenes and become a thoroughly nasty monster flick. It is perhaps a shame that the next time we'll see this cast will likely be a return to the low budgets - and expectations - of Mr Jeffrey and his ilk. Shame as here they acquit themselves really well.
A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site.
Daggers Inn bases its events in a cosy Essex village, passing as the fictional Haxanbury (geddit?). In the manner of all small town murder mysteries Haxanbury is a place you might want to visit but wouldn't want to live in.
Central to Haxanbury's problems is a ruthless local firm nominally run by Stanley Montagu-John (Martin Payne), but subject to internal feuding between company members Lauren (Terry Bamberger, a real American for once, rather than a dubious UK actor adopting a bogus accent) and the supremely odious Toby Vass (James Hamer-Morton). Expansion is on their mind, and they'll do anything in service of it - including murder.
But things are about to change. A stranger, Donna (Anna Danvers), arrives in the village, on a quest to find out what happened to her twin sister Sibyl, and one suspects she knows more than she's letting on. Donna weaves a spell around the villagers, drawing them under her influence, as she infiltrates the company in a quest to find the truth, teaming up with outsider Samron (Gavin Gordon) and put upon company employee Karen (Eve Kathryn Oliver) in the process.
There are so many ways in which Daggers Inn gets it right. Smith ensures that nothing is explained (in a good way). Is Donna a witch, or maybe even Sibyl in returned form? Certainly her arrival prompts some unusual behaviour; company employees become entranced, and Toby's girlfriend Bethany (genre regular Charlie Bond), who may be central to the mystery, is determined to be rid of her. The director, who like previous projects also serves behind the camera, does some wonderful things capturing both the external landscape and the claustrophobic goings on in the medieval village's board rooms and tea shops. Casting is spot on, performances being as generally understated as the movie's sound design (always a blessing in a genre where directors mistakenly feel that a histrionic score can make up for a project's shortcomings).
One of the reasons that I cover small scale British 'fantastic' cinema is some filmmakers' ability to craft silk purses out of sow's ears, a skill which Smith and Spence have in abundance. Excellent stuff.
A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site.
Grizzled Detective Nick Collymore (Fabrizio Santino, adopting a US accent for no reason apart from he's reasonably good at it) has returned to duty after a rather ugly incident and is keen to get back in the policing saddle, by intruding onto a crime scene, namely the death of a gamer, Tiff (Jessica Impiazzi), her body found slumped at a computer.
Meanwhile colleague Detective Sam Harding (Anto Sharp) is also investigating a death - this time filmed online. Tech wiz Dean Holness (Jack Cray) has taken his own life via nailgun in front of his many fans. Further investigations have revealed that he was working alongside Tiff on a new AI game.
Other deaths occur and Nick discovers that the game can be accessed via a USB. A personal test reveals a weird avatar called Jitters (Daniel Jordan) who poses riddles which, if solved, release cash (possibly in bitcoin). But the real power of the game isn't realised until Nick understands that, once downloaded, the avatar's deadly reach extends to anything with internet connectivity.
Jitters is a very different beast to Witch, a combination of police procedural and a modern AI take on A Nightmare on Elm Street and Videodrome. Collymore's character is the hardboiled cop more usually seen on TV screens rather than the movies, with family and health problems to contend with. The 'Jitters' character is a good few years older than a lot of the other cast members, making his odd 'clown-with-a-colander' getup quite distinctive. Jitters could do with tightening up a bit but it's an ambitious pic for the budget, and the final scene's suggestion of a sequel wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.
A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site.
Under three quarters of an hour is pushing it to depict such monumental events, so Hancher wisely focuses events on a smaller canvas of torture and damnation.
Three years after the death of his daughter Ariel, in a sickening ritual killing where the girl's corpse and nether regions are re-arranged to form an inverted cross, her distraught father Boyd Fallon (Kemal Yildirim, who does a nice line in troubled characters) is still on the hunt for Ariel's killer.
A hired private investigator swears off the case but directs Fallon to a succession of people who may hold information, namely an agitated priest, Father Vaughn (Andrew Tales from the Great War Elias), cancer ravaged Ruben Blake (Laurence Saunders) and an unhinged, badly beaten woman, Botis (Laura Liptrot). All have have suffered greatly after contact with the obscure, other worldly 'forty five', and as Fallon digs deeper and gets closer to the truth, he is plagued by death dreams and, ultimately, discovers why his daughter died... and who really murdered her.
Hancher's film is compact, beautifully photographed and rich with apocrypha, and in Yildirim's character creates a tragic figure straight out of Aeschylus, a man destined to uncover his own fatal truth. Disturbing images abound, and Hancher is correct in keeping his film lean and mean. I liked this a lot.
Here he brings us a 50 minute psychological drama, centring on Kate (newcomer Corina Jayne), a troubled soul, with a violent, controlling partner, Chris (Gary Cross) and the Mamushi of the title (Jemma Thompson), Kate's therapist (Mamushi is her surname) who seems to have forgotten most of her code of ethics.
Chris exhibits classic controlling behaviours; nasty then nice, belittling and flattering in turn, witholding then making her beg for the medication she seems to need.
Ama Mamushi indicates that she's taken a tough love to Kate's progress, but clearly oversteps the mark when she suggests to her client that murder is probably the only way out of her abusive relationship. Kate's horrendous position is made worse when, on a visit to Chris's father, the older man tries to rape her. Kate's response triggers a cycle of violence which she seems helpless to avoid.
I confess that in 2026 the 'bonkers-woman-driven-to-murder' narrative is more than a little unwelcome. There's very little subtlety here in the story of a woman driven to the edge and then over it, and the reason provided for her actions is just a little silly. Jayne does well in her first role and the film's brevity is to its credit; Daniels took on most of the behind the camera roles and it's clearly a passion project for him, but I found it generally uninvolving and, honestly, more than a little unnecessary.
When I interviewed Warren back in 2021, she mentioned that she made two types of movies; 'wacky' and 'serious'. Wisely, because of her own rather childlike obsessions, Warren has decided to stick with the first category in recent years, and Wizard of Oz: The Dead Walk might just be her most 'wacky' yet.
Dorothy (the authentically American Alina Desmond) has been rescued from a dying Oz by her Auntie Em (Jodyanne Richardson, who by resemblance is possibly related to the Richardson acting dynasty), in the process getting herself hooked on heroin.
Em has secured her a place at the Emerald rehab centre, a dodgy clinic run by Dr Oscar Diggs (Stephen Samson) and occupied by patients who still seem to be able to access the hard stuff. Kept heavily sedated while withdrawing, Dorothy has vivid dreams involving malevolent versions of the scarecrow and the tinman from Oz, and the good witch Glinda (Yvonne Curwen) who also seems to have transformed into something more evil. Dorothy dreams about an ancient book hidden in a tree; when she wakes she realises that the tree - and the book - are within the clinic grounds. Reading a passage from the book brings the murderous Oz characters into the real world to begin a campaign of mayhem and death.
With a cast list including the daftly named Detective Jack L Antern (Adam Barnett) this is very silly stuff indeed, but actually quite watchable and at times gory, albeit within the constraints of the usual Warren budget. The director manages to include a cursed book - a bit of a Warren signature move - and the absence of the cowardly lion is sort of explained towards the end of a movie which also wins an award for including the opening credit sequence about three minutes before the end titles. It's bonkers, most people won't like it, but I for one am hungry - well ok peckish - for more.
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