Ravers (UK 2018: Dir Bernhard Pucher)

Aciiiiiiid! Gaspar Noé must have been taking notes on this one, as Pucher's 2018 movie touches on a lot of the same plot points as the French enfant terrible's film Climax from the same year.

An accident in a factory that makes energy drinks causes the chemical makeup of a batch of 'Renergize' - the brand name for the product - to be messed up, but the company's about to be closed down, so the contaminated bottles go unchecked.

The empty factory becomes the scene for an illegal rave (remember them?) attended by at least twenty clubbers - ok it's a low budget film - keen on getting their rocks off. Among the clubbers is the reluctant Becky (Georgia Hirst), a cleanliness freak who would have given Howard Hughes a run for his money. Becky's a journalist trying to get a break, recovering after her last partner Charlotte (Eve Connolly) left her over said cleanliness obsession; she's persuaded to attend the rave by her friend Ozzy (Danny Kirrane), so named because of his parents' love of the band 'Black Sabbath.' Things pick up a little when Becky meets Hannah (Manpreet Bambra) on the dancefloor, who is a) sympathetic to the germophobe's little quirks and b) a possible replacement for Charlotte.

But when one of the people behind the scenes at the gathering discovers the abandoned cases of 'Renergize' and doles it out to an already drugged up crowd, chaos reigns - the poisoned batch turns the clubbers into, well, what exactly? "They're not zombies...they're more like mutant ravers" explains Ozzy, as he, Charlotte, undercover cop Jen (Maria Volk), a few other clubbers who haven't imbibed plus a newly mutant Hannah, must evade the raving hordes and make it to safety.

The main issue I had with Pucher's exuberant and often witty horror comedy is the insistence on making it look and sound inauthentically American - my understanding is that rave culture was a largely UK phenomenon anyway. With Wales standing in for the US, nearly all the cast, apart from Kamal Angelo Bolden (an American actor of colour playing Vince, the drug dealer - nice) and a blink and you'll miss it performance from Natasha Henstridge, affect (generally poor) Yank accents - I was particularly amused that Ms Hirst seemed to model hers on Mischa Barton.

But that aside Ravers is a fun, resourceful flick which keeps the attention despite the limitations of its story. The mutants, who all develop an odd googly eye look once they neck some 'Renergize', are a bit more interesting than your average zombie, and they're less intent on chowing down than waving glowsticks and succumbing to repetitive beats, only turning nasty when the music stops. Pucher handles his action sequences really well, making a small cast seem a lot more populous, and the whole thing has the feel of a slightly more polite version of a Troma movie. Fun while it lasts, but I'd have been happier if it had dropped the pretence and located itself this side of the 'pond.'

Ravers is available on digital download from 16 March

Hellriser (UK 2017: Dir Steve Lawson)

Think that only the big movie companies are entitled to develop lucrative 'universe' concepts to rake in the moolah? Think again - arguably Hellriser has the distinction of being the second film in the cheapest franchise ever, with the promise of more to come courtesy of its ghostly pre-end credit lament. You have to admire the sheer pluck of director, writer, producer and caterer Steve Lawson in bringing back the lead character from his last movie The Haunting of Annie Dyer for his latest romp.

But let's go back a bit. In 2014 Lawson made a film called Nocturnal Activity. An interesting title, with nods to both soft porn and of course the Paranormal Activity films, it was his third feature, following on from the equally micro budget martial arts thriller Insiders (2002) and the distinctly Robocop sounding The Silencer (2007). Nocturnal Activity was the story of Annie, a woman who becomes possessed after moving into a new flat, her nightly visitations monitored by a psychic researcher; Dyer ends up held by the police on a murder charge. Released for the American market in 2015, Nocturnal Activity didn't fare very well. Keen to recoup some money Lawson recut and repackaged the movie as The Haunting of Annie Dyer and it got a straight to DVD release in the UK in 2016, leaving in the American accented ADR voices of lead actresses Raven Lee (of which more later) and Evie Nightingale, as originally intended for the US market.

On a budget of about £1,200 Lawson, who gives himself a number of pseudonyms in the credits to suggest a bigger technical cast, does pretty much everything in this film, except act. With the exception of a girl on girl dream sequence it is clear that no two actors share the same space when interacting with each other - a filming technique Lawson prefers for editing purposes. Most of it's filmed in a very cramped flat, and such effects as exist are fairly shonky post production CGI. And yet strangely it works. Another critic has suggested that Lawson is a Fred Olen Ray for these shores, but while there's truth in that there's also something rather George Kuchar-like in the campy acting, domestic settings and the overall loucheness of the production. A lot of that comparison is down to the character of Annie, played by former model Raven Lee; she's kind of fascinating. With her real voice overdubbed by someone who sounds half American, half Serbo Croat, her natural plus sized figure (a nice two fingers up to the parade of pneumatic clones who normally populate movies like this) and her insane eyebrows, she's a voluptuous enigma.

Following this film Lawson made Killer/Saurus (a cut price Jurassic Park but with a proper non CGI puppet T. Rex like what they used to have) and the excellent Survival Instinct, which I was lucky to see on one of its rare big screen outings at the 2015 Derby Film Festival.

But for his latest movie Annie's back in Hellriser, a slightly more ambitious film than The Haunting of Annie Dyer. Also returning from the first film is the character of hard bitten Detective Locke, played effectively by Steve Dolton, a Lawson regular and a bonus for any low budget film, his performance rising above Hellriser's economic constraints. Locke is introduced to a new partner, career pursuing Detective Keyes (Keyes, Locke, geddit?) played by Charlie Bond. Keyes is IT savvy whereas Locke is a dinosaur - they make a watchable pair. Locke is investigating a potential serial killer (seven bodies and counting), the trail leading to an abandoned asylum recently acquired by Dr Unnseine, who has been conducting some rather distasteful medical research. His latest patient is one Annie Dyer, incarcerated following events in the first film, Dyer it seems is the key to Unnseine's real purpose, to unlock the gates of hell. Locke works out that all roads lead to Dyer, but he still refuses to believe, much as he did in the first film, that there's any demonic explanation for what's happening. But yes readers, he's about to be proved wrong.

Hellriser probably didn't cost that much more than Annie Dyer, but it's a lot more ambitious - admittedly this is a relative term. The lighting concept is pretty good (especially the final scenes) and the classic 80s B movie elements (shower scene, dismembered limbs, gag script etc) are all to the fore. Dolton is reliable as ever, there's a laconic performance from Nathan Head as a morgue technician, and Raven Lee is, shall we say, a rather game girl (Lawson must be quite a persuasive director, which is probably a rather loaded comment to make in these post Weinstein times - I'm sure he's a lovely man).

As opposed to Andrew Jones, the other UK film maker whose output eclipses Lawson's but whose pieces tend to be more thoughtful and slow moving, Lawson's films are fun, unpretentious and worth catching. Hellriser is no classic but it's been made with passion, and if you listen to the director's commentary on the DVD, why it just make you feel that it's worth trying to make a movie of your own. And if you do, send it to me why don'cha?

The Snarling (UK 2016: Dir Pablo Raybould)

'The funniest werewolf zom-com you'll never see' is hardly the catchiest promotional line for a film, but in the case of The Snarling, outside of seeing it on the festival circuit it's probably true. Pablo Raybould's debut movie is ragged round the edges, energetic and very funny in a gormless clowning around way. However it's also got rather a lot of uncleared product placement, which would have lorry-loads of lawyers baying for blood the moment the film came anywhere near a production deal.

The Snarling is also only ostensibly a horror film. Most of it is an extended cinematic paean to how rubbish blokes can be, with a rather tacked on werewolf plot and some police procedural stuff. But it is laugh out loud funny, if you're in the mood for unsophisticated comedy.

Greg Lupeen, 'star of over 17 films and the voice of chunky cut crisps', is the actor of the moment, here filming a zombie movie, complete with moaning extras and a harassed production crew. Lupeen's diva-ish ways and treatment of his colleagues is threatening the whole production, already plagued by the disappearance of one or two of the crew under strange circumstances.

The Bromsgrove Three Stooges

Elsewhere in town we meet Mike, Bob and Les, a Bromsgrove Three Stooges who spend most of their time propping up the bar in their local and indulging in the kind of banter that gives the word a bad name. Chief among these is twit-of-the-week Les, who we discover is a dead ringer for Lupeen, which comes in useful when the movie production team get tired of Greg's antics and engineer a quick swap with his lookalike. And it comes in extra handy when Lupeen is fatally incapacitated via a sausage and spotlight accident, and Les is moved to centre stage, with his compadres signing up as zombie extras.

Meanwhile the local police, who consist of a constantly-hungry Detective Inspector (Raybould himself) and his twerp of a sidekick Haskins, very slowly work out that the murders might be carried out by a werewolf. But who could it be? The range of possible suspects brings to mind the 1974 werewolf whodunnit The Beast Must Die, and that's just one of a number of films lampooned in The Snarling - it won't surprise readers that there are also very heavy copyright-infringement strength nods to John Landis's 1981 classic An American Werewolf in London. 

But it's the constant barrage of one liners that keep this one going, as well as the sprightly comic playing by Laurence Sanders, Ben Manning and Chris Simmons as the hapless trio of Les, Bob and Mike (with Sanders doubling up as Lupeen). Mention also should go to Pablo Raybould and Ste Johnston as the incompetent police team. Oddest casting is probably Julie (1983's House of the Long Shadows) Peasgood, showing up as a rather unconvincing ball busting producer and proving that being a friend of the director can have its uses. There's also a bit part for Julia Deakin as a reporter, in honour of her casting in Edgar Wright's 2004 movie Shaun of the Dead, another stylistic influence on this film.

I use this phrase a lot in reviewing, but The Snarling won't be for everyone. It's somewhat shambolically made, and some of the scenes go on far too long - I couldn't work out whether this was intentional in a Mike Myers way - and the relentless gaggery is also a bit exhausting. But you have to give it points for enthusiasm. Comedy horror is hard to get right, and if The Snarling is only remembered for a handful of decent setups then that's more than you can say of many movies that I've sat through recently. Finger in the car park, anyone?