Game of Death (France/Canada/USA 2017: Dir Sebastien Landry, Laurence Morais-Lagace)

Not to be confused with the 1978 Bruce Lee movie of the same name, Landry and Morais-Lagace's film joins a select group of flicks including 2000's Battle Royale, The Belko Experiment from 2016 and 2012's The Hunger Games, featuring stories where people are pitted against each other in a fight to the death.

Game of Death serves up a gaggle of young people hanging around the pool, drinking and kvetching with each other, as young people do; they all seem pretty disposable characters; of which more later. When pizza - and drug - delivery guy Tyler (Erniel Baez) turns up, the group turns on, and discover an octagon-shaped video board game from the 1980s called, appropriately, 'Game of Death.' In a sort of ouija board set-up, the players place their fingers on paddles arranged in a circle around the board, with a video screen in the middle giving instructions; handily there is a perfect match of people to paddles, so everyone gets to play. There is also a written guide to playing the game, which of course is only read after they've started. When the machine is turned on, each of the players gets a pinprick in their fingers; the blood from the prick enters into the machine, and the central screen shows the number 24.

Pretty soon the group realise, after reading said instructions, that they've entered into a devilish contract with the game; the number 24 relates to the amount of people they need to kill to stay alive. And to start things off one of their number, Matt (Thomas Vallieres) suffers the indignity of his head blowing up, Scanners style; if the group don't start killing others, this will start happening to them, one by one.

Game of Death is, at face value, a pretty simple 'kill or be killed' movie, but look beneath the surface and there are some interesting things going on. Much like the aforementioned movies, it's a discourse on how quickly humans can tap into their basest survival instincts when faced with extinction (a running gag, a nature programme playing on various TVs showing the fate of the manatee, suggests that what we're seeing is just another species' fight for survival). The humans in this case show different levels of willingness to clock up the death numbers until they realise that the killing of others is the means of their own continued existence; and a scene towards the end of the movie, where some of the group enter a palliative care hospital to increase the kill count, feels like a humane conclusion to their plight, only to watch them execute both staff and patients alike, randomly.

The 'villain' within this bunch of the terminally unlikeable people is undoubtedly Tom (Sam Earle), a preppy looking guy dressed in white, who is the first to 'get' the rules of the game, forcing Tyler to drive his pizza delivery van over a pedestrian, only for Tom to finish off the victim himself. Later Tom and his friend Beth (Victoria Diamond) separate from the two other remaining survivors , Tyler and Ashley (Emelia Hellman), with both couples determined to remain alive at the expense of the others. The violence here is graphic and mostly achieved via practical effects, but the overall tone borders on the comic (one victim, a park ranger, is played for laughs); as the deaths increase, there's a growing feeling of participating in a live action video game; indeed an 8 bit animated interlude underlines both that feeling and indeed the way in which we're supposed to view the movie.

Game of Death is undoubtedly scrappy and tonally uneven, but at 73 minutes it knows not to outstay its welcome, and its audacious style and queasy gag violence makes it a strange viewing experience. I actually really liked it. Not quite sure why it's taken so long to get released though, in that it already played two UK film festivals in the last couple of years.

Game of Death is released on digital download from 26 November.

Blood Harvest (Canada 2020: Dir Thomas Robert Lee)

Blood Harvest sets its stall out by way of a pre credit crawl: in 1873 a group of families branched out from the Church of Ireland and set up shop in an isolated forest area in North America, eschewing all scientific progress. In 1956 an eclipse presaged a pestilence which spread throughout the community, killing both crops and livestock: only one homestead remained immune, owned by Agatha Earnshaw (Catherine A Dark Song Walker). Earnshaw has remained relatively prosperous, much to the annoyance of the local townsfolk, from whom she is several miles removed. And there's a reason for her continued isolation; she has a daughter, Audrey (Jessica Reynolds), who no-one knows about; Audrey is kept out of sight and hidden in a box loaded on to her wagon, when Agatha needs to go to town.

As the film opens, it's 1973 (and it's quite an M. Night Shyamalan touch to see a village dressed in the clothes of two centuries previously, knowing that elsewhere the Vietnam war rages and there's a crook in the White House); Audrey is 17, growing in independence and becoming tired of being kept out of sight, for example when a local man, Lochlan Bell (Tom Carey) comes to the farm to (unsuccessfully) barter for goods. Later, while guiding her cart through town, Agatha is confronted by angry villagers who have gathered for a funeral. Audrey, in her box, witnesses the confrontation and her mother being struck by one man, Colm Dwyer (Jared Abrahamson) who with his wife Bridget (Hannah Emily Anderson) have just buried their baby boy Liam. But worse is to come; when Audrey is briefly let out of the box she is seen by one of the villagers, Bernard Buckley (Don McKellar); although, in return for the donation of produce by Agatha, he promises not to tell, both women realise that the secret about Audrey will soon be public knowledge.

Audrey is incensed that Agatha wants no revenge against those who have slighted her, as she can draw on great powers; for Agatha is a witch, and the reason for her prosperity - as the villagers gradually starve - is entirely down to supernatural reasons. And so Audrey, who also has powers, possibly even stronger than her mother, takes it upon herself to wreak that revenge, slowly contaminating the villagers, turning them against each other, while all the time becoming more confident and subversive.

I'm guessing that the title Blood Harvest was forced on the film to make it more appealing to VODers scrolling through viewing choices; its original titles 'The Ballad of Audrey Earnshaw' and later 'The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw' are perhaps more descriptive of the slowburn lyrical nature of the movie. And Blood Harvest is a considered piece; while it has moments of violence, much is not shown and the audience has to work to join some of the narrative dots. The themes of an isolated religiously ostracised rural community trying to eke out a living surrounded by towering dense forests, and a whiff of witchcraft, both bring to mind Robert Eggers' 2015 film The Witch (although Lee's movie is far more upfront about the uncanny elements).

The sense of a once God fearing community feeling that the same God has abandoned them, and their lack of salvation once Audrey's revenge takes hold, is occasionally very painful to watch, particularly as the 'justice' is unrelenting and sometimes savagely drawn out. Splitting the film into four sections: Incantation; Descent; Fallout; and Spring encases the story in ritual, much as the village farmers have geared their lives, with ever diminishing returns, to the cycle of the seasons. I really liked this movie; full of passionate and impassioned performances, by turn quiet and nuanced and shocking and ugly.

Signature Entertainment presents Blood Harvest on DVD and Digital HD from Monday 16th November

10 more great Halloween novelty songs

DEoL's readers will recall that last year, on the final day of the annual Halloween Badvent calendar, I posted links to 10 of my favourite Halloween novelty songs. Well, by popular request, here's ten more to get the Halloween party going.

#10 - The Beast of Sunset Strip - Teddy Durant - this is the B-side of Durant's only 45, all the way from 1965 (the A-ide was 'The Night Stalker', which is also great and worth checking out). 'The Beast' has three writing credits, namely Mr Durant, Darrel Dee and one C. Francis, popularly believed to be the Coleman Francis, legendary director of 1961's The Beast of Yucca Flats starring Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson and guest actor in a number of Ray Dennis Steckler movies (Teddy was also the publicist for this flick). Anyway, as well as being released on 45, it was also included as a track on the superb 1967 compilation LP 'Mondo Hollywood' (the soundtrack to the Robert Carl Cohen film of the same name, in which Teddy appears as himself conducting an interview) credited to 'Terry & Darrell' with the writing credits including 'T. Charach', apparently Teddy's real surname, his first being Theodore. In real life Darrel (real name Daryl) was actually Teddy's brother: they recorded a spoof album called 'These Are the Hits, You Silly Savage!!' in 1967, which included covers of songs like 'These Boots Are Made for Walking' and 'Strangers in the Night'. Anyway, I digress. This is two minutes and twenty five seconds about monster drag racers, and it's a weird blast:

#9 - Cha Cha with the Zombies - The Upperclassmen - all the way from Inglewood, California come The Upperclassmen, a four piece doo-wop group active from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when two members, Ritchie Rotkin and Arnie Marcus, split off to form The Rip Chords, who had a smash hit a few years later with 1964's 'Hey Little Cobra.' Anyhow, this song dates from 1959, and feels like the kind of tune you should be mixing a cocktail to, while firmly ensconced in your tiki bar:

#8 - Rockin' in the Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar - Willie Morrell Sr was born in Florida in 1938. By the time he was signed in 1957, his agent had given him his new 'Morningstar' title - and in 1959, he recorded his one and only single under that name. But Morningstar wasn't some dyed in the wool psych-rocker, despite what the song might sound like. 'Rockin' in the Graveyard' was the B-side to a soppy number called 'No Date' putting it very much in the novelty record category. But one listen to those primitive drums and scratchy guitar confirms, along with the background howls and screams, that this is one outta sight song. Written by Morrell himself, this is a blatant attempt to cash in on similar songs by selling "a million copies too." (hence his reference to Sheb Wooley's 'Purple People Eater' from the year previously).

By 1967, Morningstar had been dropped and he was plain ole Willie Morrell again, releasing a single entitled 'Brother, I'm Gettin' Ready' backed with 'I'm Making Plans to Be With Jesus.' Sadly those plans would have to wait until 2006 when Morrell died in obscurity at the age of 68, not knowing that his hit had sold more than a million copies via 7" re-releases and on numerous Halloween compilations:

#7 - Rockin' Bones - Ronnie Dawson - little Ronnie Dawson, with his blond buzzcut and high pitched voice, was 19 when he broke on the scene in 1959, first with the rather perky 'My Big Desire', which was followed by a must hear rousing little number called 'Action Packed' which found a whole new audience when it was featured on the soundtrack of Season 6 of The Walking Dead. His third single that year was the fabulous 'Rockin' Bones', all about a musician who, when he dies, wants first to be buried with his rock and roll records, then changes his mind and wants his body to be hung on a wall to show "the rotting gears of a bopping machine" (surely one of the finest lines ever heard on a rock 'n' roll single). Originally recorded in 1957 by Elroy Dietzel and The Rhythm Bandits (who recorded it rather differently), 'Rockin' Bones' was later covered by The Cramps, who reverted to Dietzel's version. Dawson revived his musical career in the 1980s, and his song 'Rockin' in the Cemetery', recorded in 1989, is also worth checking out:

#6 - The Monsters Hop - Bert Convy - Convy started off his extensive career as a singer in the 1950s and 1960s before branching out to become an actor in musical theatre (he was in the cast of Roger Corman's 1959 movie A Bucket of Blood) and then finally a game show host in the 1960s and 1970s. As a member of vocal group 'The Cheers' in 1955 he had a Top 10 hit with 'Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots.' 

The Monsters Hop, backed with 'The Gorilla' (also good but not really seasonal), was Convy's third, er, wax, released in 1958 and co-written by Convy and Robert Emenegger. I really like the song's driving beat and there's some great sax work combined with background weirdness. The B-side does include a reference to 'The Purple People Eater' but I'm still not including it.

#5 - The Monster - Bobby Please - probably one of the most batshit insane Halloween novelty records out there, and interesting not just for Please's execution (and the fact that the song kind of runs away from him at one point) but the very story specific nature of the lyrics, almost as if this was a sequel to an earlier song about his creation of the Frankenstein monster. Released in 1959 by 'Bobby Please and the Pleasers' as an A-side (the B-side was the more straightforward dance craze themed 'The Switch'). A Billboard review at the time concluded that 'the flip appears the money item.' Yeah, what do they know? Oh and two years before this Please had recorded a single titled 'Your Driver's License Please' in which he is harassed by the man when he's just trying to get frisky. No I know nothing about this bloke so I'm just padding the paragraph out with some random facts.

#4 - The Mortal Monster Man - The Savoys - The Savoys hailed from San Jose, California, and played throughout the bay area during the late 50s and early 60s.They comprised Albert Richie (lead vocals, piano), Beverly Soares (vocals, percussion), Chris Ray (lead guitar, vocals) and Bruce Hird (rhythm guitar, vocals). Their total output was three 7" singles between 1959 and 1960. The B-side of this 1959 single, called 'Watching the Sea,' emphasised the close harmony origins of the group, but the A-side comes from a different place altogether. From the slightly out of tune start to the singer's gruff oration about his rock and roll credentials, the more up tempo sound is possibly due to the addition of 'The Bella Tones,' the house band of Bella (the record label), on the disc.

#3 - Transylvania Twist - Baron Daemon and the Vampires - to 1963 we go for Number 3 in the chart. The bastardised Bela Lugosi impersonation adopted by Mr Daemon was the voice he used to make his living. For the Baron, or Mike Price to give him his birth name, was a popular TV horror host. His career started in radio, but Mike is best known for his "Good News" segment on WSYR 9 news on weeknights. Baron Daemon was a vampire-like character who hosted a late night movie show. He also became the host of a weekday afternoon children's show from 1962-1967. Price just retired in June 2008, but back in 1963, this record was a huge hit in the Syracuse area. The backing band on the record, The Vampires, were actually Sam and The Twisters, led by Sam Amato. Here's the Baron, socking it to 'em in 1993 where he revived the character (and the song) for one night only.

#2 - The Headless Horseman - Kay Starr - a version of this song, sung by Bing Crosby, was used in the 1949 Disney movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Catherine Laverne Starks aka Kay Starr covered the song at around the same time, with slightly different lyrics. It was never released as a single and first cropped up on a 1998 compilation. There are no details of who wrote the song, but it's a favourite from childhood, so it's rather baffling how I remembered it from being a kid.

#1 - Dinner with Drac - John Zacherle - horror hosts weren't a feature of TV when I was growing up, mainly because any fright flicks shown on UK television were programmed way after the watershed, where adults wouldn't have really enjoyed a wisecracking thesp yacking on and on when all they wanted to do was watch the movie.

In the US of course it was a very different scene, with local TV stations needing personalities to draw ratings, and with 'creature features' regularly broadcast during the daylight hours. One of the most famous was John Zacherle, who between 1957 and 1960 hosted two different late night horror shows, 'Shock Theater' and 'Zacherley at Large.' Initially, he played 'Roland,' a ghoul who performed skits in-between moments in the film while speaking to his wife, a character who never exited her coffin. In 1958 he moved from Philadelphia's WCAU to New York's WABC, where he changed his name from Roland to Zacherley (the station added the "y" to his last name), and his show continued as if nothing was new.

Zacherle was also a recording star, releasing four albums and a number of novelty singles, of which 'Dinner with Drac' was the loopiest, and broke into the Billboard Top 10. To be honest, you probably only need to listen to one Zacherle song (they were all pretty much a muchness) but this is fine, fine, nonsense.

Happy Halloween...whatever you are!

The Demonic Tapes: The Podcast

I'm a big fan of the work of Richard Mansfield, from his short shadow films to his low budget but extremely atmospheric features. Mansfield is unafraid to embrace new media, and the pandemic lockdown presented him with the opportunity to do something a little different: a podcast which links to his Demonic Tapes films.

Mansfield explains: 

"The Demonic Tapes: The Podcast follows medium and paranormal investigator Jonathan West as he records his cases on audio cassette. The podcast is presented as found footage giving the listener the experience of rifling through Jonathan's cassettes and piecing the adventure together. Season 1 is called 'The Man without a Face' and is based on a ghostly experience I had a year ago working in a haunted office. The series was written by me and Adam Wootton during lockdown over Facetime calls, the cast recorded their scenes over Zoom meetings on their phones and emailed me the audio files so it was a true quarantine production!

Season 2 is in Post production at the moment and will be released before Christmas. Season 2 will follow Jonathan's Mother Eleanor West as she investigates the haunting of Varley Grange in 1973."


Here are the links to it on various podcasting platforms and it's also available on Youtube. I can't recommend it highly enough, biased as I am because of my liking of Mansfield's work, but there's a real cleverness to the build up of the story that unfolds over the episodes. Perfect for Halloween. Or any dark night really!

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-demonic-tapes-the-podcast/id1534848806
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1Bd1xmOr8OPrwcpniyg7jN
Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL3RoZWRlbW9uaWN0YXBlcy9mZWVkLnhtbA
Podbean https://thedemonictapes.podbean.com/e/the-demonic-tapes-the-podcast-promo/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLXEeXdKo_ClP-aB2h8MPZYHEFLYErzmH

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #10: Reviews of The Haunting of Margam Castle (UK 2020), Devil in the Woods (UK 2020), Witches of Amityville (UK 2020), House of Shadows (UK 2020), Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night (UK 2020) and Awakening the Nun (UK 2020)

The Haunting of Margam Castle (UK 2020: Dir Andrew Jones) Jones is back! His third release this year (a fourth, A Killer Next Door, has yet to surface on these shores), after The Cabin Murders and The Jonestown Haunting; this guy certainly does churn them out.

A US team, headed by doctors Annie Holzer (Amy Quick) and Daniel Barron (Ashton Spear) are carrying out expensive studies in ESP and parapsychology within a New York academic facility. But their funding is about to be curtailed by Dean Michaels (Garrick Hagon) unless they start generating a bit of publicity for the college; and he has the perfect solution. He wants the team to travel to Wales for a day (!) to investigate Margam Castle, which has a history of hauntings, and capture a ghost on camera, whether or not they have to fake the footage.

Now it's worth mentioning at this stage that Margam Castle is a real place in Wales. It's open to the public, mainly in the form of overnight ghost hunts, so bizarrely Jones's film is like a kind of extended publicity brochure for the pile. He even includes the ghost who's said to haunt the place within his screenplay, hence the 'Based on a true story' strap accompanying the film.

So the team travel from New York to Wales, stopping off en route at a 'friendly' Welsh pub for an extended chat with the landlady (Caroline Munro, the first of many british horror actresses from back in the day who put in an appearance here) for a culturally confusing conversation about what exactly goes into a welsh rarebit. The air cools a little when the group announce where they're headed; another Brit horror lady, Judy Matheson, is also on hand to ominously warn: "they're waiting for you. They've always been waiting."

When they arrive they meet the owner Hugh Morgan (Derren Nesbitt, pretty sprightly at 85, and last seen being brilliant as a drag artist in 2018's Tucked) who is accompanied by Edith Withers (Jane Hands of the Ripper Merrow), a medium, who rabbits on about the Pendle Witches and Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General. Morgan gives an account of the history of the house (which actually is the history of Margam Castle), and its ghosts; a woman and her daughter, who died in a domestic tragedy, and Robert Scott, a gamekeeper with a filthy temper, who dies in an altercation with a trespasser.

For most of the movie, things move very slowly; something Jones is a dab hand at, which you'll know if you've seen any of his other films. But the last third, where the psychic phenomena kicks off, is quite un Jones like: it's actually quite exciting and spooky. I won't say any more but The Shining was clearly an influence on story development.

Despite the usual pacing problems (something that affects most of his films) and English actors doing US accents with varying degrees of skill, I did like the atmosphere in this one, helped enormously by the location, which is skilfully lit and photographed, and a bigger than usual budget. There's a lot of stories within stories which enriches the plot, and while the last third is rather bonkers it's great fun ("Psychological warfare!" exclaims Withers at one point). No points though for brandishing a copy of the Necronomicon, which, rather than the fabled 'Book of the Dead' mentioned in HP Lovecraft's writing, is actually a volume of HP's stories given that title on the cover. Oops!

Devil in the Woods (UK 2020: Dir Terence Elliott) - Four young students, Tess (Francesca Howe), her friend Julian (Dan Wale), and their other friends Jen (Amy Joy) and Chris (Alex Sleigh), have come together to make a final year film for their media studies course. None of them really know what they're doing, although Tess and Julian are serious about the project; Chris on the other hand is a hopeless stoner and his friend Jen is easily led.

Tess has been working on a screenplay for her sister Alison (Dani Thompson) so clearly has some skills in the script department; no surprise then that when the roles are allocated, she's the scriptwriter, Jen's the director, Chris is the producer and Julian is the editor because he's good with computers.

Elsewhere in the town of Dunwich (yep!) the police are dealing with the disappearance of a young man, Duncan (Glenn White). Duncan's dad Russell, a nasty bit of work who's just been released from prison for assaulting a police officer, has been up to his old tricks again, and after taking out another copper he runs off into the woods - yep, the same woods in which our four are planning to shoot their film. But Russell has even darker plans; he's laid his hands on some black magic texts and is keen to summon up a demon or two. But guess what? He needs a sacrifice. As Tess, Julian, Jen and Chris soldier on making their movie (which Chris wants to turn from a drama into a found footage horror), the forces of evil are summoned. Who will survive?

Devil in the Woods was shot overlapped with Elliott's other film this year, Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night, reviewed below. Both used some of the same cast and crew and were filmed in the New Forest (the Hampshire area seems to be a hotbed of local Brit horror filmmaking, rather like the Kidderminster House of Horror). This is, be warned, a very rough round the edges production, which is blessed with an extraordinary orchestral score from Andriy Sovetov which is lush, impressive, really loud (at times it drowns out the dialogue) and really pretty inappropriate for a low budget movie based around a living room, and office and a patch of woodland.

But did I like it? Well yes, actually. The cast are, I'm guessing, not professional, and a lot of the 70 minute movie is spent watching the four students trying to get it together. But once they reach the woods, and the horror kicks in, this is pretty impressive stuff, surprisingly nasty and gory and with a downbeat ending I wasn't expecting. As you'll know the NWoTFF reviews are here to celebrate the low/no budget world of independent British horror film making, and there is, as I've mentioned before, just no point holding Devil in the Woods up against a bigger budgeted film - or even The Haunting of Margam Castle, come to that. But from little acorns do mighty oaks grow, and so I say well done Mr Elliott, cast and crew (what there is of them) and let's see some more.

Witches of Amityville (UK 2020: Dir Rebecca Matthews) Another prolific director in the field is Ms Matthews, this being her third feature in 2020 after The Candy Witch and Bad Nun: Deadly Vows which is reviewed below.

In a prologue, set at at some imprecise point in history, three witches are strung up and hanged. Cut to the present day, and two burglars target a house where three women live alone - but they've bitten off more than they can chew. The three women are witches (the same witches we saw in the prologue); Lucy (Donna Spengler), Sam (Kira Reed Lorsch) and Elena (Brittan Taylor). They use their powers on the burglars, wiping their memories by the power of suggestion to avoid being discovered. "Can I keep him?" one of them asks playfully.

Meanwhile young Jessica (Sarah T. Cohen) has been offered a place at the local academy, studying drama and the arts, which is nearby to the witches' house. She meets the head of the school, the indomitable Dominique Markham (Amanda-Jade Tyler) who asks Jessica to sign a rather ancient looking contract in order to be enrolled: "Sign, and belong to something," Miss Markham urges. One of the other students spies on Jessica in the shower and confirms to the Head that she has a tattoo of three horns on her back. Later that night Jessica is snatched from her bed and brought in front of the coven, headed up by Dominique, who we just knew was bad. Things don't look so good for Jessica, but she's rescued by the three witches we met earlier; it seems that they are white witches whose powers are used for good or defence, whereas Dominique represents the dark side, and her plan involves getting hold of Jessica, who is also a witch with incredible powers, as a means of bargaining with a demon called Botis (Toby Wynn-Davis). 

Matthews is known for making rather chaste horror movies, and this is definitely PG friendly; no swearing, little violence and definitely no nudity (something which other filmmakers would definitely have introduced bearing in mind the setup, and the fact that one of the witches (Reed Lorsch) has a porn past). But the fact that all three of them are American women of a certain age gives their characters much more gravitas than English actors trying on fake US accents. Their presence does, however, show up the prosaic nature of the film's locations; having lots of talk from seasoned actors while sitting in the living room of a suburban English semi does rather cool the mood, no matter how many candles the set dresser lights (and it's a lot); more gothic would have been better. 

Matthews' film is a bit of The Craft, a bit of the remade Suspiria (one scene is a direct steal) and a little American Horror Story: Coven. It's ambitious, competent and moves at a reasonable pace, but I'm still not convinced that Matthews knows what to do with her actors. The presence of professionals Spengler, Reed Lorsch and Taylor slightly transcend this problem, but Cohen is left to do a lot of standing around and the movie still has points where it almost grinds to a halt. But I liked the imagination on display; and a final scene which hints at a possible Stateside sequel will be interesting.

The House of Shadows (UK 2020: Dir Nicholas Winter) Not 'House of Shadows' as it states on the DVD cover, nor 'The House Beyond Time' as the end credits suggest (although that title is probably more accurate), this is Nicholas Winter's third film for 2020 after Bone Breaker and A Dark Path. Sarah (Romanian actress Elena Delia sporting a pretty good American accent) inherits a house after the death of her thought to be penniless mother, to whom Sarah has a strong resemblance. She takes up residence with her boyfriend Jared (Luke Bailey) in her newly inherited gaff. Oddly the house's location is Spain (something not referred to in the script) which tonally jars.

Sorting through her mother's things, she finds a notebook filled with crude drawings and messages like "What have I unleashed?" Good question. One evening Sarah receives a phone message from her sister Megan (Yvonne Mai) which sends her into a bit of a tizz; understandably as Megan died five years previously. The property's housekeeper, the rather odd Anna Sofia (Harriet Madeley), tells Sarah that Megan is in great pain and that something has control over the house, a spirit who preys on the weak and collects souls. Determined to remain, Sarah and Jared realise that a presence has indeed invaded their lives, and it has the power not only to mess with people but indeed time itself.

For most of The House of Shadows' running time very little happens; much of the drama is derived from the tense relationship between Sarah, Jared and Anna Sofia, and Delia, Bailey and Madeley are all effective in their roles. The last third of the movie is where it gets tricksy and, sadly, more than a little confusing. But it's an ambitious attempt to make a haunted house movie that's a little different to the endless walking along corridors/jump scares outings, even if I could have done with a little more pep in the thing. 

Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night (UK 2020: Dir Peter Goddard, Terence Elliott) It's helpful, but not essential, for you to have seen Goddard and Sam Mason-Bell's first 'Harvest of the Dead' movie, 2015's, er, Harvest of the Dead, which introduces the viewer to some of the more out there plot points in Goddard and Elliott's sequel.

This is a movie that starts with one of the cast topless and ends with, well, the end of the human race. Sally (Dani Thompson) is preparing for a Halloween party. Meanwhile nearby out on the moors a blood covered woman crawls away from danger. She's assisted by a passer by who takes her back to her car, but before she can drive off, a masked man - The Plague Doctor (Elliott himself) and a woman in a hospital gown with horrible facial scars attack and kill both women, one of whom is beheaded in a rather impressive bit of latex work. When the police discover their bodies they think that the murders may be the work of one Trent Hodder, who was tried for his crimes but got off on a technicality. The policemen, porn addict Detective Bava (Dean Jovi) and Detective Faust (Kevin Hallett) are managed by the ball busting Wes Mason (Lee Macdonald, who older readers will remember as Zammo from Grange Hill, and who was also in the first film.)

The party slowly gets going but is frankly a little lame. Sally's nice friend Laurie Pleasence (Rebecca Jean) comes round to help and her awful friend Tia (Abby Wareham) turns up without costume or booze - her ex Ben (Matt Brackstone) is also due, but he doesn't know he's an ex yet: Tia's that kind of girl, and she makes immediate moves on another party guest, Josh (Nicholas Pearce), who's waiting for his girlfriend Melissa (Hannah Coley) who was in the 2015 movie.

The Plague Doctor makes it to Sally's house and hides upstairs, gradually despatching the party guests who want to use the loo or indulge in some seasonal rumpy pumpy.

But behind this all is a mad doctor, Henry Moore, struck off because of his insistence on messing with body parts, who has a grand plan involving transforming humans into zombies and summoning a race of ancient beings, 'The Old Ones.' Sally's party house becomes a house of horror as the zombies also arrive, and no-one is safe.

Whew, it's all in this one! Halloween Night is terrific fun, quite a step up from the already rather bonkers 2015 original. The vaguely Lovecraft-esque story arc with the mad Moore is nuts, sitting awkwardly with the soap style drama of the partygoers' various tiffs and romances. I get the feeling that this was a lot of fun to make. One of the zombies is filmed laughing and several keep looking at the camera (their numbers swell the cast list); the gore scenes are impressive and properly old school splattery, and the script offers up some nice 'story within a story' moments. 

While the events are set at Halloween (although the house's internal decorations only seem to comprise a couple of signs and a cobweb), the night street scenes clearly show Christmas decorations on some of the houses, and there's a few script gaffes along the way (notably Macdonald, who says 'parameters' instead of 'perimeters' at one point); also using names like 'Bava', 'Hodder' and 'Pleasance' is a bit old hat these days.

But you know what? It does not matter; in fact this stuff endeared me to the film even more. And the good news is that the final scene suggests there might be a sequel, and I am so up for that. Well done people - very entertaining.

Awakening the Nun aka The Watcher 2 aka Bad Nun: Deadly Vows (UK 2020: Dir Scott Jeffrey, Rebecca Matthews) Matthews' second movie in this round up is the sequel to last year's Satanic Nun aka The Watcher aka The Bad Nun, directed by Jeffrey. 

Becca Hirani (aka director Matthews using her 'actor' name) returns (briefly) as Aesha Wadia from the first instalment. For those who haven't seen it, Wadia is a University student who encountered the titular nun while on a getaway in a B&B. Wadia learns that the nun has a more prosaic identity than first thought; it's Dan, ostensible owner of the B&B, who was abused by people of the cloth as a child and now dresses as a nun. Wadia escapes with her life, but as the sequel opens she's trying to make a new life, before being cruelly despatched by the returning nun in the first ten minutes.

A new group of victims, the Seers family, move into a house in the countryside (Norfolk doubling for the Cotswolds): gran Pam (Nicola Wright), mum Mandy, who has separated from her husband following his repeated infidelity (Stephanie Lodge), and her daughter, university student Cathy (Sarah T. Cohen ); oh and their Pomeranian, Julie. Things begin quickly: while Mandy's out getting a takeaway, the nun turns up announcing that she's Sister Cindy Lamb (voiced by genre regular Kate Milner-Evans) and that she's brought them a moving in gift. They wisely refuse to open the door but the nun leaves her present; a basket of maggot infected biscuits.

The arrival of Sister Cindy gives Pam the wim wams, and no wonder; her past is directly linked to the nun and to the events of the first film. 

Mandy meets the neighbours, Ted (Ricardo Freitas) and his daughter Nancy (Chelsea Greenwood), who Pam thinks would make a nice partner for the sapphically inclined Cathy - progressive grandparent! Meanwhile Pam tries to find out what's going on. She visits the local church and asks about the nun, but the local vicar, who's a bit shifty himself, thinks Pam looks familiar, and that she might be....Cindy Lamb!

Meanwhile the phantom nun proceeds to 'haunt' the Seers family as Pam gradually falls apart and plucky Cathy starts to put the facts together, after she receives a phone call telling her that her family aren't wanted in the area. Events escalate, with the entire family under threat from forces that may either be supernatural...or very real.

By the end of the movie the plot has rather cleverly merged the stories of the two 'Nun' films, but it does leave the question as to why Pam should have allowed her family to have moved to the area in the first place, knowing what she knew and what we find out. Nevertheless I enjoyed the peeling away of the 'onion skin' layers of the story, and the cast do a good job of ratcheting up the tension. Production wise Awakening the Nun avoids the 'flatness' of many similar low budget productions by concentrating on the actors rather than the English Country Cottage rental in which they are acting; good use is made of the countryside too, but I'm afraid that the 'ghost' nun, whose look is clearly borrowed from the infamous Armchair Thriller figure, is way too athletic to be spooky. Good fun though.

Dead (New Zealand 2020: Dir Hayden J.Weal)

Weal's second feature mines the 'I see dead people' shtick of 1999's The Sixth Sense and the supernatural cop buddy antics of movies like 1988's Dead Heat and R.I.P.D. from 2013.

Marbles (Thomas Sainsbury), a seemingly hopeless stoner, peddles an unusual service; he can see and talk to the recently departed when they are in a limbo state prior to arriving at their final destination, as it were. This means that loved ones of the newly deceased can have one last conversation with them, mediated via Marbles. The gift is actually chemically generated; he discovered the ability after combining a dose of his late father's prescription drugs and marijuana, which by practice he has distilled into a serum with which he injects himself, giving roughly one hour of veil lifting per hit.

Two events occur that set him on his future course: one, his mother decides to sell the family farm and move on, much to Marbles' distress. He's given a chance to buy it but has to come up with $150,000 pronto; second, the spirit of a murdered policeman, Officer Jason Tagg (Weal) contacts Marbles to ask his help to track down Tagg's killer. Marbles is initially reluctant but the ghost's offer to cut him in on his life assurance payout would provide the cash he now needs, to, pardon the pun, buy the farm.

Marbles is aided in his task by Tagg's still alive foster sister Yana (Tomai Ihaia), who was assisting Tagg prior to his death with the tracking of a serial killer in the city. Yana, an alcoholic lawyer, is housebound with a tracking device after a drink drive conviction. The killer's previous victims have all been gay and Tagg, who was gay himself, remains convinced that, although murdered in the line of duty, he was targeted. 

Dead has a good heart. It's an occasionally sweet, amiable film and while its plot may meander, it takes us to some good places. The team of Tagg and Marbles does what all good cinematic partnerships should do; underscore mutual affection with a load of bickering. The humour is often hit and miss, and the gay scenes are played for laughs but none of this is cruelly intended. And there's some interesting little bits of supernatural lore, like the rot that sets into ghostly bodies if they spend too much time in limbo. 

Weal, on director, co-writer and actor duties has arguably stretched himself a bit thin here, but the strength of his cast bring it to the finish line, and one or two scenes are so funny and well observed that they bode well for the guy's next film.


Dead will be available on Digital Download from 27th October. 

Report from the 2020 Mayhem Festival (Skeleton Edition)

Guest reviewer Satu Sarkas-Bosman gave us the lowdown on Nottingham's Mayhem Film Festival back in 2018, and I'm pleased to include her roundup of the slimmed down 2020 Festival, which was founded in 2005 by film makers Steven Sheil and Chris Cooke, and has evolved into a marvellous mixture of horror, science fiction and cult cinema.

What a strange year this has been so far, our usual horror gatherings and festivals are all on hold or reach us online, therefore it was a pleasant surprise that Chris Cooke and Steven Sheil decided to go ahead with a much pared down version of the usual four day feast. Three feature films and one short film showcase over 4 evenings; it was sold out, suitably distanced and even our facemasks did not dampen the atmosphere.

The first Festival offering was Boys from County Hell directed by Chris Baugh (The Captors, Bad Day for the Cut) and his tale of an ancient Irish vampire. This horror comedy introduces us Eugene (Jack Rowan) and his father (Nigel O'Neill) and their fractious relationship. Eugene, together with his friends Claire (Louisa Harland) and William (Fra Fee), portray brilliantly the utter boredom of being stuck in a small village.

Eugene's father's freeway construction project causes plenty of bad feeling in the village, especially since it will destroy the cairn where the legendary Abhartach, a vampire like creature, allegedly sleeps.

Tragedy ensues resulting in blood being spilled and the creature waking from its slumber. There is plenty of bloody kills, humour and a particularly satisfying looking creature. Refreshingly there is no stake through the heart, crosses or any of the usual armoury when battling bloodsucking creatures.

The cast is excellent, the story moves on in a satisfying pace and gives you a fun way to spend an October evening.

Unfortunately I missed Psycho Goreman the latest offering from Steven Kostanski, former Astron-6 member and the director of The Void and Manborg. I heard, from a reliable source, that if you are a fan of his work this will not disappoint you.

The third evening gave us Mayhem's 'Shorts Showcase' which is always close to my heart. Troll (Dan Lord) and Heat (Thessa Meijer) gave us truly short and delightful bites. Behind the Door (Andres Borghi) is a familiar story of the consequences of a desire to speak to the dead. As for the rest:

Dead End (Jack Shillingford) gives you a shiny Landrover, foggy atmosphere and a werewolf: enough said.

Peter the Penguin (Andrew Rutter) appealed to my sense of the surreal, especially if you like penguins...

Changeling (Faye Jackson) dealt with motherhood, transformation with an intriguing atmosphere but part of the soundtrack was so high-pitched that you wished for it to be all over.

There Will Be Monsters (Carlota Pereda) was a clear statement of what should happen to those who attempt to take advantage of a very drunk woman.

Ferine (Andrea Corsini) unfortunately was my least favourite of the night, a very predictable take on a feral existence.

No one is Coming (Matthew and Nathaniel Barber) had that 80's feel to it, a lone woman (or is she..?) in a remote cottage.

Muse (Azhur Saleem) was a very well put together mix of sci-fi and decay: I would gladly have the paintings featured on my own wall. What indeed happened to those visiting the artist's home?

Abracitos (Tony Morales) had a feel of a Spanish ghost story; a phone call in the middle of the night shakes the world of the two sisters.

Farce (Robin Jensen) had a lot say about greed, decadence, large penises and true love. Sami man is determined to save his reindeer herd and have the woman his heart desires.

Live Forever (Gustav Egerstedt) was a musical number where the victims of horror films can tell you in a song the reason for their demise. This is great if you ever want a sing-a-long at a horror festival.

And finally...

This was the absolute highlight for me, The Oak Room (Cody Calahan) is adapted from Peter Genoway's stage play and beautifully written. The atmosphere from the outset draws you in.

There is a snow storm outside and when Steve (RJ Mitte) walks in to the bar, Paul the bartender (Peter Outerbridge) is not happy to see him. There are two distinct storylines here, happening in two separate bars and the finale links these tales together. I am not going to reveal the story here at all since all of it is interlinking and significant in its own way. 

This film is driven by a dialogue, the kind of storytelling you can expect when someone can really spin a yarn. It is evocative, engrossing and yet the characters feel very human. The acting is excellent; Peter Outerbridge, RJ Mitte, Ari Millen, Nicholas Campbell and Martin Roach all provide strong performances. 

The soundtrack is extremely effective and parts of it reminded me of the powerful tunes of Sicario. This film also made me think of Pontypool; it has the same feeling of a dark tones, suspense and uncertainty of the outcome.