Movie Review - Edgar Allan Poe's "Lighthouse Keeper"

Edgar Allan Poe's "Lighthouse Keeper" (2016)

Thunder Entertainment / Millman Productions

8.5 / 10

To all of the people involved in this movie, which if you waited to the credits isn't very many, thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU, for making such a beautiful movie.

This has to be the most visually beautiful horror movie I have ever seen and it was a joy and a pleasure to watch.  I cannot tell how close to Poe's original story it kept to, though it has given me an incentive to root out my copy of Poe's tales and have a read, which is a marvellous bonus.

The story is set somewhere between the 1930's and the 1960's and the sets have been expertly set to give you the exact right feel.  There's hardly any knick knacks in the lighthouse, as these times were a less clutter-some place.  The only tech in the house is a gramophone; the lights are candles and oil burners; the stove is an iron wood burner; even the spices in the rack are in tins.  This alone is a nice touch; right down to the costumes.

The story is a slow burner which starts out as a smouldering ember and works into an all out forest fire.  There are three major characters; The Lighthouse Keeper, Walsh, portrayed brilliantly by veteran actor Vernon Wells. giving a believable performance as a man who, though not happy to be alone, has adapted to the solitude of being by himself, making him gruff, argumentative, and self-righteous.  J. P. played nicely by Matt O'Neill, is the sole survivor of a storm washed up on the Lighthouse's beach.  While waiting for the ferry to take him off the island strange things occur to him, he hears voices, bumps into a strange and mysterious woman, and wonders why the candles have to remain lit.  Rachel Riley gives a good performance as Nora, the mysterious woman who lives in the woods on the island and fall in love with J. P., though she may have something to do with the lighthouse keeper.

Benjamin Cooper does a fantastic job of unravelling the dark secrets of the characters; and though their secrets are very very dark Cooper makes a bold decision to shoot the majority of the movie in glorious daylight.  The scenery is so colourful and attractive I wanted to become the lighthouse keeper.  The camera shots are artistic and engaging.  I loved the fact that you could also see everything in the night shots; there was either moonlight or candlelight, which added to the great depth of the filmography (something you don't usually rate in a horror movie).  There were a couple of scene's that were jarred and disjointed, but I can forgive that because all the rest are so well done.

If you like ghost stories filled with mysteries and a few twists then I would recommend this.  When the movie started I thought I wouldn't like it, the rain in the storm was fake and it was a period piece.  Though, as the film progressed I became impressed with everything about the story and movie, to the point where this is now one of my favourite horror films.

Movie Review - Bornless Ones

Bornless Ones (2016)

Black Drone Media : Uncork'd Entertainment

6.75 / 10

Isn't it just the case, after I moan about dull and boring new horror movies something comes along to prove me wrong... and boy am I glad to be wrong, I just hope this isn't the exception.

Bornless Ones surprised the hell out of me.  This is a real budget film; there's only one production company and one distribution company.  So my hopes were not too high, to begin with.

What you get is a pretty decent story based around the occult with daemons taking possession of the living under the guise of helping.  Though this has been done a few times the addition of the possessed secrets coming out and giving the daemons the capability to torment and torture their prey is a nice twist, which adds to the strength of the story.

Another bonus, for me and the film, is the actors.  Though most are not well known, except maybe for Austrailian Mark Furze for his stint on Home and Away, they all give sterling performances.

Michael Johnston gives a great performance as a cerebral palsy suffer, Zack, who seems to recover from the incurable illness.

Margaret Judson portrays Emily, Zack's sister, who is now charged with looking after him after their mother dies in a fire during a car crash.  She is believable as a sister under stress and strain while trying, so hard, do the right thing, even though it negatively affects her relationship with her husband.

Devin Goodsell plays Jesse, Emily's husband, who, not only suffering the new stress of looking after Zack and the relationship trouble it brings, is also having work problems and has been suspended from his teaching position.

Mark Furze and Bobby T personate their friends Woodrow and Michelle.  Mark Furze is very believable as an American Jock who will do anything to help his friend and girlfriend.  Bobby T is also a talented actress who gives a more than credible performance.

These are actors and actresses to watch out for.  If I could make a film, I would consider these five in the running.

The credit for the story and its screen depiction goes to the writer and director Alexander Babaev.  He does a nice thing of including daemons into the occult, along with their sigils and symbols.  I have a cold shiver of dread when I see the writer and the director are one in the same because, in my experience, it hardly ever makes for a good film.  However, like I stated at the start of the review, I am glad to be wrong.  With this film, Babaev has me committed to watching his next movie, should there be one... and I hope there is.

There are some decent special effects in this film as they use wet-work, most of the time.  The only bad effect is the CGI Guardians, as these are spirits made out of mist, they just don't look as realistic as they should, luckily they don't detract from the film too much as they're only onscreen for a few seconds; though they are memorable for the wrong reasons.

For all the Horror Fans out there I would recommend this as a late night view, grab a beer and settle down for a decent movie.

Movie Review - The Relic

The Relic (1997)

British Broadcasting Corporation / Cloud Nine Entertainment / Pacific Western / Paramount Pictures / Polygram Filmed Entertainment / Universal Pictures : Lions Gate Films

7.5 / 10

With some of the dire, drab and boring horror movies which are getting good credit and reviews it was nice to jump in a time machine, thanks to terrestrial television (and the Horror Channel), and see how horror should be done.

This was a breath of fresh air especially after watching The Babadook.

Though there's a lot of action in the film and a smidgen of science fiction there's more elements of horror.  There's an occult/religious angle, there's a demonic beast on the hunt for its next victim, which it dispatches in a very nasty way indeed, but most of all there's tension and suspense by the bucket-of-blood load.

All of this is handled brilliantly under the experienced direction of Peter Hyams, he does a great job of keeping so many components from spilling over while keeping the story believable.  Taking a story of this magnitude and getting the reader/viewer to believe it could actually happen is a skill.  The first time they think this cannot be real then the writer and director have lost.  So respect is also due to the writers and screenwriters for a very impressive job.  If somebody want's to make a decent Stephen King adaptation then they should take notes from this movie.

More respect for the creature creation wizard Stan Winston as this is some of his finest work in the horror genre... except of course "John Carpenter's The Thing".  The scene where the beast catches a member of the S W A T team while he's running away and pulls his head off his body is awesome; this would have been spectacular to see on the big screen and one of the reasons I prefer wet-work over CGI in effects.

Though there are no big name actors in the film they still give credible performances.  The only one that partially hams it up is Chi Muoi Lo, who plays Dr Grant Lee, his character is meant to be annoying but Lo does tend to go over the top; luckily enough he's not in the movie much.

This is an enjoyable horror film which romps away joyously in the action sequences and slows to a creepier pace in the suspenseful scenes.  This film speaks to more than just horror movie fans and I would definitely recommend this to everyone to watch just once.

Movie Review - The Crooked Man

The Crooked Man

2016

The Cast

This was a better film than I thought it would be.  As soon as I saw the SyFy tag, I thought, OH OH!!!  So it was a good day as I was pleasantly surprised by this little film.

Though it follows plenty of other movies in the genre, particularly The Ring, Candyman, and Bloody Mary, the lightness with which the subject is directed make this a stronger film, than a run-of-the-mill clone.

Instead of watching a video or saying a name into a mirror a few times you have to sing the song which will kill you.  Seems like a daft thing to do...  I mean it's known as "The Song That Will Kill You."  But when you're a girl having a sleepover with her girlfriends and mum stops you watching scary films, what else will you do... especially if you're dared.  No sooner has the song been sung than the Crooked Man is hunting.  Unfortunately for our heroine, the Crooked Man makes good his escape leaving her stood over the dead body of her friend, with a bloody dripping knife in her hand.

Years later, she returns to her hometown where she realises the Crooked Man has been a patient killer.  On her arrival, people start dying again.

As I previously stated, it's the direction along with the above average acting that keep this boat from sinking.  There are four decent actors on the cast, though their skills aren't used much, Dina Meyer, Marco Rodriguez, Amber Benson, and Michael Jai White (who gets top billing).  These get very little air time as it's the youngsters the film is about, as it should be.  Though at times, all of the newbies, have scenes where they falter and the director decided not to shoot again.  These are few and far between and mostly don't occur at pivotal moments of the story.

The main drawback is the Song itself as it's a Nursery Rhyme, though it doesn't depict a killer, in fact, the opposite is true.  The Rhyme is about Sir Alexander Leslie who resolved the religious and political freedom of Scotland.  So this Hollywood bastardisation of an English Nursery Rhyme stuck in my claw.  The writers could have looked up the origin and worked out a different hook for the Crooked Man, but that might have been too much work...

Another thing that disrupts the flow of the film is the location of the Crooked House.  Saying the rhynme and the spirit are worldwide, I find it amazing that the House is within driving distance.  The location crew couldn't find a crooked tree next to a couple of rocks where the animators could render a CGI Crooked House.  So they got them to render all of the above in a field.  Bad luck for them, the budget must have been blown on the Crooked Man's disjointed movements, which works really well, they should have added bone cracking sounds to it as well, it would've made it nastier.  The crew would've been better getting the polystyrene rocks and fake tree from the Original Star Trek as the CGI landscape was pathetic.

That said, I did like the way the heroine could defeat the Crooked Man, though I've seen differing takes on this feature, it was put to good use.

All-in-all, it's not too bad a film.  It was wet and cold outside when I watched the movie and eventhough there were times when I was annoyed I was never bored.  So if you find yourself in this situation, turn the lights down, leave your brain at the door, and cuddle up with a loved one and enjoy.

I give this a daemonic scare of 5.25 out of 10.

The Trailer

Movie Review - It Follows

It Follows

2014

The Cast

The premise of this film is a good one - a person has sex and a supernatural spirit begins to follow them, with the intention of murdering them.  The only way for that person to survive the entity is to have sex with someone and pass the "curse" onto them.  Should they die then the spirit reverts back to following the last person once again.

Unfortunately, the premise is not fully utilised in the story, there are quite a few holes.  The main hole in the story is the origin of the "curse"; we are not told it is a curse, it may be something else; we are not told why the killings are happening; or how it all started.  These things deter from the story because at the end of the movie these issues made me feel as though the story was incomplete and lacking.

Had these issues been resolved it would have made the story and the movie a lot stronger, and possibly a lot darker and more haunting.

Taking that into consideration, what you do get in this movie is a strange surreal feeling, this is due to the direction and the soundtrack.  These are very reminiscent of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg.  It's as though they had a baby and his name was David Robert Mitchell.

The opening scene has John Carpenter's Halloween written all over it.  The entire film took me back to my youth in the 80's and I loved it.  Sometimes, though, the soundtrack was too jarring, as Cronenberg's electronic soundtrack was apt to be, though here it doesn't work as well.

The acting is above average with the mostly unknown cast doing a pretty decent job of adding to the tension and atmosphere of the movie.  Even though there's not much gore, it's the palpable tension and atmosphere which make this a spooky supernatural story.

So if you like a slow burning taut eerie tale then this could be right up your street.

I give this an eerily spooky 5.75 out of 10.

The Trailer