THE CEMETERY (2013) Review

Directed by: Adam Ahlbrandt

Starring: J.D. Brown, Natalie Jean, Adam Huss, Tim Cronin, Tabetha Ray

Last month I had the opportunity to check Adam Ahlbrandt's take on the slasher genre; CROSS BEARER which was a bloody, gritty, gory affair filled with sex, drugs and violence. In other words it was awesome.
And while THE CEMETERY trades in the masked killer for more of a demonic possession tale it still keeps all of the aforementioned goodies intact while throwing in a brutal soundtrack to top it all off.

To provide us with some background the film begins by taking us all the way back to 1671 where a group of priests try in vain to exorcise demons from their unwitting hosts. Brutally tortured and eventually killed, these victims are buried in a secret cemetery, the location of which is hidden to all but the church.Cut to the present and we meet a team of paranormal investigators who host their own reality show Ghost Seekers. After investigating abandoned prisons, haunted houses and the like they are yet to find any substantial evidence of ghosts or ghouls. This with the help of a stolen church document their next destination is that very same cemetery where the demonically possessed were buried after being tortured and killed. But what will the Ghost Seekers do when their faced with a real demonic threat?

After enjoying CROSS BEARER so much I was a little worried that this follow up would fall short, but it turns out that I didn't need to be so worried because THE CEMETERY rocks. It has a great ensemble cast with some familiar faces returning from CROSS BEARER like J.D. Brown who plays the likeable Bill, Natalie Jean who spends most of her on screen time covered in blood and gore, and Tim Cronin who plays a bit of a douchebag. Then there's Adam Huss in the role of Tim; the horny, pot smoking comic relief and Tabetha Ray the bitchy medium. And a special mention to Burning Angel's Draven Star whose only job was to look smoking hot and she did it well indeed.
Everything that made CROSS BEARER so good is also on display here, from the masses of blood and gore to the tits and ass and a fittingly dark and foreboding atmosphere. And once again the make-up and effects are all practical and that in itself always score big points with me.

Another point worth mentioning is the film's soundtrack which is comprised mostly of heavy metal, which I personally love but it certainly won't fit everybody's taste. If you don't like the prospect of a soundtrack featuring band names like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Circle of Dead Children or Squash Bowels then this may not be for you. On the other hand if that sounds right up your alley then you're bound to have a great time.

I may have sad this before but Adam Ahlbrandt is definitely a filmmaker to look out for. He makes movies that horror fans want to see. Films packed with blood, guts, tits and ass; this is the stuff that reminds me why I started watching horror flicks in the first place. It's not without its imperfections but even the minor criticisms I may have about THE CEMETERY are far outweighed by all of the positives and the film's overall entertainment quality. And as much as I loved CROSS BEARER I think I probably enjoyed this a little more so it's getting an extra half a star.

THE APPARITION (2012) Review

Directed by: Todd Lincoln

Starring: Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton

The promotional material for THE APPARITION featured quite an intriguing tagline ‘Once you believe you die’ which was pretty much the only thing that piqued my interest about this movie. Logically I assumed that the story would hinge on this idea of belief which could have made for an interesting scenario but instead it doesn’t appear in the film at all. Talk about bait and switch…

I watched THE APPARITION and THE POSSESSION back to back which it turns out wasn't such a great idea at all. THE POSSESSION was your usual toned down retread of THE EXORCIST, something which has been done countless times before and really doesn't need to be done again. Ever.
But as disappointing as it was, it was nothing compared to THE APPARITION.

The film opens with some old grainy Super 8 footage of a séance being performed by a group of psychics attempting to contact a former colleague of theirs. We then see the same experiment being performed in more modern times as trio of students Patrick (Felton), Ben (Stan) and Lydia (Julianna Guill) try to take a more scientific approach. This same mixture of science and the supernatural was used (unconvincingly) in THE DEVIL INSIDE and it doesn't work any better here. I'll be the first to admit I'm not very well versed in any kind of science but the way they try to explain everything here just sounds like bullshit to me.
Anyway, the experiment works. Kind of. They contact an entity and a portal is opened which promptly sucks Lydia into what we can only assume is some sort of spirit netherworld.

Fast forward to four years later and we see Ben moving into a new house with his girlfriend Kelly (Greene). Life seems to be going pretty swell and all that shit from four years earlier seems to be far from Ben’s mind. But why is he going out of his way to avoid all the emails and phone calls he keeps getting from Patrick? And why does weird shit start happening around their new house?

I'll bet you can guess how the rest of the movie turns out, and you know why? Because that’s exactly what it is; predictable. And of course when the strange occurrences start to happen they are all the same old clichés you see everywhere these days. Moving furniture, shadows, doors opening, animals acting strange etc. Apparently the filmmakers wanted to add something a little different to this affair though so they also lifted some familiar elements from other films like DARK WATER, JU-ON and THE RING.

But as weird and unexplained as all of this is, that’s all it is. At no point is there a suggestion that Ben and Kelly’s lives are in danger, it’s as if this entity just wants to fuck with their heads. It pulled Lydia into some kind of vortex at the movie’s beginning so why doesn't it just do that again?

And I won’t even go into how inane some of the character dialogue is. Suffice to say that plenty of it is overly obvious and even cringe worthy. But it’s not all negative (although most of it is) because in a similar way to THE POSSESSION the movie does create some creepy atmosphere in a few parts but nowhere near as much as it could have. Also, Ashley Greene provides some eye candy for those so inclined (she’s not really my type). Apart from that though THE APPARITION is a downright terrible film. And when it brings up the whole scientific angle towards the end – a whole lot of bullshit talk about reverse polarities and electromagnetic crap – you know that it’s just a desperate attempt on the film’s part to try and sound much more intelligent than it actually is.

Apparently 2012 wasn't such a great year for these kind of supernatural / ghost / possession type flicks and THE APPARITION is easily one of the worst. If you do want to see a decent ghost flick from last year then I recommend THE WOMAN IN BLACK but as for THE APPARITION; do yourself a favor and avoid it.

THE POSSESSION (2012) Review

Directed by: Ole Bornedal

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis

THE POSSESSION is yet another supernatural film using the term ‘based on true events’ which as we all know is code speak for ‘95% bullshit’. The ‘real’ story is available online to read and makes for an interesting story but that’s about all it is, because as far as I can tell there’s no real proof that anything evil or supernatural happened at all. But I digress…

Originally to be titled DIBBUK BOX, the movie is about a mysterious box bought at a yard sale (bought on eBay in the real life story) by a young girl. Unbeknownst to the girl the box houses a Dibbuk (some sort of Jewish demon spirit) and after she opens it strange shit starts to go down. Her father begins doing some investigating and eventually enrolls a Rabbi to help.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it really has no point and didn't need to be made at all. I know that may sound harsh but it’s true. There are plenty of other movies which tell the same story much better than this and just because this is based on ‘true’ events or because it has a fancy new name for a demon doesn't make it any different from just about every other possession / exorcism film out there. It has all of the key elements; a young girl, strange happenings around the house, insects, strange voices, and a climax involving a risky ritual to try and exorcise the demon. I can see that people might appreciate its Jewish angle but all that meant to me was that a Rabbi performed the exorcism instead of a priest.

THE POSSESSION is basically a generic, predictable and cliché-filled supernatural thriller with nothing noteworthy, nothing to distinguish it from all of the other similar films out there. And even worse is the fact that it’s not scary at all.

And somehow the pointlessness of this film is worse than if it had just been a terrible movie, because then at least I might have had something to laugh at. Instead THE POSSESSION is like an old story that I've heard countless times over and which has grown more stale and boring with each retelling.

After buying this mysterious box the girl begins acting strangely although nothing yet to suggest she’s being possessed. I actually found the first half of the film to be a lot better and more interesting than the second half. It contained more of the creepy, atmospheric scenes like the room full of moths. But of course eventually the interesting parts give way to more clichés and predictable sequences and soon you can already see how the film is going to end.

One good thing I can say about THE POSSESSION is that it looks good. It has some good cinematography, a creepy atmosphere in parts and the special effects looked decent. It also has some solid acting from Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the father and not too bad a performance by Natasha Calis playing the possessed girl Em.

But that’s about as far as the positives go. With nothing new or original this is a movie that never really needed to be made. It also had a lot of unresolved plot points and missed opportunities throughout the story. If you’re a hardcore fan of these possession / exorcism movies and you need to see them all then by all means go ahead. But if you’re (like me) more than a little tired of all of these disappointing supernatural flicks of late then I would recommend staying away. At least it's not as bad as some of the other similar films which came out last year (I'm looking at you THE APPARITION!) but it definitely was not great.

MALABIMBA THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979) Review

Directed by: Andrea Bianchi

Starring: Katell Laennec, Mariangela Giordano, Patrizia Webley, Enzo Fisichella

I'm not really all that familiar with these type of erotic Eurosleaze films but that's something I've decided to rectify, and what better film to begin with than one I heard described as an erotic, sleazy, Italian EXORCIST? The fact that it's directed by Andrea Bianchi (BURIAL GROUND) pretty much sealed the deal for me.

MALABIMBA opens with a séance as a family attempt to contact the spirit of Andrea's (Fisichella) deceased wife. As soon as the medium contacts a spirit however things start to get a little crazy. A woman's blouse is torn off exposing a large pair of breasts (of which we get to see a lot more of later in the film), a man's fly is pulled open and things start tumbling and flying off of shelves. A malevolent spirit is unleashed and makes its way to the resident nurse Sister Sofia (Giordano) in an attempt to possess her. Having been successfully resisted however the spirit makes its way to the younger and more vulnerable Bimba, the daughter of Andrea. Shortly thereafter Bimba begins showing some disturbing sexual tendencies which shock and disgust her family who have no idea she is possessed by an evil spirit.

The plot is very loose and there's good reason for that. This movie is first and foremost a sleazy sexploitation flick and the 'plot' is just an excuse to bind together a bunch of sex scenes. There is some unimportant subplot shoved in there somewhere but it too is also just an excuse to see more tits, pussy and cock.

Nais (Webley) is the busty woman whose bare chest we are treated to in the opening minutes of the movie. Her character is a slutty seductress who is basically willing to fuck any man she can, and since her husband is paralyzed and wheelchair-bound she has her sexy eye set on his brother Andrea. For most of her time on screen she wears little to no clothing and she also supplies a fair portion of the hardcore scenes. And when I say hardcore I mean it. The X-rated version has plenty of up close and personal penetration shots, masturbation and fellatio. They are more explicit than a movie like THEY CALL HER ONE EYE but somehow slightly less jarring which is probably due to their context (all of the hardcore scenes in ONE EYE are basically rape).

The possessed girl Bimba (Katell Laennec in her one and only film role ever) wanders around throughout the film either spying on people mid-coitus, seducing people (both male and female) and pleasuring herself with various plush toys. She is also involved in an incestuous death-by-fellatio scene (yes you read that correctly) which is equal parts disturbing and hilarious.

Throughout the movie Bimba's family obviously notice her bizarre behaviour but put it down to some sort of odd teen phase. I'll bet good ol' Dad realizes that it's not just a 'phase' when his daughter French kisses him and grabs his crotch though.

So there you have it. MALABIMBA is a cheap EXORCIST ripoff albeit a super sexy and sleazy version. If you're into Eurosleaze, sexploitation or just want to see some hardcore sex while without feeling guilty because you're not 'technically' watching porn, then MALABIMBA is for you. But if you hear the word 'possession' and expect a horror film you will be sorely disappointed. It is surprisingly a decent film though with an ending that wraps things up nicely and although there's nothing you could call a standout performance, Laennec gives a nice performance as the possessed and sexually charged Bimba.

LOVELY MOLLY (2012) Review

Directed by: Eduardo Sánchez

Starring: Gretchen Lodge, Johnny Lewis, Alexandra Holden

Eduardo Sánchez's only real claim to fame is the fact that he wrote and directed THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave for you to decide, but personally I thought  that movie was complete crap so obviously I went into LOVELY MOLLY with more than a little trepidation. 

The movie starts off with a short scene which could be called a nod to Sanchez's BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, in the form of a woman crying into a video camera about some no doubt terrible things which we will soon be witness to. After this initial scene blacks out we find our Molly (Lodge) and her husband Tim (Lewis) suddenly awaken from their slumber by the harsh wailing of their house's security alarm. The police soon arrive and do a sweep of the house only to find nothing besides the open back door, which shows no signs of forced entry. The cop offers a no-nonsense reason as to why the door may be open even though Tim is insistent that he locked it before going to bed. Crisis now averted, we are able to be introduced to our main characters. Molly and Tim have just moved into their inherited new home three months earlier after the death of Molly's father. Tim is a truck driver and so is away from home for long stretches at a time, leaving Molly all alone in the new house. During these times when she is by herself she is witness to some strange occurrences around the house which manifest themselves as voices, doors banging, footsteps and all of that kind of haunted house stuff. At the same time this is going on we are treated to some handheld camera work by an unknown person as they spy on neighbours and visit what seems to be some strange underground shrine. One day Tim comes home to find Molly sitting naked on the bed. She utters the words "He's alive" and it's from here on in that things start to get more strange and more violent.

LOVELY MOLLY is really quite a multi-layered film, but perhaps this is where its biggest problems lie. When we first realize that something is very wrong with Molly it isn't obvious exactly what is wrong. Is it really some supernatural entity? Is she being possessed? Why can't Tim see the things she sees? Are these just hallucinations brought on by her drug use? Is she just a straight up fucking nutcase? Even by the time the credits roll these are still mostly unanswered questions. I'm by no means against movies which leave you with unanswered questions, but here I felt that there were just too many and the movie answered hardly a single one.

The other big problem for me was just how bizarrely and unrealistically the characters in LOVELY MOLLY react to the things going on around them. Obviously Molly's actions can be explained away with the fact that she's crazy or possessed or whatever, but what of the others? Tim find himself violently assaulted by his wife before she runs off into the woods, shortly thereafter Molly's sister Hanna (Holden) arrives and somehow tries to rationalize Molly's behaviour and talks Tim out of calling the police. I don't know about you, but if my wife tried to bite my fucking mouth off I would be calling the cops pronto.
And when weird shit is going down in the house while Molly is home alone, why doesn't she go stay with her sister like she is asked to? And why does Tim seem content to leave her alone after finding her naked and incoherent in the bedroom? I know most horror movies are guilty of lacking logic, but really this is a bit too ridiculous.

On a positive note Gretchen Lodge does give a great performance as Molly and there is some nice camera work, but this is far from enough to outweigh the negatives of the movie. 

V/H/S (2012) Review

Directed by: David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Ti West, Adam Wingard, Radio Silence

Starring: Calvin Reeder, Joe Swanberg, Adam Wingard

I love a good horror anthology, and it's been quite a while since I've seen one so I was pretty damn excited when I finally got a chance to check out V/H/S. With an impressive list of directors including Ti West, Adam Wingard and the collective Radio Silence, V/H/S was bound to be impressive. At least I hoped so.

V/H/S is broken up into 6 segments, 5 of which make up the bulk of the anthology while the 6th binds them all together. The list of segments is as follows:

'Amateur Night' - David Brucker
'Second Honeymoon' - Ti West

'Tuesday the 17th' - Glenn McQuaid

'The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger' - Joe Swanberg

'10/31/98' - Radio Silence

All of these 5 segments feature within the 6th (Adam Wingard's 'Tape 56') as footage compiled on separate VHS tapes. Tape 56 shows a group of misfits who have been hired by an undisclosed third party, to break into a home and steal a certain VHS tape. When they arrive however they find more than they expected. A dead body, a bank of television sets and dozens of VHS tapes which they will need to sort through in order to find what they are looking for.

I won't go into each individual segment very deeply however I will say that they are quite varied in content (which is great) and as with every anthology some segments are better than others. My personal favorites were 'Amateur Night', 'The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger' and '10/31/98' but as for the other two segments and even 'Tape 56' in which they are all wrapped up, I thought they were much weaker. 

'Tuesday the 17th' (as you may have guessed) pays homage to FRIDAY THE 13TH with four friends who travel to a lake where a number of murders have taken place. 

'Second Honeymoon' follows a couple on a road trip across America as they see the sights until one night they have a mysterious visitor at the door of their hotel room. 

I was particularly disappointed with the latter because Ti West did such a great job with THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL but here he has created something which just basically seems (to me at least) pointless. The same can be said for the former segment, they both have no real meat on their bones. They just kind of happen and didn't leave me with any impression at all.

Fortunately the offerings from Bruckner, Swanberg and Radio Silence made up for the weaker segments, and I found all three of them to be original, surprising and entertaining. Overall there is a nice mix of tension, supernatural stuff, gore and creatures. Basically something for everybody.

I really liked the whole concept of V/H/S and I thought that it was a very interesting idea to put found footage inside a found footage movie. But is that too much found footage? At around 2 hours long V/H/S is made up entirely using this POV style and by the end of it I was honestly over it. If they had halved the film's length it probably would have been alright but 2 hours was just too much for me. Adding in some webcam style in Swanberg's segment almost helped to break this up but not quite. And (although it's probably already obvious) if you're not a big fan of this shaky style of filming then you definitely will not like V/H/S. The filming in 'Amateur Night' alone is some of the most wobbly, disorienting, all over the place filming I have ever seen.
I can enjoy a good found footage film if it adds to the atmosphere or the story, but 2 hours was just too much for me. Add to that the fact that the segments are a mixed bag of good and bad, and V/H/S turned out to be an above average anthology, but ultimately still a disappointment.

407 DARK FLIGHT 3D (2012) Review

Directed by: Isara Nadee

Starring: Marsha Wattanapanich, Peter Knight, Patcharee Tubthong

DARK FLIGHT is a horror film from Thailand, something which I haven't experienced much of before. It also happens to be Thailand's first movie to be filmed in stereoscopic 3D. The question I had before viewing was "are they going to exploit the 3D label by having those cheap 'shit flying towards the screen just because it can' scenes? Or are they going to utilize the 3D to add an extra layer of depth? Well it turns out that they decided to do neither. Apart from a couple of short scenes I didn't really see any need for the 3D at all.

DARK FLIGHT follows a rather small group of people travelling on a flight out of Thailand. The group are a varied bunch and include a handful of flight attendants, a dreadlocked backpacker, a clueless girl from Hong Kong, an elderly woman with a fear of flying, a Buddhist monk, a maintenence man and a small family consisting of a bitchy mother, her submissive husband and their daughter - a girl who 'just so happens' to enjoy playing a flight simulator game on her iPad (you can already work out what's going to happen can't you?). There are a few other less important characters as well.

The flight takes off and everything is going fine until a couple of the passengers start seeing strange things. One man has a sudden EXORCIST moment and soon everybody on board realizes that shit just ain't right.

Between the ghosts, hallucinations, possessions and other strange phenomena we don't really get a clear idea of why all of this crap is happening. Then about an hour into the movie one of the flight attendants New (Wattanapanich) escorts us through a brief flashback scene which explains that she was once on a flight where the passengers went berserk and she was the only survivor. Could this be the same plane? Well of course it is! So as shit goes from bad to worse and people start dropping like flies it's up to New, Bank (Knight), Gift (Tubthong) and friends to try and save the day.

DARK FLIGHT follows a fairly simple story but it suffers from some bad pacing and it's not until more than halfway through that we get a clear sense of exactly what's going on. The characters are a bunch of clichés (a super effeminate male flight attendant etc) who spend most of their time whining or screaming or running.
Thankfully the movie at least looks good (well for the most part). The practical effects and ghost designs range from badass to average while the CGI is kind of cheap and nasty. The atmosphere is suitably dark and panicky but alas these positives were not enough to outweigh all of the negatives and so DARK FLIGHT ends up being pretty mediocre indeed.

APARTMENT 143 (2012) Review

Directed by: Carles Torrens

Starring: Kai Lennox, Michael O'Keefe, Rick Gonzalez

By now I'm really starting to get fed up with all of the disappointing found footage/POV horror flicks which seem to be released every other week. After noticing that all of the reviews on its IMDb page were positive however, I decided that I would give APARTMENT 143 the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully this is the last time  I make that mistake.

As most found footage films this one starts off suddenly without any opening credits or titles. A handheld camera helps to introduce a trio of paranormal investigators in a van on their way to an apparently haunted apartment. When they arrive they talk to the three inhabitants, father Alan (Lennox) and his son and daughter. They are told that strange occurrences have been happening in the apartment and  actually started to happen in the house the three lived in before they moved to said apartment. Alan talks about his late wife who was killed in a car accident and his young son tells the investigators that he has actually spoken to his dead mother. The trio set up their fancy equipment and settle in to wait for some strange happenings. We are then treated to (or maybe subjected to) pretty much every cliché you've ever seen in a paranormal flick. Doors slam closed on their own, lights flicker, items fly around the rooms, bed sheets are tugged at by invisible hands, ghostly figures appear in the background of photographs and so on.

Most of these events are captured and followed through the use of mounted cameras in a very PARANORMAL ACTIVITY style display. This footage is supplemented with shaky handheld camera footage and a soundtrack of the usual creaks, groans, screams and loud noises.

The investigators are accompanied by all manner of hi-tech equipment (one machine is even pixelated as though it's top secret or illegal), the functions of which are explained by very thin and vague descriptions that don't really explain much at all. 

The actors seem to do a good enough job but the characters are all completely unlikeable. The father is a spineless wimp, his daughter is a little bitch and the investigators grill the poor man like he's committed some kind of crime. I spent half the movie hoping they would just die already.

The movie takes it's time developing the characters but I felt that it delved a little too deeply into the relationship between father and daughter. These paranormal investigators (laughably calling themselves 'scientists') seem to think that they're counsellors or psychologists.

By the time the credits showed up I felt like I had just watched another tired PA rehash that brought absolutely nothing new to the table. It relied too heavily on cheap jump-scares and clichés and ended up being a below average ghost flick. I recommend you give this one a miss.

THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING (2011) Review

Directed by: Geoff Meed

Starring: Jason Williams, Amy Van Horne, Devin Clark

I am nowhere near deluded enough to expect anything good from The Asylum. Ever. I get the idea of 'mockbusters' and understand that they're not meant to be cinematic masterpieces, but even I didn't think that they could produce something this terrible. I'd like to say that this is low even for their standards but then again The Asylum don’t seem to have any standards. 

THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING begins with handheld footage of a horny young couple deciding to take themselves on an unauthorized tour of the infamous Amityville house. Once inside things start to get hot and heavy before they finally meet a bloody off-camera death.

Flash forward and we meet the Benson family who have just bought the Amityville house and are beginning to move in. They’re aware of the house’s grisly past but apparently it was all they could afford. One of the removalists has a fatal accident and from then on the ‘horror’ escalates. Eventually after a few strange happenings have occurred the father gets the idea of installing video cameras around the house and the movie starts to journey deep into PARANORMAL ACTIVITY territory. One of the cameras watches on as a door mysteriously opens by itself (gasp!) and the security alarm goes off. And that’s about as scary (if you can even call that scary) as the movie gets. Almost all of the deaths happen off-camera, and at the moments when something is about to happen the video jumps or blacks out and we only get quick flashes in between.

I honestly cannot think of one aspect of this movie that wasn't crap. The writing was crap, the effects were crap, the acting was crap and all of the characters were completely unlikeable. I couldn't wait for them all to die. The film even uses that tired old trick of trying to persuade viewers that what they’re seeing is ‘real footage’. Do people even fall for that anymore? Any moron can check the IMDb page and clearly see that the characters in the film are played by actors, and incompetent ones at that.

By the time it was all over I felt relieved but also disgusted at myself for actually sitting through the entire movie. I know you always hear the phrase ‘worst movie ever’ thrown around a lot, but this has to be a strong contender. It is definitely the worst movie I've seen in a long time. In fact I'm not even going to waste any more time on this review. All you need to know is that this movie is shit. Stay away.

HOUSE CALL (2011) Short Film Review

Directed by: Erik L. Wilson

Starring: Aimee Bello, Michael Jordan, Brad Egger, Janet Gawrys

Once again I found myself watching a horror short, and once again I have been thoroughly impressed. Erik L. Wilson's HOUSE CALL is a great supernatural revenge thriller which is heading to festivals including Chicago Fear Fest, so keep an eye out for it.

Janice (Bello) has committed an unthinkable act, murdering her abusive e-boyfriend in order to begin a new life with her boyfriend Steve (Jordan). But on the night of their one year anniversary, a touch of black magic unleashes the murderous spirit upon the couple to exact revenge.

As a premise it doesn't get much simpler than that, but at around 17 minutes HOUSE CALL has no need for an in depth plot. Although even with the 17 minute running time, Erik Wilson manages to get some good character development and a bit of a slow burn going which cranks up the tension and creates a genuinely creepy atmosphere. 

HOUSE CALL is visually stunning and not only because it was shot with the Red One camera, it also has some great practical effects and even the CGI didn't look to bad for the most part. The actors do a great job too, especially Michael Jordan in the latter part of the film and writing and editing were both spot on. If I have one criticism it is that I didn't really feel any empathy for the characters, and as a result didn't care whether any of them lived or died. But apart from that HOUSE CALL is a solid supernatural revenge flick with great visuals and an eerie atmosphere, and is well worth checking out if you get the chance.

THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012) Review

Directed by: William Brent Bell

Starring: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth

THE DEVIL INSIDE just hit theatres here in Australia on March 1st and despite all of the negative feedback I've heard about it (literally everything I've heard about it has been negative) and the fact that it only has a 5% rating on RottenTomatoes I decided to watch it anyway.

Maria Rossi apparently killed three people in 1989 while an exorcism was being performed on her. 20 years later her daughter Isabella (Andrade) is on a mission to discover just what happened to her mother. She travels to a hospital for the criminally insane in Rome where Maria has been locked away to find out whether her mother really is just mentally ill or possessed by a demon. After visiting a school of exorcism she recruits two young priests (Quarterman & Helmuth) to try and prove that Maria is possessed and also to try and help her through unauthorized exorcisms and a mix of science and religion.

The film begins with a 911 call from Maria, confessing to the murder of three people, then we are shown through the crime scene via handheld camera as the police talk about the victims. Maria is tried in court but ultimately exempted on the grounds of insanity and is shipped away for some unknown reason to a mental hospital in Rome. The film then leaps forwards 20 years to daughter Isabella announcing that she wants to travel to Italy to find out what happened to her mother, and she wants to bring along cameraman Michael to film it all. She arrives in Rome where we are treated to lots of shaky camerawork and introduced to two priests. They decide to bring Isabella along to an actual exorcism. The exorcism scenes are done very well and have a certain look of realism about them, but scary? Not at all. Maybe a little creepy with the body contortions and such but if you've ever seen any other exorcism movie then this will be no surprise. We also get to see all of the other demonic possession hallmarks that are also shown in every other exorcism film ever made such as speaking in tongues, strange voices and super strength. However, none of these are shown with an effectiveness even close to something like say THE EXORCIST.

The inclusion of science alongside religion is a rather unique one, but whenever I hear both science and religion uttered in the same breath it makes me laugh. The two just don't mix.

Technically the movie is just what you'd expect from the mockumentary / found-footage sub-genre with plenty of shaky camerawork, grainy security camera footage etc. It is also exactly what you'd expect from any movie in the exorcism sub-genre with priests, bible passages, people being thrown across the room etc.

Apart from the lame inclusion of science there is absolutely nothing new here. There was maybe one standout scene for me (I won't say which) but in general I found it to be boring, bland and unoriginal. And definitely not scary. The acting leaves a lot to be desired too, especially in the case of Fernanda Andrade.

And I guess I should mention the controversial ending too, the part everybody seems to be complaining about. I actually though it was fitting and since it is a found-footage film I also found the ending to be realistic. It leaves questions unanswered but sometimes that's a good thing.

In summary I'd say it's definitely not a movie I plan on watching again, but it's also not one that I regret watching either. I've seen a few movies which have had me wanting my money back but this is not quite that terrible. Close, but not quite.