I don't even know where to begin with this one. Have you ever sat through a movie and undergone an experience that you find nearly impossible to explain? This might be the epitome of the phrase "WTF did I just watch?" From the get-go, I will recommend this to anyone looking for a good way not to sleep tonight. The imagery here is a strange mixture of fascinating, terrifying, and often even pretty disgusting. This movie is just a nightmare on-screen, unfolding in front of your eyes. The way I described it over Facebook was that it was "like a Tool music video - but more disturbing". Anyone who has sat through a Tool music video gets what I'm talking about. If not, check out such videos as 'Schism', 'Sober' and 'Prison Sex'. Anyway, I'm going to see (with the help of Wiki) if I can actually tell you what this is all about. All I got was that some guy needs to plant a bomb in what looks like Hell and then it just gets nuts from there. According to Wiki, I did have the first part right. But for me, after that, it's pure confusion. What follows seems to be a series of unnecessary, torturous procedures that produces a weird worm baby thing and... honestly, I just can't figure it all out, so here's this link. Call me lazy, but quite honestly to me, all this is, is a morbid nightmare on-screen created by stop-motion. This is the kind of thing you might show someone you didn't like after they just took some shrooms or some other mind-altering substance. In my eyes, this one was created for those dark, morbid, but completely imaginative minds out there, and I think maybe I'm not quite as dark as this in my mind. When I finally did finish it, indeed, it was a "what the hell was that?" moment. Okay, so despite a lot of imaginative content and solid, effective use of stop-motion animation (which is otherworldly as it is), this wasn't for me. But that's not to say that others won't get something out of it. Incredibly, this one has ranked up a Rotten Tomato average of 78%, with critics giving far more praise than the audience. That said, it's also not based on many votes. This one has an incredibly niche audience, and I think this audience likely largely consists of hardcore Phil Tippet fans. This is his full-feature directorial debut, but he's worked on basically everything you can name from the past with his visual effect magic. Tippet has credits for movies ranging from the 'RoboCop' series to the 'Twilight Saga', from 'Empire Strikes Back' to 'Jurassic Park', from 'Willow' to 'Starship Troopers'. The guy is a pretty famous and well-known name as far as visual effects go. So the biggest credit I can give this is that Tippet, despite my opinion on his film, did make this film his own - and it took him 30 years of production work to make it happen. So I give him full credit for taking the time to create his "baby" - even if I thought it was a very ugly baby that was possessed by a demon from the moment of birth. But hey, if you have the mind-set (and the stomach) give it a whirl. And bear in mind my final rating is just my opinion on the final product - not so much the effort Tippet put into it all, which I'd honestly give a solid 5/5 to. 2/5
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Allow me to make a full confession from the get-go, which may or may not make this review somewhat interesting. This was not quite what I expected it to be, and truth be told, I didn't make the full three hours. In fact, I only really made it one hour. Personally speaking, it turns out that "folk horror" isn't A) up my alley and B) what I even thought it was in the first place... sort of. See, the full title of this documentary is 'Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror'. Now, what I thought that meant was getting a history on things like urban legends, and perhaps delving into old fairy tales, the way they were originally written. About the closest I got was a film about Red Riding Hood. But otherwise, folk horror can actually be defined as the subgenre of horror that features modern day clashing with a society run by old thinking. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! Such films include titles like 'Midsommar', or 'Children of the Corn', and this is a three-hour documentary talking about them, what they mean, and their impact on our culture. Now, before watching this doc (or at least a third of it), my take on such movies was basically that they involved the horrific concepts of the old ways of thinking. As if those old ways aren't scary enough, the twist on these is that the mindset clashes with modern thinking. This is generally pulled off by having the modern characters come into the world of the old school, and just plain getting schooled on things like, say, what it is to be accused of being a witch. This doc delves much deeper into things, and right off the bat, I will HIGHLY recommend this to those into, not only this kind of horror, but really, really underground horror titles from way back when. I should probably mention the "unholy trinity" of folk horror films that this brings up. Widely considered the three films that gave birth to the subgenre of folk horror, these titles include 1968's 'Witchfinder General', 1971's 'Blood on Satan's Claw', and 1973's non-Cage 'The Wicker Man'. If you're a fan of these flicks, or know of them and are interested, then definitely take the time to watch this doc if you have access to a Shudder account. Despite my being somewhat bored of things here, I can guarantee that this is just a matter of taste, and this is a pretty well done, thorough documentary when it all comes down to it. Anyway, I sort of regret not trudging through this so as to give a better review, but I figured I could wing it, and it seems to have worked okay. After all, documentaries can be hard things to review, as all they are, really, is information on a subject. I also feel kind of silly for not realizing exactly what folk horror was, but I suppose because these types of movies aren't really my thing, it can't be too surprising that things didn't click right away for me. In the end, it's really quite simple - if you're into this kind of thing, I think it covers a lot of ground for the subject matter. If you're like me though, just keep in mind it's three hours of info. 3/5 I've been wanting a new horror comedy to watch and rewatch for quite some time now, and I think I've finally found it. It's everything I could want in a good horror comedy - over the top dialogue and gore, gross-out humour that's actually there for the laughs and not just to make us cringe, and above all else, it's not afraid to get a bit crazy. It's a low budget film that knows exactly what it is, and it doesn't try too hard but rather has fun with itself. It all opens with a backstory taking place many moons ago, on the distant planet of Gigax, where a nameless evil reigned over everything. This evil had become very powerful and was on a mission to get rid of all that was good and pure in the universe. Before he could carry out his task, however, he was imprisoned by the forces of light, and hidden away in a place beyond reach. If he was ever to be released, all of existence would be doomed to a hostile, evil takeover. Enter two children, Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) playing a game they created called "Crazy Ball" in their back yard. Now, when it comes to these two, try to imagine a sort of Wednesday and Pugsly Addams sort of relationship. The only thing is here, Wednseday's a bit more like a Hit Girl from 'Kick-Ass'. Anyway, the loser of this game has to get buried alive, so they're into some pretty death-defying stuff just for the fun of it. While digging, Luke uncovers some mysterious gem that Mimi gets her hands on, and it turns out to have been the prison for the aforementioned "nameless evil". The evil is unleashed, ready to wreak havoc on the world, and eventually the kids stumble on it. However, there's an interesting catch - Mimi has total control over it as long as she holds the gem. The evil's self-proclaimed title is the Arch Duke of Nightmares, as, much like Freddy Krueger, he can infiltrate dreams. That name's not goo enough for the kids though, so they rename him Psycho Goreman (Matthew Ninaber/Steven Vlahos), or PG for short. The film then takes us to space, where we meet the "Planetary Alliance"; the ones who imprisoned PG in the first place. They find out about the release of PG, and send a noble warrior with an edge named Pandora (Kristen MacCulloch/Anna Tierney) to recapture him. I don't want to explain too much, but what follows is a very interesting blend. Try to imagine the movie 'Dead Alive' aka 'Braindead' mixed with 'Rick & Morty' and a dash of 'Toxic Avenger'. There's a few tertiary characters that, to me, are well worth bringing up as the movie unfolds. First let's get some gross stuff out of the way. The 'Dead Alive' aspect of this comes largely from two characters; the kids' friend, Alasdair (Scout Flint) and a random cop named Vince, renamed Bio-Cop (Robert Homer). Each undergo some gruesome transformations, but they lead to some of the real comedy of this movie, a lot like it also does in 'Rick & Morty'. Speaking of 'Rick & Morty', if you like the character of Jerry, here we have a very similar Dad type (to Mimi and Luke) named Greg (Adam Brooks), thrown into a bizarre world and playing a sort of freaked out "everyman". He has a tough relationship with the Mom, Susan (Alexis Kara Hancey), and there's a bit of a side story about that, but he's mostly here for extra comedy relief. Now just for the record, this is one of those movies I can't just recommend to anyone. But I think if you've ever been good with 'Rick & Morty' (which this probably reminds me of most), can handle a lot of gross out humour (although most of the humour is thankfully in the dialogue), and are on the lookout for the next great horror comedy, I can highly suggest this for, if nothing else, your free trial of Shudder. For me, this fits with 'Tucker & Dale vs Evil' or 'What We Do in the Shadows' in that it's something I'm trying to get all my friends to checkout. This one's very under the radar and, as a horror comedy fan, it deserves a solid boost in word of mouth. Personally speaking, this has a place on my all-time Top 10 horror comedies list, maybe even Top 5. 5/5 Man oh man, this was a weird one. I'm a little bit stuck on it, because it lies somewhere between material that isn't for me at all, but being able to admire various aspects about it. This is one of those movies one might very well want to shower after watching, due to how dirty it is. It goes to various extremes with bodily fluids and other gross out horror, which I tend to find as a pretty cheap way to gauge the audience, and I've never really been a fan of. However, strangely enough, this one has a very very strange charm to it in its very simple plot. We are introduced to Barry (Gary Green); a junkie who's going through all the negativity that comes with the territory, including being distant with his family and friends who have a strong belief that drugs are the answer to all of life's problems. One night, while on a heroin binge, Barry is abducted by aliens, experimented on in all sorts of delightful ways (including things going inside of things). 'Fire in the Sky' was scarier, but still, it wasn't a fun section of the movie at all. Not horrific, just really cringe-worthy. Anyway, everything ends with an alien taking over Barry's body, and exploring all of the pleasures of Cape Town, South Africa. Such pleasures, of course, include exploring things like sex and drugs. These moments result in total awkwardness as something about it will make you laugh, but things are still dark and/or gross enough to reveal the horror side of the film. Gary Green's performance here is actually pretty damn good. We can fully believe there is an alien hidden behind the flesh of this man. And honestly, I kind of enjoy this alien character in a really weird way. Things start off with him being pretty gnarly, and you get to thinking that things are just going to be over the top. However, this alien dude ends up learning a thing or two about the softer side of humanity as well. I'm so incredibly torn about my opinion on it. On one hand, I liked it, but on the other, I have to admit that there was a lot of stuff I found to be unnecessarily thrown in. At the same time, this is a work of the truly bizarre. You will end this movie wondering what in the hell it was you just watched. It's full of awkward moments, but there's some creativity going on here, the acting is surprisingly good (namely from Green), and somehow this otherwise gross and juvenile film manages to find a heart somewhere behind all of that.... rotten meat. So needless to say, it's definitely NOT for everyone. The truth of the matter is that I feel like this will get something of a cult following if anything. It's bound to interest certain people, but it's not up my alley as much as it could be. It's interesting that here we have a film that takes all of the horror of alien abduction and manages to combine it with the curiosity of something like 'ET'. The only difference is, this is ET exploring the red light district of town and getting into all sorts of trouble (actually, I would totally watch that). On the whole, this is a pretty creepy watch, and you do have to dig a little bit to find the good stuff among a pile of wiggling worms, so it all depends on personal taste. It's one of those movies that doesn't feel like it knows who its for, and you have to get far into the movie to gain any real interest. I suppose it's passable for what it is, but I'm not going to feel like checking it out again anytime soon. It's a once-over thinker, and then you're over it. A 2, but a high 2. 2/5 My first Shudder review was a sort of quick draw from a hat when I needed to find something last-minute. According to a few sources, apparently this imaginary friend horror flick is one of the better titles on this streaming service. Whether or not I completely agree is hard to say, considering how many more Shudder originals I actually haven't seen yet. But with that said, this film certainly does bring with it a sort of vibe that I haven't felt with something like this in a while. Things start out in this movie as pretty typical. An eight-year-old boy named Josh (Jett Klyne) starts playing with an imaginary friend he calls "Z" (that's the American "Zee" as opposed to our Canadian "Zed"). At first, his parents, Kevin (Sean Rogerson) and Beth (Keegan Connor Tracy) sort of roll with it, but soon enough, Josh starts getting into big trouble at school, and the idea of Z existing seems to be a bad influence on his behaviour - like, dangerously bad. In many ways, Josh's character is a bit like Damien of 'The Omen' in that he's successfully creepily innocent when we know about the bad he does. This is a kid to keep an eye on, having been in several other things and showing a fair bit of range for his age. Getting back to the plot, however, I'm happy to say that things do take a pretty interesting turn from the typical. Usually, in a movie like this, it's pretty much about the family (namely the adults) having to overcome a haunting more so than a kid's actual imaginary friend (in other words, the friend tends to be an angry ghost). But in this case, Z comes tih a bit of a history, and he's actually seemingly more attached to Beth than Josh. The way things unfold is ultimately creepy, and carries some significantly matching imagery with it (along with a few standard jump scares). For what the movie is, I thought it did a good job in veering away from just being another ghost movie. Let me just forewarn that the following paragraph may contain spoilers, but I'm gonna try to tip-toe around them as best I can. I think a key element to talk about to the film's credit is that one might very well see this movie as a bit of an analogy for domestic abuse and what one might put up with just to protect her son. Another take on it has to do with the representation of mental health problems and the idea there's a sort of draw to succumb to them that's hard for us to help. One could just as easily say that people are reading too much into things, but the idea of an imaginary friend does speak to a matter of the mind as opposed to something physically there. I found Z represented more of a negative influence than a spirit of any sort. It's all just theoretical, but it's interesting to think about. This one comes to us from a lesser known writer/director, Brandon Christensen, whose name may not ring any bells other than if you've ever heard of a film called 'Still/Born'. However, his co-writer on the project is Colin Minihan, who worked on the 'Grave Encounters' films (which I quite enjoyed) and can partially also be thanked (or blamed, we'll see how things go) for the upcoming 'Spiral' film (which could just as easily be called 'Saw 9'). Otherwise, if you're looking for any sort of big names attached to it, you won't really find any. Everything here is talent to keep an eye on rather than being well-established. But I might recommend this to anyone looking for a quick hide-under-the-blankets type thriller. It's typical in some ways, but there are certainly some interesting things about it nonetheless. 3/5 |