Six films today...
Malevolence 3: Killer (Prime) ***
If at all possible, start the day with a nasty low-budget slasher movie. This is (obviously) the third in the grimy, unglossy Malevolence series, in which hulking killer Martin Bristol (apparently wearing one of Michael Myers' old boiler suits) wordlessly offs a series of teens while an FBI agent follows the trail of corpses. Steven Mena, creator of the trilogy, wrote, directed, produced, scored, edited and photographed; Adrienne Barbeau shows up as the killer's grandmother. It's fairly relentless, enjoyably bloody, and a step up from the second one (Bereavement); it's no unheralded classic that needs championing, but I had enough fun with it.
The Nightshifter (Shudder) ***
Agreeable Brazilian horror with a few traces of morbid comedy, in which a meek morgue attendant uses his gift of speaking with the dead bodies that arrive on his slab, to engineer the gangland execution of a local baker who's been schtupping his wife. But his wife gets killed as well and she's not happy about it... Pretty good stuff, with a nicely horrible exhumation scene and a severed (talking) head in a glass jar. Enjoyed it.
Before I Wake (Netflix) ***
Mike Flanagan has built up a solid and stylish back catalogue, from Hush and Oculus to Doctor Sleep and Ouija: Origin Of Evil. Nestling in the middle of those is Before I Wake, in which Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane adopt an orphaned boy (Jacob Tremblay), only to discover that his dreams come to life. To begin with they're benign and sweet - he has a thing about butterflies - but then he dreams about the couple's deceased son, and suffers from night terrors featuring the demonic Canker Man. Well worth catching, with some welcome creepy imagery.
Await Further Instructions (Netflix) **
The first major disappointment of the weekend. Starting with the awkwardness of an extended family Christmas (already soured by tiresome and uncomfortable comedy racism that didn't need to be there), it switches gears when they discover the house is sealed and increasingly sinister instructions are flashed onto the TV screen. Torture, violence and a twisted of the already twisted family dynamics ensue, before a genuinely mind-boggling and spectacular apocalypse finale. But by that point I'd lost interest: I struggled to get (and stay) involved, with some of the characters' behaviour feeling completely implausible as it went on.
The 9th Precinct (Netflix) ***
Far Eastern horror comedy has come a long way since the nonsensical knockabout likes of the Mr Vampire films and Witch From Nepal. This is more of a riff on Men In Black and R.I.P.D., in which a detective with the ability to see ghosts ends up in a special police precinct tasked with helping ghosts leave the living world peacefully, but coming up against a rich businesswoman planning an occult ritual... It's silly and harmless and it's not really very scary, but it's fun in a dumb Saturday night way and I enjoyed it enough.
Dead Rising: Endgame (Prime) **
Fairly colourless but bloody zombie shenanigans based on a video game. The first one (Dead Rising: Watchtower) was fun enough but this is no more than more of the same old schlock, indifferently done but with enough blood and undeath to get by; Billy Zane is a mad scientist, Dennis Haysbert is an evil general. I didn't fall asleep.
Day Four beckons....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment