The Final Girls (2015)

Not to be confused with "The Final Girl" that came out earlier this year.

Malin Akerman and Tassia Farmiga (American Horror Story) star in this Last Action Hero meets Friday The 13th comedy slasher.

Akerman plays an actress who is struggling to find work because all people remember her for is an 80s slasher called Camp Bloodbath.

After dying in a car crash her daughter (Farmiga) goes to a showing of the movie at a theatre and by some strange events herself and some friends end up being transported in to the film.

Well aware that's exactly what has happened they decide to see if they can change the events, including taking the dead mother with them when they go home.

Brilliant for a film with a budget, The Final Girls lampoons the slasher genre perfectly as two worlds collide. Technically not a horror or a slasher but a comedy it's not without it's gruesome moments and unexpected gory deaths.

I'm wondering if in the same vein as "Headless" that "Camp Bloodbath" might get it's own film, time will tell.

This flick was a great concept and a great ride. Bang on.

8/10 Masks

Circle (2015)

I'm a huge fan of movies like this - dark, all set in one room, tense.

A group of strangers find themselves in a room, where they cannot leave, cannot move and someone gets killed once every few minutes.

In trying to find out why they realise that they have the power to chose who dies next, but only one person can be left standing.

Can't say too much more, it's a builder, it's subtle, it's great.

7/10 Masks

The Pyramid (2014)

Have seen this one advertised on and off but as it looked a bit cheap and uninteresting I decided to skip it until now, when a friend of mine recommended it online.

So as you can imagine the film takes place in a pyramid, during an archaeological dig in Egypt and with little persuasion a team which as luck would have it includes a camera man, end up exploring the deep hidden tunnels of said pointy building.

As it's a horror they are useless and stupid and end up getting stuck and of course they are not alone because as we all know pyramids are famous for housing long buried ancient monsters.

A little let down that it wasn't a scary mummy to be honest, the film world has had it's fill of vampires, werewolves and zombies, there isn't enough sea monsters or mummies.

No, what hunts them is a series of scary Egyptian C.G.I nasties the awful animation of which Egypt has not seen since The Rock turned into a giant scorpion.

All in all it's not a bad movie, the plot has it's charms, the "found footage" is minimal and there's enough shocks and gore to hold your interest.

Aside from the terrible C.G.I there is one other factor that either ruins or saves the whole thing. This is the inclusion of James Buckley, best known for playing Jay on the TV show (and films) The Inbetweeners. You can't see him in any other light but as Jay. Fwiend?

5/10 Masks

We Are Still Here (2015)

This movie was made as a homage to the late great Lucio Fulci (probably best known for the infamous Zombie Flesh Eaters) which may explain why it is set in 1979 and is quite slow to kick in. It may also be why the acting was so wooden, possibly on purpose.

We Are Still Here breaks no new ground but is altogether a pretty decent film, apart from the questions I had for it at the end.

A couple who have recently lost their son move into a new house in a new town which happened to be the setting for a history of corpse looting and town vigilante justice.

Voices are heard and things go bump in the night so the wife, believing that it may be her deceased son trying to contact them enlists the help of her long standing clairvoyant friend. Quite obviously though,  it is not.

An evil that the town knows and fears lives there and is granted a sacrifice when it raises it's head.

There are a few quite decent jumps and some wonderful deaths along with possessions and a town wide conspiracy that comes to a climax at the end. Although not before a few people have had their heads squashed like melons and their torsos torn open.

The film did suffer slightly from sub-par acting and I couldn't help feeling that it could have gone much better with some more experienced thespians in the seats (unless this was to give it the 70's video nasty vibe, in which case well done). Also, when the premise of the film is revealed I was left with the questions: why did the nasties kill all those people then, and why they didn't just do what they did at the end in the first place.

Anyway - great gore and charred corpses ripping people apart, let's not spilt hairs.

6/10 Masks.

Almost Mercy (2015)

OK, not 100% exactly a horror, or is it? Social commentary I think would be more appropriate, but with blood and guts.

One of these movies where I don't want to give too much away so should you choose to watch you can do so fresh.

Seemingly quite low budget Almost Mercy features roles from both Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley, yet they are not our central heroes. That would be the friend-zoned couple Jackson and Emily, two outsider kids in a strange and stagnant small town doing their best to rise above the flotsam and jetsam and survive.

When the situation turns against them and becomes too much it's down to them to deal with it.

There are many aspects of this movie that make me think of films such as Donnie Darko, Gummo and God Bless America - I wasn't expecting much but what was delivered was a stand-out piece which was both rich in dark humour, blood, surprises and the ability to raise questions.

Danielle Guldin jumps out of this picture to steal the show, I believe this could be the first step towards Scream Queen infamy.

7/10 Masks

Exeter aka: Backmask/The Asylum (2015)

Exeter, also known as The Asylum in the UK (presumably to not reference the southern town) hasn't really got the critic that it deserved. People have dismissed the plot as cliche and overused and the film as dull.

Those people are wrong. In a world overrun by "found footage" style movies an actual movie which isn't filmed by a cast member is a welcome change.

The movie purposely makes fun of and lampoon's the cliche's of horror movies while managing to not drag the tone into that of a spoof. For a few seconds we do get to see the film as filmed by one of the cast before he is told to put the camera away. With lines like "I've never seen a movie where a ouija board experiment ended with the words - I'm really glad I did that" you can spot the tongue in the cheek a mile off.

That said, Exeter delivers a cool flick. A group of friends party in an abandoned asylum, and we can all pretty much guess what sort of nasty surprises lie in wait, especially when it's revealed that one of the patients displayed certain supernatural powers but not before of course, they went missing.

From here on in we have what certainly is a very dark, almost sardonic comedic approach to the genre. An exorcism as instructed by Wikipedia, some amazingly inventive gory deaths and even a few great twists and turns.

Ground breaking it is certainly not but good gory fun it is.

6/10 Masks

The Gallows (2015)

Every time a movie starts and you straight away see it's yet another "found footage" flick you just want to go back in time and punch those Blair Witch kids right in their faces.

The Gallows is quite simply, yet another found footage film. We open on a home movie from 1993 showing a school production of a play (The Gallows), during the proceedings one of the young actors gets himself stuck in the (for some reason perfectly working and authentic) hangman's noose and cops it.

Fast forward to 2014 and the same school is putting on the same play - one of the school's football players is starring in the play so his little gang of friends decide to creep into the school and disrupt the set.

Guess what happens?

There's a bit of a weak story surrounding it although most of the action is as you'd expect - kids running around for some reason still holding and filming with a video camera while being incapable of ever finding a light switch.

Basically it's one of those films that, despite maybe one good jump-scare, once it's over you say "well, that was rubbish and pointless"


2/10 Masks

The Human Centipede 3 : Final Sequence (2015)

I'm sure by now that just about everyone is familiar with the whole Human Centipede premise, if not then a quick look on the web will be your guide.

I must admit that the first one didn't really do anything for me, once you knew what was going to happen and then saw it happen there wasn't much else to it.

The second one was truly awful. It felt more like a fan made YouTube movie. So of course to top it all for part three they have to go one bigger. Well, five-hundred bigger to be precise.

Set in a prison for the truly wicked we are introduced to the warden, William Boss (played by Dieter Laser, the doctor from the first movie) and his accountant Dwight (Laurence R. Harvey who is the main character from the second movie). Summed up they are running into money troubles and Dwight, once again obsessed with the Human Centipede films, has an idea. If you've not worked it out already, it's a massive human centipede.

The trailer for the movie shows the centipede and there is even a picture of it on the poster so there are no surprises here, it's going to happen and it does happen.

However, this is not the big picture of the film. Instead we are faced with the internal struggle of our "heroes" and the prisoners locked in a power struggle, additionally the cringe scenes are not all about the centipede.

Although the acting makes most porno stars look like they've gone to RADA, Laser's character as William Boss steals the show being just about the most over the top anyone has ever been ever. He is on top for most evil movie bad guy if he wasn't more suited to something from a Carry On film.

Still, although it started off looking as if it would be a huge pile of gastric-passed faeces it actually turned out to be my favourite of the three, though I am hoping the franchise ends here, any more would just be very, very silly.

6/10 Masks

Initial release: May 22, 2015 (USA)
Director: Tom Six
Running time: 1h 43m

It Follows (2015)

It Follows is truly the stuff nightmares that are made of, I will try and make this review as spoiler free as I can but I don't think it's going to happen.

The plot is lifted straight from a deep, dark recess of the mind - we first get introduced to "it" which does follow when a young couple, Jay and Hugh are out on a date and are pointing out people that they could chose to be instead. After a few turns Hugh says "what about that woman in the red dress" and Jay says "there's no woman in a red dress...". Boom. It's one of those "I see dead people" or "why did you let her live?" lines.

Later that night they have sex and Hugh explains that now she has "the curse". She will be followed by a "something" that can take whatever form it chooses. Only she will be able to see it.

Then, she is followed.

The only way to get rid of the curse is to have sex with someone else, like some supernatural STD - it's not explained whether or not using protection stops it.

It's a great plot as of course you're never sure if it's "the thing" or someone else and it does tend to show up, looming out of the dark or trailing behind. You can run, you can drive off but eventually it will catch up.

Creepy as hell, great cast, full of stuff that you don't see coming, or do but can't look away, I loved it.

8/10 Masks

Initial release: March 27, 2015 (USA)
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Running time: 1h 47m