Fear Clinic (2014)

When the cast includes Robert Englund it could go one of two ways. Nightmare On Elm St or...Zombies vs Strippers.

Sadly, Fear Clinic edges towards the latter. I had to watch it twice as the first time round I felt that I kept missing things and that the plot was hard to follow. Second time round I realised that it was just that the film wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention.

Which is a shame as the plot was quite good - Englund plays a doctor who finds a way to cure patients of their fears and phobias by constructing a floatation tank that allows them to virtually live out their fears and confront them.

Predictably - it doesn't all go to plan. This coupled with an underhanded deal carried out by a pair of bungling criminals (one played by Slipknot's Corey Taylor) ensures that Fear Clinic lives up to it's name.

Now I'm not sure if it was the pace, the editing or the cast but even with the face of Freddy Krueger present, nothing thrown at me by this piece stuck. Even on the second watch.

It could be that a re-edit could sort this movie out, as is it just feels messy and confusing which is a shame given the potential.

3/10 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.

Private Number (2015)

One of those films that you have to think to yourself - when everyone involved in the making of this film read the script, why did no one say "it's good...but..."

Private Number follows the tale of a writer struggling with both alcoholism and his second novel who is plagued by mysterious spooky phone calls and scary visions that begin intensify.

When he starts to get the local police involved it's revealed that there was a serial killer that they never caught and our writer starts to investigate.

In essence, Private Number is a great movie - the characters are genuine and believable, the plot intensifies, there are a number of great scares, you have ghouls as well as a whodunnit and also the human element that drags you in to the situation.

However....

There's a plot twist, and that twist is one that you'll get about halfway through the film which means by the time it comes it gives the whole film a different tone and well, it ruins it.

Up until that point it was great, but why didn't anyone stop that ending.

5/10 Masks.

Paranormal Extremes : Text Messages From The Dead (2015)

Quick run down of my thoughts on this film.

0.05 - Oh it's a porn.
0.15 - Yup, just a porn with a plot.
0.30 - OK, just a build up to the porn, all these guys must be involved.
1.00 - Maybe the porn comes at the end.
1.30 - It wasn't a porn??!

Clearly said the plot of this movie can be worked out by it's title. The film is of porn quality, and not even expensive porn quality!

The whole thing looks as if it was shot in a back yard on a camcorder using people they found to "act" in it.

I will never get that time back.

0/10 Masks.

Harbinger Down (2015)

This is one of those movies that you'll need to know a bit of back story to truly appreciate it.

Amalgamated Dynamics is a special effects team that have made animatronics and prosthetic effects since the 80s. However more and more their work is being replaced with CGI in post production. After their work was replaced on The Thing (2011) they started to upload videos of their original effects and thus a following was formed and a Kickstarter idea imagined.

Harbinger Down is a crowd funded movie that uses only practical special effects, zero CGI.

Movie-wise it's OK, the plot is basically The Thing. Shape-shifting alien from space that uses humans as a host and goes round killing them.

Set on a crabbing boat the cast are likeable and almost cartoon-like which makes you think of an 80s video nasty. Lance Henriksen is our hero who hams it up fantastically.

The main star of the show is of course the special effects, which are fantastic. The pure old school effects give this film a character of it's own and a real classic feel.

Where as it's similarity to The Thing is a tribute or an attempt to make a better version I don't know, it's too close to be a mistake, especially when you consider that the team worked on the most recent.

Overall it's a good ride and sure to gain a fair cult following. The unoriginal plot was the main let down for me but don't let that discourage you.

6/10 Masks

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

Although made in 2014, the Austrian movie Goodnight Mommy (org: Ich Seh, Ich Seh "I see, I see") is getting a UK release in Sept 2015 and the trailer was recently released. It sets the bar way high and looks like it's going to be one of the scariest creepy horrors of 2015.

Well, my job here is to let you know if it's worth your time and here's the truth. No. It's rubbish.

It's not a horror. The trailer makes it seem as if it is but it's simply not.

The plot boiled down is - a mom comes home from surgery, we think it's reconstructive as it's later hinted that she recently had an accident. Her two boys believe that she is acting different and refuse to believe that she is their mother.

OK, so some spoliers ahead but I'm not ruining anything for you, this movie isn't worth your time.

The twin boys (Elias and Lukas) have a close relationship but the mother refuses to acknowledge or talk to Lukas or make him any food. Why is this? Well it's the "big plot reveal" bit at the end that honestly I guessed as soon as the two were introduced and you probably will too.

What follows is slight suspense as you wonder why the mother is acting strange and you start to think that maybe something is afoot but then all supernatural scenes are quickly revealed to be dreams or imagination, there is no supernatural element to this movie.

Reviews have made out that the violence in the movie is tense and cruel and unbearable. In truth it is minimal and nothing you haven't seen before.

I watched this right to the end, just in case there was anything unexpected that would turn it all round but again, all we got was a plot reveal that was as obvious as anything and then an ending that made me want to throw things at the screen.

Awesome trailer, waste of a film.

2/10 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

Scarsfield (2015?)

This is not a review - it is a maybe-pre-review. Some of us that scour the web looking for horror movies may have come across the mention of the movie "Scarsfield".

It confuses me. I am not sure if it is a real movie or not and if it's not then where did all this come from. Maybe it's a fake trailer made to generate interest, or maybe no film actually exists or will exist. Either way it makes me curious, and that is some good publicity right there.

The trailer (that can be viewed HERE) and it's mention on other sites comes with this information:

Rating: PG-31, this is not a typo, be warned.

About Scarsfield: 

Scarsfield is a little bit different than you are used to from your average run of the mill movies. This movie will take you in to the mind of Jon, a Vietnam veteran who created the persona Scarsfield in to his mind to overcome and block out all the horrible things he has done. 
Scarsfield however in turn tries to confront Jon about the things he's done in order to cope with them. This movie takes you trough flashbacks and psychedelic trips. Until Jon realizes that the horrors didn't just stay in Vietnam, they followed him back to America. 

BE WARNED: This movie contains both real and fake: Gore, dead bodies, drug use, sex, mutilation, rape, suicide, murders, psychedelic trips, sex, bad language and EVP's. 

May cause: Lose of bowel control and / or seizures, nightmares, not for the faint of heart.

Sounds awesome right?

The trailer shows Breckin Meyer in black and white while Chris Issac's "Blue Hotel" plays, it is cut in with footage from other movies (I think I spotted Creepshow in there) and news rolls etc - since I am not over familiar with Meyer's movies I am unsure if this is just clipped from any of his other films, although I do notice that he looks younger than any of his 2015 pictures in this trailer.

Real? Fake? Publicity stunt? Con? Watch this space.

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