Unfriended (2014)

I've been waiting to see this one...and as it often is with films that you can't watch NOW! NOW! I just want to see them even more!

So actually, even though the concept was something that I was a bit iffy about, it was worth the wait.

Unfriended (also known as "Cybernatural) is sort of a found footage but not, it all takes place on a computer screen through the eyes of one user talking to a group of close friends. Looking as if it is filmed all as one shot the camera never leaves the screen and instead we have our heroine clicking between Skype, Facebook, YouTube and Google. When I come to think about it now, it's one of the only films that I can think of that use the actual names of these platforms instead of invented ones (Finder-Spyder etc).

The action takes place on the one-year anniversary of the suicide an ex-friend/school mate of the group. She was a victim of cyber-bullying which is thought to be the cause of her suicide.

With all friends on screen, communicating via iMessage, Skype and Facebook the deceased friend starts to communicate to them through her old accounts, revealing hidden secrets about the group of friends and the events that led to her suicide.

Add to this the viral posting (we've all seen them) of a website claiming that if you are contacted by the dead on the internet, not to ignore them as they can possess you to commit suicide. Sort of a "if you don't share this...." thing.

As more is revealed the tension rises and suddenly the viral warning doesn't seem quite so silly.

It's a horror movie so of course we get scares, gore and suspense. There are several things that lead me to giving Unfriended a good score in my books.

The way it is shot gives you front row action, as most people would be watching on some sort of laptop or device it would actual take "first person" to another level. I've not seen a film made quite like this before but I'm certain that there will be more to follow. It really does glue you to the screen.

It makes valid points about some very real things, mostly Cyber-Bullying but also things such as: that you can be who you want on the internet, that people who appear perfect often hide secrets, that bullying is often done out of low self-confidence and that sometimes your best friends are not who they appear.

Rumour is that a sequel is in the making, going to be hard to top that!

8.5/10 Masks

Director: Levan Gabriadze
Writer: Nelson Greaves
Stars: Heather Sossaman, Matthew Bohrer, Courtney Halverson

Stung (2015)

As everyone knows, bees are essential, wasps are just evil, and massive killer mutant wasps are just not what you want at your upper class garden party.

Stung, as you have probably guessed is about massive mutant killer wasps, the type that usually lay their eggs into hosts, so when they grow to 7ft long a nice fleshy human is just about the right size.

Nothing shocking here, it's a good old fashioned monster movie with a good dose of humour and slapstick thrown in. Along with gore and violence, obviously.

The mutant lay their eggs into the panicking guests of a garden party, which seem to have an incubation time of about an hour while a giant wasp grows inside the host who despite probably having all their internal parts blended about seem to be perfectly normal until it bursts out.

Young potential couple Paul and Julia are the catering staff that wage the war against the beasts.

There's a good hint of the Aliens franchise here (possibly though only because of the reproduction methods, which were based on wasps) and a fast paced action which won't have you checking your phone.

Special effects are spot on and like all good monster movies it sets the scene for a potential sequel.

7/10 Masks

Language: English
Initial release: July 2, 2015 (USA)
Director: Benjamin Diez
Running time: 1h 30m
Screenplay: Adam Aresty

I-Lived (2015)

Josh is a bit of an ugly, loser-geek who reviews apps for his YouTube channel (honestly, who reviews things for the internet any more?).

He comes across a self-help styled app called "I-Lived" which seems to help him set and achieve a few of his goals.

He finds the girl of his dreams, his channel gets more popular, he starts looking better and he gets his dream job.

However he is also plagued with a strange sense of dread and keeps having unsettling visions which lead him to delete the app that he had previously so highly rated.

After he gets rid of it everything crumbles to dust in front of him, so he signs back up again, but this time the terms and conditions have changed and it gets serious, deadly serious.

I liked this flick somewhat. The character of Josh is quite likeable and believable and although it stands alone without having to have any "deeper meaning" it's quite obvious that it does.

Always read the terms and conditions, anyone can know everything about you from your browsing history and the lengths some people go to just to become famous on the internet.

More of a chilled Sunday afternoon "horror" but still good enough.

6/10 Masks

Initial release: June 2015
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Running time: 1h 37m
Screenplay: Franck Khalfoun
Music composed by: Greg Taieb, Mathieu Carratier

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

The Jokesters (2015)

A brand new one tonight - The Jokesters. The movie centres around an internet pranking mob called "The Pranksters" who are something of an online sensation and post (you've guessed it) videos of themselves pulling off different pranks. Some you will recognise from actual videos.

One of the gang gets married and the rest of the crew decide to pull one last prank on him and his wife as they honeymoon in a remote cabin in the woods.

I don't want to give too much away here as the key to this flick are the twists and turns, coupled with the very long build up that may have you wondering if you're watching the right movie.

It did suck me in, and it did keep me guessing. I really wasn't sure how this would end up and what the outcome would be, I even made sure that I didn't miss anything post-credits - tip: there is a post-credits scene, it gives you some back story which sets the scene for a sequel or a prequel.

Some of the online reviews are trashing this one already but for me, great movie.

8/10 Masks

Release: July 21
Director: AJ Wedding
Writers: Oliver J. Defilippo, James Orlik
Stars: Nathan Reid, Gabriel Tigerman, Luis Jose Lopez

From The Dark (2014)

Reading a few reviews of this movie they were all generally positive, but not halfway through this movie I could already tell what sort of ride I was in for.

Yet, I remain ambivalent about the whole thing. From The Dark is a neat little Irish movie that packs almost zero surprises - a young couple out travelling the countryside who's car breaks down at night, they find an old farmhouse...

Well, you've guessed already right? Earlier in the movie we see the owner of said house digging up what appears to be a mummified hand on his land so we can guess that's something to do with it.

The couple, upon discovering what happened to Mr.Diggy-Man are then chased by the bastard love child of an Orc and Graf Orlock. His only weakness is that he can't stand the light. We then embark on a survival story as they try to escape and defeat the vampire-orc-zombie-thingy.

Aside from the complete lack of anything original in this flick, along with the urge to facepalm as our heroine ignores loads of obvious ways to escape the situation, it isn't actually totally bad - the characters are believable and there is a gritty realism that holds it all together.

5/10 Masks

Initial release: September 20, 2014
Director: Conor McMahon
Running time: 1h 30m

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

Poltergeist (2015)

Every time there is a remake of a classic alarm bells will ring. There's always something sacred about an established franchise that makes us want to hold onto it dearly and any attempt to put that out again for the masses will have us storming to movie land with burning torches and pitchforks.

So when I first heard about the remake of Poltergeist my first instinct was "don't let it suck!" I'm quite sure those words or variants thereof were your thoughts too.

Did it? No. Was it awesome? Also, no.

It did do its job of remaking a movie, but it didn't really bring anything new to the table or give us anything that we didn't expect. It didn't try to transport us into 2015 by doing anything daft and stuck to the plot but also it didn't jump out of the screen (pun intended) and shock us.

Several plus points for not trying to re-cast that annoying medium woman with someone equally annoying (like Lin Shaye) but instead almost seeming to borrow from the original Fright Night.

Summed up - yeah, it's pretty good, just not great,

6/10 Masks

Initial release: May 21, 2015 (Netherlands)
Director: Gil Kenan
Running time: 1h 41m
Adapted from: Poltergeist
Producers: Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, Roy Lee, Nathan Kahane

The Babadook (2014)

If your idea of a horror film is listening to the wild screams of an annoying child for 90-odd minutes then The Babadook is the film for you.

If however you prefer scares and chills and a decent plot then by all means try something else.

This 2014 movie was ranted and raved about all over, I remember first watching it under the influence of pretty bad tonsillitis and then giving it another go a bit after.

The imagery is good enough, the idea even quite original and if you delve deeper into the movie's symbolism and underlying metaphor then it makes quite good artsy sense.

Yet, I do not crave these things from a horror movie. A good book perhaps but not a visual feast which I expect to scare me and make me cringe.

The only thing making me cringe in this movie was the annoying cast - a withered old mother lacking the backbone of the most simple of mammals and her son that spends the entire film screaming in a high-pitched whine that will make you run to protect your wine glasses.

What's it about? On the surface - a single mother raising a difficult child that finds a scary pop-up book, the monster that is featured manifests itself and off we go. Underlying - a single mother's struggle with a difficult child and her desire to do harm to him.

If you want something a bit avant garde of an evening then by all means try this one, you may even enjoy it, but if you watch it expecting a horror flick, you're going to be left disappointed.

3/10 Masks

Initial release: 2014 (Australia)
Director: Jennifer Kent
Running time: 1h 35m

Creep (2014)

I'm a big fan of films that carry themselves off with a minimalist cast - and this one has just two cast members (with the voice of a third). It was also written, produced and directed by the two.

Aaron is a videographer that answers an online advert for a days work filming Josef. Visiting his house Josef claims that he is married, his wife is pregnant with a boy but due to an inoperable brain tumour, will be dead in three months and simply wishes to make a "day in the life" style video for his unborn son to see what his father was like.

OK, all seems fine but as you can imagine there is a reason the film is called "Creep" and not "the really nice person". You've guessed it, things get weird and then weirder and it soon becomes apparent that maybe all isn't how it seems.

It's a great journey, Mark Duplass plays the part to a tee and of course most of this film is through the eyes of the camera lens. It's amazing how he gets Aaron to follow and come with him and there are a few moments where the plot could go either way. Either Aaron or Josef could be the bad guy.

All is revealed of course and what we get is a fantastic little flick - Not going to give anything away, but this one is a winner.

8/10 Masks.

Initial release: March 8, 2014
Director: Patrick Kack-Brice
Running time: 1h 22m
Cast: Mark Duplass, Patrick Kack-Brice
Producers: Mark Duplass, Jason Blum
Music composed by: Kyle Field, Eric Andrew Kuhn, Sonny Smith

Spring (2014)

Looking for the great horror movies of 2015 I came across this on a top 10 list - there wasn't much said about the movie as they didn't want to ruin any surprise. Well (and spoiler alert) I will and save you the job of watching it.

You know how Shaun Of The Dead was billed as "a romantic comedy, with zombies"? Well this is a romantic love story, that just happens to have a (sort of) monster in it.

A young American loses his mother and gets into a bar fight so decides to go travel and ends up in Italy. He meets a nice young lady, they get jiggy and he falls in love.

Alas, she has a secret to hide and....well basically she has to decide whether to stay with the guy and fall in love and eventually die, or continue her existence as immortal.

So yeah, it's The Little Mermaid. Or worse....Twilight.

Spoilers coming...

She is 2000 years old and replenishes her youth via injections and getting pregnant (where her body re-absorbs the youth) she is subject to changing into an odd lizard/squid being from time to time. That's it - she's not even a rampaging monster, she tries to hide it.

It's a slow burner that even when it gets to the point was not worth the wait. It is essentially a romance movie, not a horror. In fact if you had a partner or a friend that didn't like horror but liked romance, you could let them watch this to introduce them to the genre.

As a story, apart from being lame, it's an OK watch. but as a horror it fails and as "top ten" material... never.

3/10 Masks.

Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Writer: Justin Benson
Stars: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, Vanessa Bednar

Clown (2014)

So the legend goes, Eli Roth wasn't originally involved in this movie until a fake trailer was put up on YouTube saying that he was - he then got involved. Eli! No! More time getting Green Inferno released and less time with other projects, OK!

So, Clown - Kent McCoy is on his way to his son's birthday party when he learns that the clown (his son loves clowns) has cancelled, not wanting to disappoint he finds an old clown costume in a strange old chest (that's alarm bells right there) and puts it on - does the party, great success!

Next day, he can't get the suit off....or the wig, or the nose. It seems to be welding itself to his body - and yes, it is! Over time he transforms. Sort of like "The Fly" but with a clown.

Tracing the origins it's up to the previous owner to inform him of what is happening.

As we know, Clowns can be pretty creepy, especially when they're eating people ....

Great idea for a film, very well made, very dark. This premise could have gone either way and made wrong could have just been ridiculous. Thankfully this wasn't.

7/10 Masks

Release date: March 2, 2015 (United Kingdom)

Director: Jon Watts

Running time: 1h 40m

Headless (2015)

What can be said about Headless? - This 2015 movie presents itself as a lost slasher movie from 1978 complete with retro style film scratches, gaudy colouring and even kicking off with a fake trailer for the film "Wolf Baby".

As for a plot..... There is a slither of one in so much as our unnamed killer, due to a very odd upbringing, sleeps in a cage, wears a rubber skull mask and his main hobby is killing women, decapitating them, eating their eyes and then having sex with their heads, in the neck hole.

Of course his home is decorated with the decaying remains of each victim. Of course.

There's not much more to it really - his companion is a younger version of himself wearing a rubber mask that only speaks in jaw-clicks and we presume is an imaginary friend, our killer never speaks and apart from the odd flashback to his strange childhood, gives no reason for his actions.

All in all it's perfect. The "lost movie" is a welcome change and captures the video nasty vibe of movies like Driller Killer and slasher classics like Friday the 13th.

The gore is over the top and if anything the whole tone of the movie is extremely dark comedy for the sick minded and a massive nod to the grindhouse genre.

Doing some internet research, I see that the original "version" of Headless was a "film within a film" featured in the 2012 movie "found" (which I shall be watching right away) and both movies were Kickstarter funded. That, like this movie is awesome.

8/10 Masks.

Directed by - Arthur Cullipher
Produced by - Scott Schirmer
Kara Erdel
Written by - Nathan Erdel
Starring - Shane Beasley, Kelsey Carlisle, Ellie Church
Release dates - February 14, 2015 (Festival premiere)
Running time - 85 minutes
Country - United States
Language - English

Hayride 2 (2015)

A slow-moving, silent masked killer walks around slashing people up while a bunch of incompetent armed police and others try to stop him.

Sound familiar? Halloween? Friday The 13th? Yeah, you've seen this all before.

The original Hayride from 2012 tells the tale of a backwoods town that has the urban myth of a killer called Pitchfork - an escaped maniac embodies the legend and goes round slashing and gouging as much as he can.

Hayride 2 picks up directly where the first left us, the presumed dead body of Pitchfork is being sped away in an ambulance but, guess what, he's not dead! For some reason that eludes logic the ambulance staff haven't even removed his mask and off he goes, slash, stab etc.

Local authorities try and stop him but as in most of these films a simple man holding a knife is a scary and unstoppable force that is impervious to bullets.

This film tries to mature and develop the characters but fails, we don't need to see the back story or the relationship between these people that quite simply we can't wait to see hacked to bits.

An unoriginal slasher flick that really doesn't justify being made. Quite simply, not enough gore, a bad plot, bad acting and we've seen it all before but done better.

3/10 Masks

Director: Terron R. Parsons
Writer: Terron R. Parsons
Stars: Sherri Eakin, Jeremy Sande, Jeremy Ivy |

Vile (2011)

I don't remember seeing (or hearing about) this one when it was released originally - but feel like I've seen it already because, well, we've all seen these sort of movies.

A group of kids on some sort of road trip (one of the most prone groups next to a group of kids walking around with camera gear) pick up a beautiful hitch hiker... yeah, you all know what happens next.

They wake up in a room with some other scared people and what follows is their bid to escape alive - the only way they can do this, is by inflicting enough pain on each other to fill up these bottles that are inserted into the back of their heads.

So we have a torture flick with a slight twist as although the process is being carried out by an unseen enemy the pain is inflicted by the victims.

So for a torture movie it does its job, I would imagine and hope that there is an uncut version somewhere as the version I saw seemed to cut away from the action a lot, which is really what a torture film should be all about. That's not to say that we don't get our fair share of fingernail pulling and teeth extracting along with several other toe-curling moments for you to clench your buttocks to.

Although as far as realism goes you may find yourself shouting at the screen - their pain seems to vanish as soon as it is inflicted and they walk around almost with zero symptoms afterwards. Even a guy with a broken collar bone manages to lift someone up with only a grit of his teeth to indicate the pain.

The plot has a few unsurprising twists along the way, the cast feels like it is made up of "group of people that all must die or be maimed" usual suspect stereotypes, but honestly who cares as it's all about the pain and torture.

Wrongs are made righted with vengeance and all in all this is not a bad little flick, even if it wouldn't stand out in it's genre.

6/10 Masks

Release date: August 26, 2011 (United Kingdom)
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Running time: 1h 28m
Initial DVD release: December 16, 2012 (Japan)
Screenplay: Eric Jay Beck, Rob Kowsaluk

The Last House On Cemetery Lane (2015)

Sometimes you'll be watching a movie and just wonder how and why anyone bothered to make it. This is one of those. Writer and director, Andrew Jones has produced a few indy flicks and this one sadly reeks of that very word.

The plot follows a screen writer that moves to a secluded house in order to concentrate on his new project - after discovering that there is a blind old lady that also lives upstairs in the house, strange things start happening.

From here we get zero scares, zero twists (that you didn't already suspect) and zero excitement. The acting is flat and more suited to a soap opera, the cast forgettable and it's only redeeming feature is that I didn't turn it off.

However - it is a British film that isn't 100% dross so I wouldn't be surprised if Andrew Jones went on to make bigger and better and this would be considered "his not-so-good" early work.

2/10 Masks

English

1 hr 22 min (82 min)

Writer/Director: Andrew Jones.

Stars: Vivien Bridson, Lee Bane, Georgina Blackledge

The Houses October Built (2014)

Oh fantastic, I thought... another "found footage" movie. Why is it that the only people that walk round these days carrying bulky camera gear are the same ones that will inevitably end up being chased down some spooky corridor with a masked loony in pursuit....

Thankfully, The Houses October Built isn't just another found footage pile of junk. We follow a group of young guys and gals travelling around and visiting various ghost houses of the USA. There is a market for such things, especially in October where Halloween is coming - some are family friendly and some border on extreme.

The group are looking for a real scare and are also aware that the actors employed by such houses are not always 100% kosher or nice. They push the boundaries and make a few enemies on the way all in search of the legendary "Blue Skeleton" house that is the alpha and omega of extreme scare houses. Which is when things start to get more extreme than they bargained for.

The cast is also made up of the director and producer and all actors use their real names, the banter between them is all perfectly natural and believable which is refreshing in this genre. Where as the plot is very predictable there are still enough scares and moments to make this a gripping watch.

Again the team behind this movie are fledgling and fresh so I would expect better things from them in the future and this is certainly a good start.

8/10 Masks

English
Initial release: October 10, 2014
Director: Bobby Roe
Running time: 1h 31m
Music composed by: Mark Binder
Screenplay: Jason Zada
Cast: Bobby Roe, Brandy Schaefer, Zack Andrews, Mikey Roe, Jeff Larson

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)

Although released 5 years ago, this DVD/Blu-Ray set has recently surfaced on Netflix so I thought it was well worth a mention.

Never Sleep Again is the ultimate companion for Nightmare fanatics - a journey through all 8 movies, excluding the 2010 remake.

Each movie gets it's own story told by cast and crew and offers insights, memories, a "where are they now" and behind the scenes takes - it's an amazing journey through the franchise.

It answers many questions, puts things into perspective, even tells the tale of that odd 2nd movie that doesn't really fit in.

Be warned though it does clock in at almost 4 hours so don't do what I did and start to watch it late in the evening, you'll seriously never sleep....

9/10 Masks

Initial release: 2010
Director: Andrew Kasch
Running time: 4 hours
Initial DVD release: May 4, 2010
Genres: Horror, Documentary, Cult film