Starring: Anna Gunndís Guðmundsdóttir, Björn Thors
“If anyone can hear me, my name is Agla Helgadottir and I am calling from the base camp of the glacial research expedition. There are two of us here. One man is dead and five others are missing. Please send help, I don’t know what is going on here.” (Agla, Frost)
Unlike many horror film fans, I’m not yet sick of the ‘found footage’ genre. First made popular with The Blair Witch Project (although Cannibal Holocaust preceded it by decades), when a film uses it properly it can be bloody effective.
Unfortunately, most films don’t. For the most part, ‘found footage’ is a solution to a problem – usually a funding one – rather than a deliberate artistic style. Why bother with lighting, shot composition and the like when you can just go down the shakycam route and slash the budget drastically?
Frost is, unfortunately, one of the worst examples of this I’ve seen in a long time. Despite having a potentially interesting setting for a film of this genre and a trailer that genuinely excited me, the actual result falls short in so many ways it might as well have been directed by a midget to complete the full set. Continue reading “Frost (2012) review”→
Starring: Ron Palillo, Abigail Wolcott, Carel Trichardt, Petrea Curran
“Take this, you zombie bitch!” (Pam, Hellgate)
Have you ever suffered from PMS? I have. No, you fool, I don’t mean that. I’m talking about Plot Missing Syndrome.
You know how it works. Sometimes you’re watching a film and you’re slightly tired. You nod off without realising it and wake up 30 minutes later, none the wiser.
Slowly you start to realise that the film isn’t making sense any more. Characters are talking about things that haven’t happened. The hero and his love interest suddenly hate each other for some reason. One guy’s missing a leg.
It eventually dawns on you that you must have fallen asleep. You rewind back to the last scene you remember and, more often than not, are stunned that you managed to miss around half an hour without noticing.
When I first watched Hellgate, I thought PMS had struck again. So I watched the film a second time from start to finish and realised, to my bewilderment, that it actually hadn’t. Continue reading “Hellgate (1989) review”→
Starring: Katia Winter, Ted Levine, Michael McMillan
“Every now and then you run up into a night that’s a stone-ass bummer from start to finish. In nights like those, if you know what’s good for you, you hunker down and you hide. This is not one of those nights.” (Thomas Blackburn, Banshee Chapter)
WARNING: This review contains images that may be disturbing. If you’re easily freaked out by creepy faces, it might be a good idea not to scroll down.
First, a history lesson. In the early 1950s, the US government and the CIA started a programme called MKUltra. This was a highly dodgy project in which unwitting US and Canadian citizens were made the test subjects of ‘behavioural engineering’ research.
Over the course of more than two decades, normal Americans were subjected to administration of drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse and torture – by their own government – as a test to see how their mental states and brain functions could be altered. Continue reading “Banshee Chapter (2013) review”→
Starring: Gerhard Liebmann, Edita Malovcic, Brigitte Kren
Also known as: The Station
“Maybe the legends of wolfmen and mermaids are based on biological realities. Maybe the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis, really was a human being with a jackal’s head.” (Birte, Blood Glacier)
When the DVD cover of a film has a quote comparing it to a classic, you’d be right to feel a little suspicious. Blood Glacier’s cover, for example, suggests it’s like legendary John Carpenter sci-fi horror film The Thing. And this would have been accurate, had The Thing been deeply average.
Set in the German Alps, the film focuses on a group of researchers working in a tiny lab as they research glacial reduction and how it affects climate change. Obviously this subject matter isn’t exactly likely to pump your nads, which is why Blood Glacier then throws a curveball in the shape of, well, a blood-coloured glacier. Continue reading “Blood Glacier (2013) review”→
RIPLEY – “There’s a monster in your chest. These guys hijacked your ship, and they sold your cryo tube to this human. And he put an alien inside of you. It’s a really nasty one. And in a few hours it’s gonna burst through your ribcage, and you’re gonna die. Any questions?
PURVIS – “Who are you?”
RIPLEY – “I’m the monster’s mother.”
There are some people who feel writer Joss Whedon can do no wrong. To those people I remove my cap, stare soberly at them and nod my head in the direction of Alien Resurrection, at which point blood streams freely from their eyes as they collapse in a heap, screaming indecipherable slogans of bile and malice.
To be fair, that would maybe be a bit of an overreaction on their behalf, because Alien Resurrection isn’t exactly the worst film ever made. It’s just the worst Alien film ever made. Continue reading “Alien: Resurrection (1997) review”→
Starring: Rhonda Griffin, Justin Lauer, Bill Moynihan, Jon Simanton
“You’re history, you little pervert! No, you’re archaeology, as in old garbage!” (Anna, The Creeps)
Full Moon Pictures is one of my favourite B-movie horror studios. Established in the 1980s, it was well-known among horror fans for its cheesy low-budget efforts.
Some, like Puppet Master and Subspecies, were so popular they went on to spawn their own multi-sequel franchises. Others, like Dollman – in which an intergalactic bounty hunter crashlands on space only to realise he’s ten inches tall – weren’t.
Full Moon continues to this day, and while most of its recent output retains all of the cheese, it leaves out most of the charm. Titles like The Gingerdead Man and Dangerous Worry Dolls sound like they should be superb slices of low-budget larks (well, they do to me at least) but ultimately they end up in the TWABM Hall Of Shame.
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Lance Henriksen, an Alien
“You’re all gonna die, the only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet, or on your fuckin’ knees, begging? I ain’t much for begging. Nobody ever gave me nothing. So I say fuck that thing, let’s fight it.” (Dillon, Alien 3)
WARNING: This article has ending spoilers, so you have been warned. It’s more than two decades old, to be fair.
Imagine you had a decent job. Let’s say you were the manager of something… a plumbing firm, for example. You make good money, and you’re happy with the knowledge that when it comes to managing plumbing firms, you know your onions.
Now imagine you’ve also got two older brothers. One brother is a leading politician – be that the Prime Minister, President, whatever it is in your country. The other brother is one of the greatest footballers in the world and has two World Cup Winner’s medals in his large trophy display room.
If you can’t tell where I’m going with this analogy you might as well close this window and go back to fumbling over Candy Crush Saga. Yes, friends, what I’m saying is that Alien 3 is the plumbing firm manager of the Alien series. Look, just go with it. Continue reading “Alien 3 (1992) review”→
Starring: Jason Wiles, Cerina Vincent, Jeff Branson
REAGAN – “So, uh, they say you’re dead. That you were killed.”
MONIKA – “That would appear to be the case.”
It’s said that during the filming of Star Wars, Harrison Ford turned to George Lucas and, frustrated by its flowery script, moaned: “You can type this shit George, but you sure can’t say it.”
The same accusation can be aimed directly at MoniKa, which has some of the least realistic dialogue I’ve heard in a while. It didn’t bother me though, because hokey script aside it’s a decent little film. Continue reading “MoniKa: A Wrong Way To Die (2012) review”→
Starring: Tony Scannell, Graham Cole, PH Moriarty, Anouska Mond, Fliss Watson, Katy Manning
Also known as: The Haunting Of Harry Payne (original title)
“The only thing I need to know from you… is how the hell you kill a dead man.” (Harry, Evil Never Dies)
Here’s an interesting one, a British gangster film with a paranormal twist. I haven’t seen anything like that since Cockney Spook, a movie I just made up in my head.
Evil Never Dies (which until recently was going to be called The Haunting Of Harry Payne, but was changed to a far more generic title in December) tells the story of Harry Payne, an aging mobster who’s just left prison after serving ten years for the murder of his gang boss and best friend. Continue reading “Evil Never Dies (2013) review”→
“Eat lead, froggies!” (Sam Hell, Hell Comes To Frogtown)
Hell Comes To Frogtown has one of the greatest premises in film history.
It’s set in the future, after a nuclear war has turned America into a sort of Mad Max/Fallout post-apocalyptic wasteland. Due to the radiation, the world’s population is either dead or sterile.
That is, except for a handful of females scattered throughout the land and one man, Sam Hell (wrestling legend Rowdy Roddy Piper).
“So I basically have to go around shagging everyone? That seems a bit… convenient”
Hell is captured by the government and told he has to travel around the country, having sex with as many of the fertile women as he can so he can re-populate the planet.
A big pair of explosive underpants are attached to Hell and he’s told that if he tries to escape they’ll explode. Suprisingly, Sam doesn’t seem too happy with this agreement for some reason.
He’s also none too pleased when he’s told that a group of these nubile, fertile young women are being held prisoner in Frogtown, an area populated by mutants who have evolved into walking, talking frog people, and that he has to head into Frogtown and rescue them.
Al Pacino was looking a little worse for wear
The resulting 85 minutes is a collection of mental scenes. One minute you’re watching Roddy Piper kick the shit out of a giant frog man, the next he’s riding around in a big armoured pink truck, the next his doctor is doing a special dance for the leader of the frogs, who becomes visibly aroused (yes, complete with a noticeable froggy erection). It’s just bizarre.
Credit has to go to the film’s script, however. It’s filled with great one-liners, especially during the back end of the movie, and the over-dramatic ham acting really adds to the dialogue. Here’s one of my favourite scenes as an example:
Hell Comes To Frogtown is crazier than a dolphin filled with cheese, but it’s a good laugh and one you should watch if you’ve got some chums willing to watch.
It’s odd in that it feels like it should be in the “so bad it’s good” camp alongside the likes of Troll 2, even though its production quality is reasonably high.
One thing’s for sure however – after one watch this will definitely blast its way into your top five post-apocalyptic frog mutant films. Check out the trailer below and tell me you’re not interested.
HOW CAN I SEE IT?
Until recently, the only way to get Hell Comes To Frogtown in the UK was to buy the out-of-print DVD which was released as part of Boulevard Entertainment’s B-Movie DVD Collection series.
That all changes on 27 January when Arrow Video release a brilliant dual-format Blu-ray/DVD set featuring a new transfer and loads of extra features.
Arrow’s easily the best label at the moment when it comes to cult and horror releases and I can happily confirm its treatment of Hell Comes To Frogtown is immense. The interview with Roddy Piper in particular is brilliant. I highly recommend you pre-order it here.
As for the US, I’m afraid it’s DVD-only for now. You can buy it standalone here or get it in a double-bill with Def-Con 4 here.
Director: Reynir Lyngdal
That Was A Bit Mental 