Alien Outbreak

This new poster is much better! :)

I recently had the pleasure of being surprised by another film. When I saw one of the posters for it, I shook my head and sighed. The poster showed a huge city with alien ships around it. I thought, "Not on your budget. That's not going to be happening."

Then....I saw the trailer and thought I'd give it a go. The trailer looks great.



As my screener started...my eyes narrowed and I viewed the film with caution. Ok, there were some things that I started to see here and there that set me off a bit, but they were rather small things that didn't take away from the fact that I was locked onto the screen. (Some dodgy audio mixing and camera moves in the beginning paired with the lead actor and her rather interesting acting style that I had to get used to)

But, as the film unfolded and the plot started to be revealed, I was totally sucked in and loving where things were going.

We have a classic alien attack film here, but with a few really interesting new ideas added into the mix. It seems that they are able to make people have suicidal thoughts, which ups the danger and risk factors overall. When will our leads be driven to take their own lives like many others in their town?

They also kept it set in a small town which was a major win as I see it. If they had tried to run this scenario in a large city, this film would have gone the sad way some others have gone in the past leaving you to wonder why we don't see more people and why we're limited to a few locations that seem to be in an abandoned warehouse district somewhere. :::grin:::  I've seen this MANY times before and it's distracting and upsetting. heh  These folks play well within their budget and it's grand.

The small UK village feel really locked me into the story. The police officer leads who were in the area knew the people they were trying to help and the people knew them. They had a history. That aspect made things more interesting for sure.

And gore? Yup! There are some really grand splatter effects that manage to add to the story without being too distracting. CGI effects blended with what looked like practical effects seemed super seamless.

What I was REALLY impressed with here, however, was the 3D and effects work. This is not a major budget epic. It's not even an indie funded medium level effort, I don't think. However, the effects are very good and there are a lot of them. They don't hide things in darkness or used the "camera as villain" to avoid having to show the aliens and the tech. They full on show rather cool looking tech monster robots attacking and stalking in full light. Massive ships take to the skies and sweep past trees. HUGE alien figures stroll along at roughly two stories in height and I was loving every minute of it. They were solid and locked into the scenes and felt like they had weight and that they were actually IN the scene instead of being pasted on top.

VERY difficult to do, but seeing as writer / director Neil Rowe looks like he has a VFX background, it seems like he knew exactly what he was doing. The story and direction are engaging and interesting and the whole film holds up right through to the end. Our leads Katherine Drake and Ritchie Crane have a lot of good dialogue to work with and the supporting cast is not only up to the challenge, but have some grand, WORLD WAR Z-like monologues to sink into.

ALIEN OUTBREAK is well worth a viddy!!! 
I believe the release date is Feb 11, 2020

 From IMDB
In a small rural community local police officers Zoe and Patrick begin their shift as normal but it soon becomes clear that something is wrong. Strange events unfold before their eyes, residents begin behaving strangely and mass suicide panic spreads amongst the community they are trying to protect. Zoe and Patrick realise they are under siege from alien machines as they become cut off from the outside world. They are forced to do battle against these uninvited visitors. Can Zoe and Patrick save their community and the outside world from extinction?

Empathy INC

EMPATHY INC was a very interesting film. It ticked a lot of boxes for me and worked on several levels from story through to acting and cinematography.












We have the story Joel who's managed to get himself in some trouble with his startup, so he and his wife are forced to move in with his in-laws until they can get things back on solid footing. He runs into an old friend who happens to have an investment opportunity that he really wants to get into - a virtual experience unlike all others where you can live as someone less fortunate as you. I'll stop there as not to spoil things. I will say that the film goes in some really interesting directions.

The film is more SCI FI than horror, but there are some horrific elements that come into play. And, well, it was a great film and I wanted it on the blog! :) Fans of classics like THE NIGHT GALLERY, TWILIGHT ZONE, and THE OUTER LIMITS will want to check this out for sure!

The cast and cinematography really make this film. While the story is grand, it wouldn't have worked without the solid acting chops of the cast. It would have been a silly disaster, honestly. But, they really work their arses off in the film and bring a ton to the table.  They are believable and manage to sell the concept. It's a friggin BEAUTIFUL film as well. The black and white presentation is stellar and the light and shadow work brings out the noir aspects of the story wonderfully.



Yedidya Gorsetman's direction is great as well. There are shots where you can see his mind at work and it's grand. I can't wait to see him tackle more in the future. Mark Leidner's writing was very solid as well and he should be working a lot more once people see this film.





The film did get a bit....slippy towards the end plot wise and had me scratching my head a bit for a few moments, but that eventually resolved itself when I reflected on it a bit more. While wacky in places, Empath yInc never stopped being highly entertaining.

A high recommend from me. Well worth a viddy! 





Credited cast:
Zack Robidas ... Joel
Kathy Searle ... Jessica
Jay Klaitz ... Lester
Eric Berryman ... Nicolaus
AJ Cedeno ... Sonny
Charmaine Reedy ... Vicky
Fenton Lawless ... Ward
Anthony Mangano ... Officer Cortona
Karen Lynn Gorney ... Miss Miriam

Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Brandon Engman ... Punk
Tom Kemnitz Jr. ... Craig
Trip Rockafellow ... Old Man
Ben Scheiner ... Homeless Man (scenes deleted)
Selima Smith-Dell ... Barista

Favorite Reality Manipulation Films

I did a re-watch of the film Resolution recently and really enjoyed it. I was giving it a mulling over and realized that I love films where this sometimes sad little reality of ours is turned on its ear and shaken a bit. The day to day horrors replaced by severe changes that no one expected. While I wouldn't want this to happen to me, I love the idea that there might be something more - something drastically different in the world.

Ghosts, paranormal happenings, UFOs....they all get me happy.

So, for this round of lists, I'm going with my favorite reality manipulation films. Films where things start off one way and get...strange.

(All synopsis texts are from IMDB)

Blood Punch - I love where this went
A young man is lured into a dangerous love triangle that begins to take a series of shocking and grisly supernatural turns.



Cabin in the Woods - Some fantastic writing and a fun idea
Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin, where they get more than they bargained for, discovering the truth behind the cabin in the woods.



Resolution - Pairs nicely with CABIN IN THE WOODS. Something strange is going on
A man imprisons his estranged junkie friend in an isolated cabin in the boonies San Diego to force him through a week of sobriety, but the events of that week are being mysteriously manipulated.



Berberian Sound Studio - A very Alice in Wonderland journey into madness
A sound engineer's work for an Italian horror studio becomes a terrifying case of life imitating art.


Coherence - Dude...just...whoa...
Strange things begin to happen when a group of friends gather for a dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing overhead.



Timecrimes - A fun offering from overseas. A great story
A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.



John Dies at the End - A really fun and imaginative ride!
A new street drug that sends its users across time and dimensions has one drawback: some people return no longer human. Can two college drop-outs save humanity from this silent, otherworldly invasion?



Time Lapse - Stick with it. It's a slow burn, but was worth the trip
Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures twenty-four hours into the future, and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.



Identity - Just yes. 
Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain-storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.




Plus One - Doppelgänger goodness
Three college friends hit the biggest party of the year, where a mysterious phenomenon disrupts the night, quickly descending into a chaos that challenges their friendships - and whether they can stay alive.

Triangle

Amazing WTF-ness!!!   I loved this one! 

Have others that should be on this list? Let me know! I'd love to see them. Maybe I missed one I've seen before.

The Visitor (1979)

What the HELL did I just watch?1 heheheh 

Mel Ferrer...Glenn Ford...Lance Henriksen...and the super adorable Joanne Nail...all in this weird little science fiction film that looks like the lovechild of THE FURY and THE BAD SEED.  This super creepy film (creepy because of all the inappropriate and strange child scenes) tells the tale of a bad space eight year old who's inherently evil. Luckily, Mel Ferrer is on the case, making sure the creepy eight year old and the evil folks on her side don't get poor Joanne Nail pregnant with a little brother for her.

The movie just keeps bringing on the bonkers.

Surprise gun gift madness. 




SHELLY fucking WINTERS cast as the "magical negro housekeeper" (it's a thing, look it up) role and inept bodyguard - providing wisdom during the...maybe one day she was on set shooting.  hehehehe 





Ice skating battles. 

A pigtailed 8ish year old kid delivering lines like, "Do you want to know where it is? UP YOUR ASS!"

The most bald people assembled for a film since THX1138. 

High aspiration green screen shots that are...magical. 

Secret Evil Businessmen around a large table...making evil plans.

A score fit for....maybe the 1972 Olympic Games opening ceremony throughout. 

Funhouse mirrors?

A LOT of bird attacks.

AND....Franco Nero as Jesus Christ. Yes...Jesus. 

Just...strange. Good old Italian strange. And long feeling. At an hour forty-eight minutes, it feels more like 2.5 hours or so.

However, I was all in on the film. It has enough in it to make it interesting. And they manage to make some things happen in the film that look kinda cool. Like this silver mirror effect on ole creepy kid's eyes when she's....alien-ing out.

This is a must see for fans of strange, Italian films. It's all in there and packs enough entertaining oddness in to keep you going. If you're a pot smoker, you might want to plan on being REALLY high when you watch this. I'm a whiskey man, myself, but I don't know if any amount of whiskey could get me spinning enough for this film to make sense. hehehehe

Check it!

Coherence

Super quick review for the wondrous film Coherence.

I thought I had put up a review already, but I guess I had missed it.

Short and sweet - Coherence is fabulous!

A dinner party goes VERY sideways when the lights go out and a comet goes overhead. And that's all I'm going to say about that for fear of messing things up.

The style is grand and the tension levels run super high as the film unfolds with Hitchcock-like mastery. Ok...that was a little flowery, but it's true. The film had me hooked from the opening and I was glued as I watched things play out.

Just watch it! It's a fun, tight, thinker of a film!


Trailer? Yeah...if you must....but it's better if you don't!

Galaxy of Horrors

This sci fi horror anthology really delivered some interesting stuff, I have to say. It was really solid and held my attention throughout. As with most anthology films, there were some hits and misses. However, the overall experience was positive, engaging, and presented some concepts and storylines that I had not seen before. I love that.

I'm very happy that these folks had a vehicle to get their short films out into the world and I was happy that the Exploding Heads Horror Movie Podcast gave me the heads up about it.






Wraparound Segment (dir. Justin McConnell)
Maybe notthe most engaging segment - it was really just a throughput to the end goal of seeing the videos. However, it was still interesting and did what it was meant to do.

Eden (dir. Todd Cobery)
Dystopian future fun with some interesting visuals and both practical and 3D effects. Pretty solid. 










Iris (dir. Richard Karpala)
High concept goodness. A grand and simple morality play with heavy big brother overtones.





Flesh Computer (dir. Ethan Shaftel)
Not really my cup of tea, but it had enough interesting visuals to keep me engaged even if i didn't find the story to be to my liking.



Pathos (dir. Fabio Prati, Dennis Cabella and Marcello Ercole)
Very BRAZIL in feel. One of those, "I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm interested," sorts of segments.





Eveless (dir. Antonio Padovan)
Another that slipped a bit, but this two man act was interesting for sure.

They Will All Die In Space (dir. Javier Chillon)
Reminded me of OUTLAND (1981) a bit. Solid sci fi.




Entity (dir. Andrew Desmond)
Whoa. That was really strange. I liked it. :)







Kingz (dir. Benni Diez and Marinko Spahic)
Wild visuals, cool action choreography, and a odd little plot made this a fun watch for sure. Pretty wild.







 All in all, I believe this is well worth a viddy. Currently available on AMAZON PRIME.

Why I call Blue Sunshine a giallo film

1977 was an interesting time for horror. Things were all over the board, really. Suspiria came out and made the more mystical giallo splash. The Hills Have Eyes introduced crazy, hill-people mutants. Then you had the more tame stylings of Audrey Rose and a more story based tale.

Blue Sunshine is another piece of the 1977 horror pie, but more dystopian, anti-drug, science fiction madness. But, while on the surface it has a rather "TV movie of the week" feel, I'm going to go ahead and call it a giallo film. I was watching it and it screamed giallo for me.

We open on a bunch of old friends having a party, like many giallo films do. It's a great way to shake out the dice roll of characters you'll be dealing with. From there, two players get pulled after one of the friends gets his hair pulled revealing that he's lost much of his hair. He runs off into the night and Jerry Zipkin (played by the rather haunting and creepy Zalman King) goes off to find him while his girlfriend Alicia goes off with some of the other friends to look in town. Sadly, while Jerry is out in the woods searching for his bald friend, the bald and very insane friend is back killing the ladies who stayed behind. He has freakish strength and an insane bloodlust. Jerry arrives too late to save the women, but runs off in search of the killer. They fight on a freeway and the bald killer is struck by a truck.

We get the classic "HEY! Stop that guy!" as Jerry runs off. Now, everything that happens after this could be avoided completely if Jerry just hung ot and explained things. "Yeah, we were having a party and this guy just went nuts. I went out looking for him, but he had circled back to the cabin and killed three people. I chased him out here and...he was hit by the truck."  Done. Bald guy's fingerprints would be all over. Everything would be set. But, then we wouldn't have a movie. :)

Jerry runs off and is now the lead suspect in the murders. He contacts his girlfriend Alicia and the two of them start hunting for the truth.

Giallo. Right there.

Jerry  - a man running out of time as the police search for him, looks for clues and investigates as he tries to clear his name. Alicia is a fantastic helper as she feeds him info and tries to keep the police off his scent. As Jerry dives deeper and deeper in, he reveals that the baldness and the psychotic behaviors are the results of taking an acid-like drug called BLUE SUNSHINE. As he gets closer and closer to the source, he gets closer and closer to being the next victim of these bald madmen.

The giallo elements abound in Blue Sunshine.  Police search for the wrong man, believing him to be the killer. The man is forced to find evidence that will prove that he didn't do it. He has a helper who is placed into danger due to her efforts to help the man she loves. (Very much like Bird With The Crystal Plumage) And as the plot unfolds, we find that not everyone is as good as they seem.  Knife welding, bald, crazy people sneak about with knives. Come on - giallo. :)

Blue Sunshine is an odd little film either way and well worth a watch - gialli or no. It has some really off the wall scenes and setups that I really enjoyed. The bald people with dark eyes was a fun little hook and seeing the crazed killer in the beginning sets things up for some great tension moments later. You know what happens when these folks go bald, so when characters start to complain about headaches and their hair starts falling out, they turn into ticking time bombs and you wonder who might get caught in the blast.

Zalman King is SO intense! He has these great personal space issues in the film where he just gets WAY too close to people with this odd look on his face. If I were a cop and I saw this behavior, I might think he was the murder for sure.  That being said, he really does carry the film on his shoulders as he runs his investigation and he turns in a hell-of-a performance. R.I.P., Mr. King.








Jeff Lieberman wrote and directed and there are some fun set pieces here. He wrote and directed Squirm after this one. The story makes sense as well, for the most part. The sad thing is, they kinda end on a wrap-up word card at the end. It does the trick, but it would have been nice to have an actual wrap up with a doctor or scientist explaining what we just saw and the implications.

At any rate - check it. It's strange and I liked it. :)

Detention (2011)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say DETENTION is a horror film for smart folks. A modern classic that deserves cult status along side....wait for it....ready? HEATHERS, REPO MAN, RE-ANIMATOR, BRAIN DEAD, JOHN DIES AT THE END and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS.  

THERE! I said it. I liked this film as much as REPO MAN and BRAIN DEAD, gawd damn it! :)

Why? Because it's SO STRANGE and SO GOOD. The writing is amazing and odd - taking the viewer into slasher territory and leading them along through Twilight Zone scenarios and plain wacky bizarreness. It's thick with references that you'll need to Google up on a second viewing to appreciate the many levels of the experience.

There's no explaining the story. It really does start out as a slasher, but then it just runs RIGHT off the rails and and slams through several genres and styles in an amazing way. Stuff happens in here and the world that the flick lives in is so off center and strange that nothing seems wrong when...say....someone has a TV for a hand at one point. :)

Director Joseph Kahn does some amazing stuff in here. His music video background REALLY makes this film a kinetic fun house.

I'm not sure how the film did overall. It came out in 2011 and I could see the masses walking out, scratching their heads and mumbling, "I don't....get it...." while people like me were walking out feeling like kids again with massive smiles on our faces.

And, this was another odd release. Some sites list it as 2011 while others say 2012. The estimated budget was $10,000,000 and it came out in a limited release. Rotten Tomatoes has a very low rating of 38% and MetaCritic has a mixed 45, which makes me sad.  After seeing this film, I was SURE that it had some massive groundswell and that everyone saw it as a special bit of cool. I guess that wasn't the case.

PLEASE check this film out. I thought it was a funtastic horror comedy experience.

Plus One

The shorter, more concise reviews continue! :)

I really liked Plus One (+1) ! 
I almost passed it up based on the Netflix art. Again, you can't base much on Netflix streaming artwork. I've seen cool art that's lead me to horrid shite and I've almost passed up cool flicks like this based on artwork that doesn't hit the mark completely.

No, this film isn't about a strip club.



+1 is a cool little sci fi horror time mind F movie that is well written and entirely engaging. I won't spoil too much here. The long and the short is that something hits Earth and time itself has been crashed in and spun around creating loops and doppelgangers. If someone doesn't do something, our whole planet as we know it may disappear.

The film takes place at a giant, "BEST PARTY OF THE YEAR! WHOOOOO!" type party with booze, party gear and strippers on a giant stage. Sure. Why not.

There's a love story element that totally works, taking the classic post teen breakup party meetup and turning it on it's ear. "There she is - the ex. And she's going to hook up with some party dude. You have to get her back. Take action! Oh...wait...there she is again...over by that tree. Wait...who's who?!"  Party guests - like the young lovely to the left - start acting strangely and doing strange things.


I was guessing and guessing at the films outcome and was pleasantly turned around and sent packing - not being able to figure out how things would end up.

The writing and direction carry the film along with some good acting from relative unknowns. Based on his story, Dennis "Last House on the Left Remake" Iliadis makes duplicate people and actions look easy in what must have been a film with a LOT of storyboarding and planning. It's a complex little nugget for sure.

Dig sci fi based, Twilight Zone style goodness? Check this out.

Remakes: The Thing

Whew, THE THING. THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD.  Both films shaped my love of horror films for different reasons and both were equally amazing and powerful works in my mind.

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD - 1951
Howard Hawks really brought the  John W. Campbell short story "Who goes there?" to life with his Direction. There are Howard Hawks moments throughout the film and it's SO WONDERFULLY 50s. (( I ALWAYS mess this up.  Christian Nyby was also a Director on this film, but I always leave him out. Sorry Chris. :)   ))
Quick dialog and some grand play with the camera and character interactions makes this one of the biggies from my childhood. Mom would make a huge bowl of popcorn and we'd sit and watch the afternoon movie back in the ye old 1970-somethings and we'd never miss THE THING when it was on.

You know the story. A team of scientists in a remote, arctic outpost pair up with the Air Force to investigate a U.F.O. crash site. They discover an alien occupant and bring it back to the base to check out. Said occupant thaws and mayhem ensues as the small outpost wages war against the alien to save the planet from being taken over.

There are little things in here that make me smile time and time again. Conversations are like machine gun fire - rattling off quickly and smoothly with some cute, 1950s moments that are just awesome. Some good writing there. Then there are things like doors opening and closing. Watch the film again. You'll see doors opening and closing, people going in and out and people talking about doors throughout. But why? Oh...you'll find out! HA! And the James Arness monster makeup is grand.

The story goes that test makeup was done on a stand-in offsite before shooting started. Jack Pierce did the makeup, I believe. When the effects artist got the perfect THING, he tossed the stand-in into the car to drive him over to the studio to show the execs. On the way over, a women in another car looked over and started SCREAMING at the top of her lungs in her vehicle. The makeup artist knew this was the one after that.

I just love this film.






THE THING - 1982
Now, I went a long while wanting to kill every remake with fire. They could never make me happy.
But....wow. Walking into the theater, sitting down and having this film unfold before me like it did - even with pages and pages of FANGORIA magazine pre-press committed to memory - just completely blew our minds.

Here you have two people (my Mother and I) who not only loved the original, but had all these huge,  emotional ties to it as well. The film had to be amazing to make us come anywhere close to liking it as much as the original film. We sat there at the opening copter scene and were interested. This was different and we were ok with it and wondered where it would lead.

Turns out it lead to some of the most impressive effects work we'd seen and we'd seen a lot being genre film lovers for years and years. Rob Bottin took things up to screaming standards with his practical effects work and blew us away. It was fantastic.

The script was grand as well, taking the original storyline and adding some super details and game changing plot points into the mix that made this an update well worth sparing from the flames of hatred. They basically kept the whole of the story and added this mystery element of who was good and who was bad in that ramped the game up to new and fantastic heights.


And Carpenter was SPOT ON POINT with all his work on the film with a cast that took everything and played it real and deadly serious. That's why this remake stands out among many as a work that can not only stand on it's own, but one that people really can't see being without in the horror community.



And, this is what I really want out of a remake. I really don't mind them anymore, but...make an effort. That's all I ask. Try something interesting. Update the sucker with something cool and new. Maybe do some writing. :)

I suppose I should take a look at the 2011 THE THING (...that we couLd not come up with a better name for)  but, I don't really wanna. :)

I'll be looking at some other remakes that do just that. And...some that don't, but give it a shot.

Our recent MANIAC compare and contrast takes a look at the remake.   Take a look if you have not already.