Chernobyl Diaries

Director: Bradley Parker (2012)
Starring: Olivia Dudley, Jesse McCartney, Nathan Phillips
Find it: IMDB

Dear diary. Today, Bruce Willis was in me. Then there was a bear, six stupid kids and a really massive Russian dude. And monsters. I'm not sure who Cher Nobyl is, but her diaries have been adapted for this movie. A gang of tourists decide to 'go extreme', visiting the ruins of a village in Chernobyl. Packing into the back of their hulking Russian tour guide's van, the kids enjoy themselves at first. It's all fun and games until a bear comes rampaging through the room. Sure, the bear's the best of it, but it's not the least of their problems. When the van breaks down, youngsters and tour guide alike are left stranded in Chernobyl. And as darkness falls, it becomes apparent that they're not the only ones...

Set at the scene of one of the world's greatest tragedies, there's a chance that Chernobyl Diaries might be offensive to someone. Whatever next? The Auschwitz Chronicles? (if that is next, Hollywood, I want a credit. And paycheck. Although it's still in bad taste) Still, it's not as bad as Bruce Willis blowing up a helicopter with a truck in A Good Day to Die Hard, so at least it has that going for it. And it's a good movie, which is also more than we can say for A Good Day to Die Hard. There's Rammstein on the soundtrack, too. You can never go wrong with Rammstein.

As their visit to Chernobyl takes in such sights as a block of flats and a river, the kids have a whale of a time. A few of them even take a romantic photo posing by the ruins. My own preference would in Bruges or Switzerland but sure, Chernobyl works too. Among the pretty young things is Nathan Phillips, playing more or less the same role he did in Wolf Creek and everything else he's been in. The youths are fine, but they're all bettered by Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) and the bear.

Written by Oren Peli, of Paranormal Activity fame, and employing a familiar concept, it's entirely surprising that Chernobyl Diaries isn't a found footage movie. That it's not makes it a lot more watchable than I had expected it to be. It's nowhere near as good as Urban Explorers (which has a similar idea but different nature of villainy) but is still better than most. The setting helps, steeped in real-life tragedy and looking so very atmospheric and moody. It doesn't have the greatest Half-Life (it'll be forgotten within a few years) but nor is it as toxic as most other mainstream horror releases these days.

Lovely Molly

Director: Eduardo Sanchez (2011)
Starring: Gretchen Lodge, Johnny Lewis, Alexandra Holden
Find it: IMDB

The director of The Blair Witch Project, Eduardo Sanchez returns with Lovely Molly, a spooky bit of horror which is less original and not likely to have as many fans, but thoroughly traumatising nonetheless. It must be said that I found his enormously influential signature piece to be somewhat overrated, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed Lovely Molly more than I did his debut movie.

Recovering drug addict and newlywed Molly (Lodge, who is fairly lovely) moves in with husband Tim (Lewis) to the countryside home where her dead dad used to live. Painful memories re-emerge, old druggy desires kick in again, and her foul father's mean spirit begins to make his presence known. Or does he? The threat at the heart of Lovely Molly is deliberately obtuse, refusing to commit to one thing or another. At times, Lovely Molly owes more to Requiem For a Dream than Paranormal Activity. There's a nice wink to Sanchez's beginnings in Molly's opening address to camera, reminiscent of certain scenes from The Blair Witch Project. The little handheld camera interludes are pointless, but not really pronounced enough to matter.

Lovely Molly? HORRIBLE MOLLY, MORE LIKE. I was left horrified by Lovely Molly and the movie's murderous, drug-addled nasty antics. Preachers are chomped, faces chewed, Tim abused and even some nudity and not in a good way. Well, maybe an okay way, but it's hard to get a good perv on when you're scared shitless of someone. It's why Grace Jones and I could never be together. Please don't hurt me.

The film is slow to get going, but once it does, Lovely Molly is incredibly gripping and nasty. I properly felt for Molly and her plight, even as she and the film slip into some very dark places. Lovely Molly? LOVELY MISERY, MORE LIKE.

Paranormal Activity 4

Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman (2012)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively
Find it: IMDB

At what stage does something stop being Paranormal Activity and become a Regular Occurrence? All the activity has led to this, apparently. To be fair, Paranormal Activity 4 does head in a slightly different direction to the first three films, its threat being of a slightly different nature to which we're used to seeing. Paranormal Activity 4 is more of a spooky child movie than it is a haunted house flick.

But, in the worlds of meme Captain Picard, why the fuck, at this point, are they still recording everything they do? Aside from a little football match at the start of the film, barely any attempt is made to explain why young Alex (Newton) is recording her every move. Never before has the series' gimmick seemed so stretched and aimless.

Creepy kid Robbie (Brady Allen) and his mother move in across the street from tweenage Alex and her family. When his mother is mysteriously taken ill, Robbie comes to stay with the family. Unfortunately, the scary little shit has brought his Invisible Friend with him. Cue things flying around the house, doors slamming shut, people levitating out of beds and the whole family flying up and down stairs in hilarious Paranormal Activity style. I haven't been scared by a Paranormal Activity since the first one, but this fourth instalment isn't even remotely worrying.

There are some new ideas which work well though, particularly those which employ an Xbox's Motion Capture facilities to catch a glimpse of the demons which stalk Alex's home and the children in it. With several laptops and an Xbox all switched on at once, this family's reliance on standby mode is the reason we have global warming, people. Switch your shit off! Unfortunately, most everything else is laugh out loud funny. Alex levitating out of her bed raises a smile while the family's repeatedly being flung around the house like rag dolls is just hilarious. My favourite part of the Paranormal Activity films is the bit in which unseen forces drag the protagonists around the place; Paranormal Acivity 4 is like a spooky version of You've Been Framed in that respect.  

It's all a bit of a non-event, culminating in a reasonably interesting cliffhanger which probably won't be followed up on in the inevitable sequel. But oh, as long as they have people falling up and down the stairs some more, I'm on board for that.

Sinister

Director: Scott Derrickson (2012)
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Clare Foley
Find it: IMDB

True crime writer Ellison (Hawke) sneakily uproots his family from their home and moves them to an infamous murder house where a family were murdered years earlier. No sooner have they moved in than Ellison discovers a box of home movies in the attic. Breaking out the Super 8 projector, he digs right in. What he sees is the worst thing you could possibly find in a box in your attic - a series of found footage movies. It's the equivalent of finding a Paranormal Activity box set in your loft.

These are apparently more real than a Blair Witch though, depicting real murders and atrocities. Rather than calling the police, Ellison delves deeper into the mystery, uncovering the identity of the films' big bad and the nature of the threat. At the same time,  his young son (named Trevor, ew) is experiencing a series of horrid night terrors, his daughter conversing with the dead, and things keep going bump in the night. It's all very, well, sinister.

But the word 'sinister' is a promise, a threat, rather than anything concrete. "Threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble", to go by the dictionary definition. Which Sinister does very well. With its spooky jump-scares, creepy set-up and actually impressive found footage interludes, Sinister portends evil very effectively. But when that evil eventually arrives in the film, it's an entirely non-threatening affair. A scene in which Ellison falls out of his attic is laugh out loud funny. Also, there is nothing less 'sinister' than the name 'Mister Boogie'. I'm sure the filmmakers thought that they were going for some sort of Pennywise the Dancing Clown form of reverse-spookiness, but Mister Boogie is shit. It's a blatant attempt to recreate the Darth Maul demon of Insidious. 

There are some nice ideas at play, and Ethan Hawke is always watchable (even while wearing a cardigan, ew again), but Sinister is a massive disappointment. It's close behind Cabin In the Woods as the most disappointing horror movie of the year.

Paranormal Activity 3

Director: Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman (2011)

Starring: Christopher Nicholas Smith, Lauren Bittner, Chloe Csengery

Find it: IMDB

The most videotaped family in all America returns; this time nearly twenty years ago, in a 1988 that doesn't look remotely like 1988. The ill-fated Katie and Kristi are young children, bunking together in a possibly-haunted house whilst stepfather Dennis (Smith) videotapes their every move. The quality is pretty good for a 1988 home movie. Especially when one stops to consider how most real movies from 1988 look like shit, let alone You've Been Framed clips.

Little Kristi's (Jessica Tyler Brown) invisible friend Toby turns bastardly bully after a game of Bloody Mary exacerbates the situation. Cue the usual furniture flying around the room, doors slamming and innocent children being tossed around the place like cheap confetti.

Following the disappointing Paranormal Activity 2, this second sequel/prequel is something of a return to form for the franchise. The scare scenes generally work better this time around, (perhaps due to the cheap trick of having two sweet children at peril, rather than obnoxious adults) with more time devoted to building tension than its slapdash predecessor. Still it fails to recapture the original piece's sense of menace - although I'm unsure whether it ever can. We're wise to the demon's tricks now - learning that its name is 'Toby' does it no favours.

Toby chucks furniture about the house, terrifies babysitters and locks little Katie in a cupboard. It's a wonder that wee Kristi and Katie grow up to be so well-adjusted, given their treatment in Paranormal Activity 3. I daresay a later instalment will explain why they never seem to remember any of this ever happening. Stalked by demons and cameras since they were children; I wouldn't be surprised if the poor little dears didn't just repress it all away. Whatever the case may be, Paranormal Activity 3 is further proof that the women of this particular family have exceptionally sucky taste in men. Dennis is nowhere near as annoying as Paranormal Activity's Micah, but Julie (Bittner) could do a lot better. What is it with the men in this franchise and their stupid fucking camera fetish? Those two poor girls have been videotaped more than the Osbornes.

It's a pretty poor prequel in that it doesn't feel at all like 1988. I was hoping to see ghastly haircuts, revolting clothes and a Vice City soundtrack. But aside from some beautifully clunky VCR technology (the technique with the fan motor is a nice touch) there's nothing to suggest any particular place or time. Indeed, the film-makers themselves occasionally forget their own modus operandi - there's a piece in the script where characters talk about Virgin Mary toast; a fairly recent phenomenon.

How much life is left in the franchise is unclear. Already it seems a little lost. But Paranormal Activity 3 does offer some genuinely chilling moments, and an endgame that's new to the series (even if it doesn't make much sense). Myself, I look forward to seeing what possible reason they can find for shoehorning the cameras into Paranormal Activity 4.

Paranormal Activity 2

Director: Tod Williams (2010)

Starring: Brian Boland, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston

Find it: IMDB

The continued saga of one family's unhealthy obsession with video cameras. Neither a prequel nor a sequel, Paranormal Activity 2 sees a rich family's oversized house terrorised by a door slamming, baby levitating demon. Paranormal Activity 2 is a terrible sequel, a terrible movie and full of unintentional moments of laugh out loud comedy.

Paranormal Activity, despite a few faults and a horrible lead character, is a thoroughly effective, chilling bit of spooky horror. It's one of the few movies to have an effect upon me. Mostly, I'll sit before even the goriest of horror films and go "huh" or "well." With Paranormal Activity there is this genuinely unsettling feel and a quite impressive atmosphere, all tension and terror. Paranormal Activity 2, however, does not once achieve any sense of tension or scares. It feels like a cheap imitation of the first movie, its parlor tricks diluted by repetition.

The action moves from the house of Katie (Featherston) to her sister's home, where baby Hunter has just been born. Hunter is a stupid name for a baby. Unless preceded by the names "Kraven The", nobody should be called Hunter. It's a form of child abuse. But baby Hunter has worse to contend with than just his stupid name. The demon haunting his house (or more accurately, his mother and aunt) is acting up, slamming doors, locking people in basements and levitating the poor wee child all around his cot. I've a feeling that the scene in which Hunter is levitated across and out of his bed is supposed to be scary, but I physically laughed out loud.

In fact, all of the supposedly scary scenes in Paranormal Activity 2 are amusing in entirely the wrong way. There's a scene where Kristi (Sprague Grayden) is reading a magazine in the kitchen, quietly enjoying a cup of coffee. Suddenly all of the cupboard doors fly open with a massive crash and a bang. Kristi screams and flees the room. With the film's use of CCTV, it's every bit as funny as a candid camera prank show. Watch out, the ghost of Beadle's about. By the time the demon drags Kristi down a flight of stairs and locks her in the basement, I was pissing myself laughing.

With the loss of the original film's director goes everything that made Paranormal Activity good. You'll doubtless piss yourself watching it, but not in the way intended.

Cinema Of Shadows

Author: Michael West (2011)

Find it: Author's Website

"The night the Titanic sank, it opened for business... and its builder died in his chair. In the 1950s, there was a fire; a balcony full of people burned to death. And years later, when it became the scene of one of Harmony, Indiana's most notorious murders, it closed for good. Abandoned, sealed, locked up tight... until now."

Professor Geoffrey Burke and his Parapsychology students come to the possibly haunted Woodfield cinema, searching for proof of paranormal activity ghosts. Classy, old-fashioned horror, Cinema Of Shadows will appeal to fans of Derek Acorah ghost hunting programmes and films like Paranormal Activity, as well as those who enjoy supernatural horror and well-constructed, well-written stories of any sort.

Cinema Of Shadows is a good yarn, well structured and enjoyable, with a nice eye for cinematic and literary convention. I particularly enjoyed its "preview of forthcoming attractions" as a prologue and a very, very cute touch after the "credits." The characters are well-written and the story compelling, tense and creepy, building to a fitting conclusion.

It's no slight on the book that my dear old mother picked it from my shelf, read it in a matter of days and loved it (hey, she reads The Walking Dead comic books. Being cool is in the blood). Cinema Of Shadows is approachable, readable horror that even a non-genre connoisseur can pick up and enjoy. Also, I need to put a lock on my door before she finds my Marquis De Sade collection. That's one dinner table conversation I can do without.

Cinema Of Shadows is a cracking read; a page-turner in the truest sense.

Insidious

Director: James Wan (2010)

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

The word 'insidious' means to proceed "in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects." Thanks, Wikipedia. Note the word 'subtle' there. Insidious the film is anything but subtle. It's like the plot of Paranormal Activity as retold by Brian Blessed with a speakerphone and a heavy metal band, screaming the whole way through. Not only is Insidious less subtle than Paranormal Activity, it's probably the least subtle horror movie of its generation, employing everything from bright green colour filters to the loudest use of a piano since one was dropped on Wile E. Coyote's head. This is a very loud film in every sense of the word, so much so that it'd be better summed up with a series of screams rather than a conventional title.

One day, little Dalton Lambert (Simpkins) slips into a coma, seemingly without reason or explanation. Momma Renai (Byrne) and Poppa Josh (Wilson) are scared and confused. Even more so when their house shows signs of haunting, all doors being slammed and scary figures appearing in the windows. Psychic Elise (Shaye) is called. She diagnoses that it's wee Dalton that's haunted, and not the house.

Haunted by Darth Maul, apparently. From the introduction of Lin Shaye's psychic (and some much needed comic relief in the form of her comedy sidekicks) Insidious becomes less a haunted house movie and more a shouty musing on astral projection and other dimensions. The best handling of that sort of thing is in James Herbert's brilliant Nobody True. This here isn't particularly atrocious, but nor is it very memorable either. The demon I almost liked, but the more you see of it, the less impressive it becomes. Initially impressive, you'll soon realise that its amalgamation of Darth Maul, Freddy Kreuger and Spider-Man is actually a bit shit and should have stayed behind Patrick Wilson's shoulder.

Being a buffoon and heathen, I rarely notice the background music in movies. With Insidious I couldn't see beyond it. It's perhaps the loudest horror film I've ever seen. Every time anything happens, it's accompanied by a loud hammering of the piano or merciless twanging of a violin. The imagery isn't all that bad though, so the filmmakers effectively telling us when we should be scared feels a bit condescending. It's like the laughter track on a particularly terrible sitcom. "You have to be scared now, by the way."

Paranormal Activity

Director: Oren Peli (2007)

Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

A whining girl and her horrible, obnoxious boyfriend are stalked at night by a bullyish demon who tramples around their house setting fire to ouija boards and slamming doors as he goes.

After years of uninterest and not a little horror snobbery, I finally caved and decided to watch Paranormal Activity. I hoped it would be rubbish just so I could use the "Paranormal Craptivity" joke I've been saving. Alas, whilst Paranormal Activity is hardly original or groundbreaking, it's not all that bad either.

The first thing that comes to mind watching this is a very heavy Blair Witch influence. It's pretty much a remake of The Blair Witch Project if the kids had decided to stay in bed instead of going camping. It boasts a cast of unknowns and consists entirely of footage recorded by the protagonists themselves. During the day, Katie (Katie) and Micah (Micah) carry the camera around to record their annoying day-to-day nonsense. At night, it sits in the bedroom recording them as they sleep. Not in a kinky way.

If you've seen Most Haunted or any of those terrible Ghosthunting programmes, well, Paranormal Activity plays exactly like that. I have friends who remain convinced to this day that Paranormal Activity is a documentary. You'd have thought that Derek Acorah could have made an effort. There is a psychic in this movie, but he's useless. Whilst Katie's Demon is at first content to go around slamming doors and turning the TV on and off, Micah soon antagonises it into further action. Which, to be fair, did actually shit me up.

The movie's escalation into proper scares is very impressive. It starts out amusingly enough, letting you get to know (and in the case of the horrible boyfriend, hate) the characters, with a couple of mild chills here and there. Then it gets a bit more serious - creepier and more tense than I was expecting - before finally hitting the mark with some proper scares. It is every bit as creepy and unsettling as I'd heard it was. I actually found it more chilling than The Blair Witch. Although I have always thought that The Blair Witch is tremendously overrated, so that's not saying much (its horrible sequel somehow gave me nightmares though, so kudos).

This film too, seems almost unworthy of its success. It's all cheap parlour tricks, its scares coming at the detriment of plausibility and characters. Micah, in particular, is painted as a massive douche. Forget the Demon, he's the real villain of the piece. He's arrogant, annoying, stupid and I fail to see how any girl could bear to share a house with him. He winds the Demon up every step of the way and, y'know what, I can sympathise. Paranormal Activity loses a Scream Queen for Micah alone, possibly the most horrible character I have ever encountered in a movie like this. The pair together are all stupid decisions and passivity. Not once do they seem to consider sleeping with the lights on, buying a crucifix or even just going for a walk. Shit, by day two I'd be on the phone to an Exorcist, let alone day thirteen.

Paranormal Activity is a very scary movie - yes, even terrifying sometimes - but its strings are too visible for me to enjoy this in the same way I did [Rec]. Even The Blair Witch had good characterisation and a modicum of plausibility. For all of its considerable shocks and thrills, this feels manipulative. That said, I will be sleeping with the light on tonight.

The Lovely Bones

Director: Peter Jackson (2009)

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

This movie is how I'd imagine a Nightmare On Elm Street prequel should be. In fact, I now believe they missed a trick in not casting Stanley Tucci in the remake. He completely owns this movie; even more than its ostensible star, Saoirse Ronan.

But we shouldn't make light of such a movie. The Lovely Bones is about child murder and how it affects the victim's family and what would happen if said victim was watching from The Other Side, and helping Daddy catch her killer, like a more depressing Randall & Hopkirk Deceased and nothing like Randall & Hopkirk Deceased. Ronan is fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon, who lives an idyllic sort of life with Mummy (Weisz) and Daddy (Wahlberg) and her two younger siblings. One horrific evening, Susie falls foul of murderous George Harvey (Tucci) when she unwittingly enters his underground paedo den. She's raped and murdered, which Director Peter Jackson wisely keeps off-screen. Well, it is only rated 12A, after all.

But Susie isn't entirely gone. She's trapped in a sort of Limbo that looks like an advert for banking or life insurance or something. She watches her family grieve and fall apart a bit, and she watches Horrible Harvey, hoping he'll one day get his comeuppance. You'll hope so too: Harvey is played with stomach-churning sliminess by an almost unrecognizable Stanley Tucci. It makes sense that The Lovely Bones is set in the 1970s - in this paedo-sensitive day and age, Harvey's game would be scuppered within moments of his stepping into a new neighborhood. I haven't seen someone look so obviously noncey since The King Paedo in Moonwalker. Another advantage of the 1970s means that the poor Salmon family don't have the indignity of their phones being tapped by the News Of The World.

Current affairs everybody!

And yes, now that you mention it, Rupert does look like an aged Harvey...

And Susie Salmon is as adorable as Harvey is horrid, which makes the first quarter of the movie very hard to watch. It's a relief that Salmon's murder is as tastefully done as is possible with such subject matter. I seriously considered switching over during the run-up, but it's all over with before (literally) anyone knows what's just happened. The script and direction also thankfully skirts around the rape stuff. It's an upsetting movie, but done with the utmost tastefulness. Indeed: the director of Bad Taste has made a tasteful movie about possibly the most tasteless topic out there.

The acting is great (even Marky Wahlberg is on good form), the imagery beautiful and the direction brilliant. But still The Lovely Bones feels like it's missing something, playing it a little too safe. The visuals are wonderful, but there's surprisingly little emotional depth for a movie about a murdered fourteen-year-old girl. Which is good. I cried like a bitch at Jurassic Park and had an emotional breakdown at Mary & Max. Vapid eeriness and comic-book villainy I can handle.

The Lovely Bones is never a pleasant movie, but it is an intriguing one. The imagery is warm, the story oddly uplifting and the horror horrific. It plays things safe, but that's probably a very good thing in this case.

The Matrimony

Director: Hua-Tao Eng (2007)

Starring: Bingbing Fan, Leon Lai, Rene Liu

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

A stylish but nontheless silly ghost story, The Matrimony sees a woman team up with the ghost of her husband's one-time girlfriend in the hope of cheering the poor bloke up. Why they'd do such a thing is unclear. He married a different woman less than a year after losing his missus. Clearly he is a bit of a dick and neither woman should want anything to do with him.

But both women love him, despite Junchu's flaws and creepy attic full of his Dead Girlfriend's crap. Dead Girlfriend and Miserable Wife join forces, with Dead Girlfriend temporarily possessing Miserable Wife to show Junchu that Miserable Wife can be cool too. Obviously no good can come of this.

Set in 1930s China, The Matrimony is very pretty. I don't usually notice such things, but the dresses in this movie are very nice, as is the opening bicycle sequence and a snowy boat ride. It's all a bit fairytale, which is a good look for a film like The Matrimony to have. The romantic scenes are quite charming and cute. The ghost stuff, meanwhile, is spooky but not remotely scary. There's the most unintentionally funny car crash I've ever seen and then a bit where Miserable Wife vomits in her Mother In Law's face.

A supernatural remake (in all but name) of Hitchcock's Rebecca, it'll win no prizes for originality. The story is good but never gripping. Both actresses do their respective jobs well (with Miserable Wife doing an exceptionally good line in looking scared) and Jinchu is sympathetic despite acting like a dickhead all the time.

A leftover from 2007, The Matrimony has only just found itself a Tartan Asia Extreme release. Ignore the rubbish packaging, which suggests something Saw, and instead check it out if you're after something safe, sweet and surprisingly likeable.

Blood River

Director: Adam Mason (2009)

Starring: Andrew Howard, Tess Panzer, Ian Duncan

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

A bit like The Hitcher, but with a religious twist and nobody really hitches anywhere. There's also very little blood and no river. Eh, it's probably all metaphorical anyway. I think we've established by now that this blog understands neither metaphors or religion. But we'll struggle on. And I enjoyed Blood River very much, despite its use of metaphor and religion. Blood River is one of those movies that might very well take place in purgatory but refuses to spell it out for you. Way to discriminate against us stupid athiests, movie.

Clark (Duncan) and Summer (Panzer) are a seemingly sweet married couple, travelling through desert America to visit Summer's dad. The car breaks down and the pair are stuck in the middle of nowhere. They walk to a nearby deserted town where they encounter the mysterious Joseph (Howard) who wears a stetson, drinks whiskey, calls people "pilgrim" and talks about god a lot. You're never more than six feet away from a god-botherer, especially in America. When not being smug and talking about god, Joseph offers to help Clark and Duncan reach civilization. Only no. It becomes patently obvious that Joseph is more than a simple hitch-hiker. Metaphysical torture guff ensues.

The lead couple is somewhat annoying - particularly the embodiment of all things chode, Clark - but the bad guy duties are handled very well by Andrew Howard. He comes across as something between Michael Rooker and Rutger Hauer, swaggering his way through the movie, managing to be both sinister and sympathetic at the same time. It takes itself a little too seriously at times - and there's an air of predictability - but Blood River is ultimately an intelligent, gripping horror Western with a fine supernatural twist.

After.Life

Director: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (2009)

Starring: Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, Justin Long

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Christina Ricci is apparently dead, and only Liam Neeson's mortician can see/hear her. Or maybe she isn't dead and Liam Neeson is just crazy, having kidnapped her. Justin Long once again takes on a thankless doormat boyfriend role. There's a creepy kid who may or may not be able to speak to dead people. But the most important thing is this: Christina Ricci gets naked in this movie. Nipples and everything.

I'm sure there are other reasons to watch After.Life, but none of them are quite as compelling and nothing you can't get elswehere. You can't really say that about Christina Ricci's nipples. If you have no interest in Christina Ricci's nipples, then you'll have very little interest in After.Life. It boasts fine actings from Neeson, Ricci and Long, but you can't help but feel the movie doesn't deserve any of them. It's basically a Straight To TV movie granted a cast out of its league.

Quite rightly, Ricci is a bit pissed off to be told that she's dead. Neeson, meanwhile, is irate to have her talking to him. Which isn't exactly fair on his part. There are like a billion other jobs he could get which'd mean him not having to talk to confused dead people on a regular basis. That'd be like me hating ramblers and then getting a job in a well-known supplier of hiking equipment.... Oh, right. Or a vegetarian becoming a butcher.

Other than Christina Ricci's nipples, After.Life sports a couple of other gems. Justin Long punches a child in the face. Liam Neeson's gradual unraveling is entertaining to watch. I certainly enjoyed seeing him bicker with corpses. The whole thing sounds like it should make for a funny film but it isn't. At least, not on purpose.

After.Life is a dull movie punctuated with good performances and unexpectedly amusing moments. Liam Neeson, arguing with dead bodies. Justin Long bashing a child in the face. A cop, um, copping an eyeful of naked Ricci. These things all make for a passable night's viewing. Not bad for a movie which is essentially a crap ghost story built around a bunch of nude scenes.

The Ward

Director: John Carpenter (2010)

Starring: Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, Danielle Panabaker

Find it: IMDB

A subdued return to the genre by horror maestro John Carpenter, The Ward is perfectly fine by anyone else's standards but a disappointment by his own. The Ward is to John Carpenter what Red Eye is to Wes Craven and The Toolbox Murders is to Tobe Hooper. All good films, but a million miles away from the masterpieces that made them famous.

Carpenter, mind, made his return to form years ago with Cigarette Burns - maybe the best Masters Of Horror episode (and proving himself worthy of that title) before losing it again with Pro Life (one of the worst). The Ward is no Cigarette Burns, but nor is it a Pro Life. It's simply another Ghosts Of Mars (shut up, I enjoyed it) or Vampires (ditto).

I don't know what Amber heard, but she didn't like it very much...

In The Ward, Kristen (Heard) is institutionalized after burning down a farm house. Unfortunately it looks like she's gone and found herself in a haunted hospital, since she and her inmates are regularly attacked by an ugly ghost woman who bumps them off one by one. But nobody believes her, because she's supposed to be crazy, see. It's like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets Halloween. Except The Ward is in no way as good as Halloween.

Despite a great location, a great lead actress and some creepy spook sequences, The Ward feels like something I've seen many times before. The plot is exactly the same as New Zealand horror-comedy Diagnosis: Death, whilst it robs elements from Shutter Island and a couple of movies I can't mention for fear of spoiling the twist. Suffice to say that by the time the end credits roll, you'll be thinking "oh. So he went there, did he." It ruins much of what came before - and none of that was all too good in the first place.

Furthermore, aside from the typically wonderful Amber Heard, it's a ward populated by horrendously irritating characters. As the script mistakes 'crazy' for 'pain in the arsehole', The Ward gives us Danielle Panabaker doing a silly Posh Slapper routine, Lyndsy Fonseca wearing massive glasses as being 'kooky' and a truly horrible character who sucks her thumb and talks in a babylike voice. Ugh. Heard's Kristen is a strong heroine in the tradition of Laurie Strode, but without her Michael, sympathetic supporting cast or any of Halloween's vicious originality, she's a little girl lost. Heard capably carries the movie; it's easy to see how she's the Scream Queen du jour of mainstream horror cinema.

Carpenter's skills as a director, whilst muted, elevate the movie's duller moments. The ghost stalking the asylum and its inmates is spookily realised, and the kill scenes are good if goreless. Scenes which have Kristen on the run from both her captors and the ghost are tense and thrilling. There are a couple of decent jump scares. But I'm making apologies for The Ward purely because it's a John Carpenter movie. By any standards, it's run-of-the-mill, let alone those of the man who brought us Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, Escape From New York, and Assault On Precinct 13. Mildly watchable as it is, I can't help but be disappointed. After all, I was really looking forWard to this movie.

Case 39

Director: Christian Alvart (2009)

Starring: Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Shockingly not shit and not at all what I thought it would be, Case 39 pits Bridget Jones against a magic child in a spooky thriller that, in terms of quality and content, is somewhere inbetween The Unborn and Drag Me To Hell. Zellweger plays social worker Emily, so taken with abused charge Lilith (Ferland) that she's driven to adopt the mite. It turns out that the brat might have been abused for good reason though, as bad things soon start to happen. Bad things include Doug Bradley and Ian McShane being hassled by animals and poor Renee forced to run down rainy streets in nowt but her underwear. It may interest you to know that she isn't wearing her big Bridget Jones pants in this movie.

As big studio horror movies go, it's a better, darker piece than you might expect and is ably supported by the ever reliable Bradley and McShane (who are to this movie what Gary Oldman and Idris Elba were to The Unborn). Zellweger is fine. It's a better film than that Chainsaw Massacre she screwed up, anyway. Once it kicks off (with a child and a gas oven, no less), Case 39 provides plenty of creepy scenes, some good kill sequences and an enjoyable showdown between mother and demonic child. That said, I did find myself feeling more sorry for the 'evil' brat than I did Whiny Zellweger. After all, it seems like Lilith just wants to be loved (she says as much too). A child is for life, not just Christmas. Even the demonic ones.

Book Of Blood

Director: John Harrison (2009)

Starring: Sophie Ward, Jonas Armstrong, Simon Bamford

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon

I've read Clive Barker's Books Of Blood (most of them) and I don't recall Robin Hood being in any of the stories. While you might think that Barker's collection of short stories might make for a fine portmanteau, there's only one story at play here: and that's the one that served as kicking off point in Barker's original. Nevertheless, I read the word 'erotic' on the back of the DVD case and that's the only incentive I needed. True fact: I will buy or rent any movie with the word 'erotic' in the title or on the back of the cover. This has led to me watching a lot of shit over the years. Terrible admission time: this has also led to me owning a copy of Bound. Ahem. Book Of Blood isn't all that erotic, although there is sex and Jonas Armstrong getting naked.

A paranormal expert (Ward) discovers a house that is supposedly at an intersection of "highways" transporting spirits into the afterlife. Instead of calling Derek Acorah like any sane person would, she instead enlists the help out of a slightly psychic student lad (Armstrong) and a sleazy sceptic cameraman. Despite feeling like a Paranormal Activity spinoff, Book Of Blood has enough going on to disguise its occasional faults.

Jonas had been taking fashion advice from Jim Carrey again

Because alas, like most short stories converted to feature length, it feels less like a movie than a prequel to something more important. Maybe if one was to follow this with a viewing of Dread and Midnight Meat Train it might be a little more effective. And alas, I'm too familiar with Jonas Armstrong from off'a British TV to be convinced by his performance.

Clive Barker's influence is the movie's saving grace, transforming a lesser piece into something marginally creepier than it should have been. The concept itself is a great one - infused with bits of everything that makes Barker so readable - and there are a few moments that send genuine chills down the spine, but Book Of Blood ultimately feels like a billion other STD haunted house stories. It should have been shorter and sleazier and had a little more Bark (ho ho ho), although when taken on its own terms, this is a perfectly serviceable bit of spook horror.

The Woods

Director: Lucky McKee (2006)

Starring: Agnes Bruckner, Emma Campbell, Bruce Campbell

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

In 1965 New England (really? I actually had no idea until the movie finished) a troubled youth (Bruckner) is shipped out to an isolated girls' boarding school. She soon encounters bullying, gingerism and odd goings' on in the surrounding woodlands. But it's okay - after all, she's Bruce Campbell's (onscreen) daughter. How could one be better equipped to deal with malevolent twigs and snobby schoolgirls?

I enjoyed The Woods. It has an intriguing central mystery, a chilly setting, some fun scares and a host of good performances. Agnes Bruckner does well as lead girl Heather. I have a thing for redheads anyway, so I'd probably have enjoyed her in anything (and it's okay, she was 21 when this movie was filmed. Totally legal, guys!) Bruce Campbell isn't in it for long, but it's always fun seeing The Chin doing his thing. There's a nice parallel with his Evil Dead too, in the later scenes, which has him battling evil trees and invasive twigs. But this isn't really his movie, The Campbell is just gravy on the meat and potatoes of an old-school mystery chiller that takes in disappearing students, creepy teachers and Mean Girl rejects.

Some might find it a tad predictable and slow, but I didn't really notice. Could've used a chainsaw or two. And the overuse of the word "firecrotch" kinda got on my nerves, as did that blonde girl. It's a fairly minor work, to be sure, but an enjoyable one all the same.

An exclusive Review Hole exclusive: Psychosis

Director: Reg Traviss (2010)
Starring: Charisma Carpenter, Paul Sculfor, Ricci Harnett, Justin Hawkins
Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK (preorder)

If there were a prize for most inventive use of Justin Hawkins in a movie, then Psychosis would win hands down. It would also probably win a trophy for the coveted 'most likely to be shit but actually quite decent' prize. From its trailer and description, Psychosis looks like just another cheap and dull ghost story starring a has-been actress. Psychosis is a little cheap, but not actually dull. And Charisma Carpenter aquits herself surprisingly well. It's a better movie than many a fellow Buffy alumni has managed to date (I'm looking at you Sarah Michelle Gellar, and those shitty Grudges).

Suan (Carpenter) is a successful but slightly nutty crime author who moves to the English countryside with husband David (Sculfor). In her 12-bedroom mansion, she soon begins experiencing visions; a hooded youth playing football, things that go bump in the night, visions of murder and suchlike. Oh, and Justin Hawkins is painting her window frames (not a metaphor). Meanwhile, David is up to some decidedly dodgy stuff and the groundskeeper (Harnett) is a probable rapist and all-around crazy person. Soon, old mental problems begin to resurface and Susan must decide whether she's going cuckoo or experiencing something decidedly more supernatural. Little bit from column (a), little bit from column (b).

I know, it sounds like it should star Gellar or Kristen Stewart and be festering in this Review Hole's own Turd Corner. But I liked it. Psychosis has a few good gore scenes, some boobies, shaggings, a penis and enough of a central story to keep its viewers at least midly interested. It's too slick and too mainstream to be as creepy or properly sleazy as it'd like, but has its moments - most of which involve groundskeeper Peck, the groundskeeper's Pecker and Justin Hawkins. Thankfully not all in the same scene. I'm still not sure why or how Justin Hawkins managed to be in this movie, but I'm glad he is.

The action kinda peters out where it should be really amping up a notch, but the whole thing is saved by a twist that's the direct opposite of what one might expect. It's a minor piece, but go in with low expectations and you might just have a blast. Psychosis is a slick, interesting little Spooky Brew that's about 50% better than it sounds on paper.

ASS: THE MOVIE

Director: David S Goyer (2009)

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Cam Gigandet, Idris Elba

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Not since Demi Moore's derriere graced the VHS covers of I Spit on Your Grave has one girl's ass made such memorable marketing for a horror movie. Indeed, the film's repeated use of Yustman's arse almost rivals that of Twilight's abdomens in terms of harnessing the Sleaze Audience. I suppose it's a remarkably clever way to get people to watch your otherwise mediocre movie.

Ass aside, I think there might be a plot buried there somewhere. The Unborn isn't, but it feels like an American remake of something J-horror. It's use of the mundane (and The Unborn is very mundane) and grey cinematics is very reminiscent of The Grudge or that one with the drippy ceiling. Casey (Yustman) is plagued by visions of a ghostly child. Her unborn twin brother, as it happens. Little bastich ain't too happy with being dead, and wants to be born. In order to do this, he murders Casey's black best friend (and I thought this was supposed to be 21st Century filmmaking. Bad luck, black best friends; you're destined to remain knife-fodder for a while yet) and harrasses a house full of old people. Forgive me, I forget most of the plot mechanics. I was too busy focusing on Yustman's ass.

Upon discovering that the ghost brat is a figure of Jewish folklore, Casey hunts down Rabbi Sendak (Oldman) and asks that he exorcise Ghost Jew Boy for her. I have no idea what Gary Oldman is doing in such a movie, but he gives the whole thing a sense of (highly undeserved) gravitas, and makes it a mildly more watchable affair. Even during the scenes (both of them) in which Yustman's ass isn't facing the camera. What follows is a very silly but still midly watchable exorcism in which Casey is strapped down to a gurney and muzzled with a very BDSM-looking gag contraption. Also present is Casey's boyfriend (Gigandet) and a Priest (Idris Elba). As Gary Oldman screams into a wind machine, Casey struggles on the table and the Priest gets himself somehow killed. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, fake happy ending, pre-credits shock, THE END. The Unborn kinda resembles how Drag Me to Hell might have turned out if it'd been directed by a hack with an ass-fascination.

That said, The Unborn isn't as fully terrible as one might imagine it to be. It's even mildly watchable, amusing in an unintentional sort of way and vaguely arousing for those who appreciate tightie whities and the female form. The peformances are neither great nor horrible. Yustman is like a more tolerable version of Megan Fox, Gigandet will keep the ladyfolk in the audience semi-interested, and the combined forces of Oldman and Elba add the actorly factor - even if they're both just blatantly phoning it in. Meanwhile, Goyer's directional style keeps things snappy and watchable, although it does feel like a particularly assy music video at times. You keep expecting Jason Derulo or Justin Bieber to show up and slap Yusterman's butt whenever it's onscreen. And it's onscreen a lot. Go back and count how many times I've used the word 'ass' in this review. That's nothing compared to the amount of times it must have been used in the script. Which is pretty apt, I suppose. The Unborn after all, is a load of ass.

Dear my subconscious, what the fuck?

Really, brain? What the fuck?? I've watched some of the 'scariest' movies known to man, and not once flinched. I've seen The Shining, The Ring, The Grudge and The Excorcist. I've sat through all manner of torture tripe; Hostel 1-2, Martyrs (okay, that one made something of an incredible emotional impact - but it didn't really scare) and even a Human Centipede. And not since I was, oh say ten, has anything given me nightmares (back then Mary Shelley's Frankenstein managed it, Jebus knows how). Truly I thought I was unflappable.

And then last night in search of some late night TV slop, I happened across The Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows. I've seen the first one multiple times, and even that didn't bother me. Can you say overrated? The sequel eschews the 'found footage' gimmick of the first movie in favour of a more traditional kids-in-the-woods horror tale. After watching the first movie, a gang of college kids decide to head on down to the woods to see if there's any truth in the Blair Witch myth. At their head is Jeffery, a possibly-crazy tour guide and video camera fanatic. On the tour, he takes the kids to the rotted ruins as seen in the first movie. Drunkening and partygoing quickly ensues. The youths pass out. When they wake up, their cameras and research have all been destroyed. They're all suffering from amnesia. All that remains is a few tapes. What follows is like a horror version of The Hangover.

I watched it, I was reasonably amused and then I went to bed.

And then in the middle of the night, something strange and unusual and horrible happened.

(No, not masturbation, I said unusual. That happens every night).

I woke up in cold sweats with the horrific horryifying feeling that something was in my room.

No, not that. The other one (I wish I could wake up to find Linda Blair in my room).

Not even that one.

The Blair Witch, I thought in my half-asleep stupor, was in my bedroom. In a little corner, between the DVD rack and the comic book bookshelf. And that doesn't even make sense, since the Blair Witch doesn't appear in The Blair Witch 2. And it wasn't just the Blair Witch that was in my room, but the supporting cast too. That guy from off've Burn Notice, the sexy Wicca and the kinda hot Goth were all there. But not the central couple (Tristine Skyler and Stephen Barker Turner) because they were a bit bland, unremarkable and forgettable. I couldn't see any of them but I knew they were there and I knew they weren't there, all at the same time.

Book of Shadows isn't even a scary film. It's got some good ideas and creepy sequences - I really enjoyed the pagan rituals, the group's mass hysteria, mis-perception of events and especially liked the movie's ending. I even found it more enjoyable than the predecessor, which is good but a little hokey and overrated. In no way is it scary though. It's creepy yet empty, like the House on Haunted Hill remake or Event Horizon. But there's something about the meta film-within-a-film scenario that managed to pierce my normally boob-obsessed subconscious enough to creep the hell out of me. Like Freddy Kreuger turning up in one of your own dreams (no lie: I stole Freddy's fedora when he last made an appearance) there's that idea in The Blair Witch 2 that the Witch can break through the boundaries of reality and 'infect' one's perception. Spreading the mass hysteria as experienced by the kids, perhaps? Damn, I am giving this much more thought than Book of Shadows ever could deserve.

By the way, this is the film I'm scoring, not the waking nightmare. There wasn't nearly enough gore, boobs or Timothy Olyphant to get that past the 2/5 mark.