The Forest of the Lost Souls blu-ray + Extras (2017: Wild Eye Releasing)

It's nice to be back with a new Saturday Screamers!  Today's film comes to us from our friends over at Wild Eye Productions.  They brought this film to the U.S. as well as hooked us up with a copy.  So thank you to them for this blu-ray!

They watched too much Daria.

Taking influence from the infamous Japanese suicide forest, the Aokigahara, The Forest of the Lost Souls places itself in Europe where a man is looking for his own patch in the woods to end his life.  While he begins to set out his personal artifacts a college age woman tells him she has already claimed the spot.  The two begin to talk and strike up a morbid acquaintanceship which eventually leads to a lake on the forest edge.  It's here that we find that the woman is really a killer.  I'm not spoiling anything as she's on the cover of the case holding a bloody knife.  We knew this was coming.  It's the fact that we find out the entire conversation was meant for her to learn about his life in order to extend her murderous intentions to those connected to him.

The Forest of the Lost Souls initially feels like it's an "artsy" film.  I use that word in quotes because there's an unpleasant tinge to it, like tasting copper on your tongue.  Around the 15-minute mark I was concerned that this film just wasn't going to be for me.  Thankfully I pressed on and the second half of The Forest... does such a great job of giving the viewer that sense of suspense and dread up until the third act hits and everything comes together.  The director knows exactly how to surprise you, at the right moments, with imagery in the background and holding it just long enough that you feel that anxious flutter in your stomach.

This movie also gave me one of the weirdest self psychological moments when the time came for me to do this write up.  The entirety of The Forest of the Lost Souls is in black and white, but for some reason I recall the latter parts of the film in color.  I actually had to put the disc back in and scene skip in order to see if I was right or wrong.  Sure enough, my memory was wrong.  I've never experienced this but I chalk it up to the set designers, costumers, and director for doing such a good job with establishing the house that I can, for lack of a better term, feel the color there.

I also want to give some love to the fact that this is one of the first films that I've seen where we get a killer spending the time to establish an alibi.  Taking selfies, making phone calls saying you didn't have service while you were somewhere the night before, going through all of this effort... it's something we don't get with a lot of horror.  Our monsters tend to be supernatural or have these character flaws that lead to them being pursued, jailed, or killed.  They're not so calculating and sociopathic as to do this extra work or, if they are, we aren't privy to those scenes.  So thank you to The Forest of the Lost Souls for having this.

EXTRAS:

Extras are slim on this as it is just an initial release.  We have two deleted scenes with director's commentary.  I really appreciate that input because these scenes were cut because they didn't fit what became the tone of the film.  Without being told that these scenes would feel confusing as to why they even filmed them at all.  We also get a short film based on a holiday in Portugal where people hit each other with squeaky hammers as a greeting.  I liked this short except I think it would've worked much better without the final shot.  Finally there is a commentary track which I would like to listen to the next time I watch this film and also a fight rehearsal which I didn't watch and may revisit.

FINAL VERDICT:

If you are someone that doesn't like subtitles (this film is in Portuguese), black and white films, or artistically done films, this might not be your thing.  On the flip side, if you don't mind any of that and want to take a break from all of the slashers, torture porn, and b-movie bloodbaths then give The Forest of the Lost Souls a try.  I may not pull this out as an option at every movie night, but when I'm with the right group of people I wouldn't definitely pull a "hey, have you seen this" and put it on.

Thanks again to Wild Eye Productions for the hook-up!

The Maus (2017) 1h 30m

War is a horror unto itself.  The entire concept seems so foreign to a lot of us because we never served in the military and the last real war or battle fought on U.S. soil was the Civil War (with the exception of maybe Pearl Harbor).  Yet there are countries that are at war or face some form of occupation currently and their daily lives are horror, or have been horror.  PTSD, a lack of people able to trust individuals, or just the existence of misanthropy and entropy when it comes to life... it's a horror that we hope to never see.

The Maus takes us to post-war Bosnia (although this film is from Spain).  A woman and her German boyfriend returned to the country because the bodies of her parents were finally found in a mass grave and she wanted to give them a proper burial.  While en route to their flight the SUV ends up in a mine crater and unable to continue.  Two Serbs come up behind our couple while they walk on the path to get help.  Ignoring the warning the Serbs are yelling about danger ahead, the couple's dog sets off a land mine and the woman is caught in the blast.  This is where we get our first dream sequence which may be more of a premonition of dangers to come.

There's a supernatural horror element in The Maus that becomes the focus for a short time.  It's mostly used as a deus ex machina but I wish it didn't exist at all.  There is a much more visceral horror present here with the constant questioning of trust and safety, prejudice existing from growing up in a war torn area, and the dream sequences which create these incredibly uncomfortable feelings within the viewer. I think that this film makes those moments much more frightening than a supernatural being ever could.

I do have to nitpick a few things, just because they bugged me and killed my immersion in the film.  First, when the couple is walking they come across a jeep and the boyfriend finds a walkie talkie in the bag, all the while completely ignoring the gigantic CB antenna on the top of the jeep!  Use that to call for help you dolt!  Second, when we finally see the demon it looks like Gray Fox from Metal Gear Solid, just in earth tones.  It's not a bad design, but it made me more hyped for Metal Gear at that moment than this film.

All in all The Maus isn't bad, but I don't feel like it falls under horror.  Yes, I've spent most of this talking about real life physical and personal psychological horror but if I had to classify it in horror I'd say it's a dramatic horror film.  That feels awkward to say though as drama and horror don't tend to overlap but this isn't a thriller.  The real villain here is just humanity being opportunistic and shitty.

I give The Maus 3 MGS Gray Foxes out of 5:

Nightworld (2017) 1h 32m

My very first note for this film is "Yassssssss queen!  Robert Englund!"  I don't know why I get so hyped when he is in a film.  He's a good actor, he played one of the greatest slashers ever, but I feel like most of his roles could be anyone else and it would be just as fine... except Dance of the Dead.  I fucking love him in that film, no matter how short his screen time is.

Nightworld is the most "I hung out on Creepypast.org and then wrote a script," film that's come across my screen in a while.  A man goes to Russia for a simple watchman job.  He's told that each of the apartments are occupied (they're not) but his main duties are to lock the gates at 11p and spend most of his day watching camera monitors set up in an underground hanger.  If anything ever happens on those cameras, he is to call Robert Englund.  He is the previous watchman that eventually went blind.  After a bunch of whatever and nothing, something happens and then we find out that the hanger has a door that is one of the seven seals between the living and the dead.  If the door's guardian (an old man on machines in the attic) dies then the door could be opened and the dead could return.

This movie was boring.  I said that this is like a creepy pasta but it's a shitty creepy pasta.  As things were getting revealed I would exclaim "Of fucking course!" because you knew something like that was going to come up.  A random love story is thrown into the mix, which I assume is just to add an extra character for the final confrontation.  The character development is incredibly weak.  Robert just lost his eyesight due to age, our main character is there because his wife died, the love interest is there because she works at the cafe.  That's it!  There's no meat here to dig my teeth into, just bones.

I give Nightworld 0 blind Robert Englunds out of 5:

Desolation (2017) 1h 18m

I don't have a child, but if this film has taught me anything it's that before I ever let said imaginary future child to go camping with me or someone else then I'm going to make them watch both Predator and First Blood just so they're prepared for anything!  You need to hide from something trying to kill you?  Cover yourself in mud and let all the rad traps you set take that mother fucker out!  I don't care if you're five!  Protect your neck, non-binary imaginary child!

Desolation is a journey of letting go.  A mother and son go hiking in the mountains in order to spread the ashes of their recently deceased husband/father.  Armed with bear mace and a family friend, they begin to be stalked by woodland Rob Zombie for an undefined reason.  After the friend is stolen in the night the mom and son combo realize they have to escape before they're forced to listen to Living Dead Girl until they die.

I don't know what to classify this movie as.  It feels like it would be a terrible home invasion film if this took place in a house, so Forest Invasion?  Woodland Survival Horror?  Scout Horror?  Woods of 1000 Corpses?  Okay, that was the last one.  While there is this whole plot of the stranger hunting them the real plot of this film is that the son just wants to be recognized as being a teenager, and thus no longer a child.  You feel for the mother, having lost her husband and thus wanting to protect her son but you can't be emotionally dismissive or else he's going to learn to resent you!  Go to therapy!  With that in mind, the boy does prove to his mother that he is now more man than child and eventually bludgeons Rob Zombies head to pieces with a rock.  I get it, you're working through some shit as well kid, but damn... you need to go to therapy too.

I give Desolation 2 copies of Hellbilly Deluxe out of 5:

Veronica (2017) 1h 45m

A few years back I used to work at a witchcraft store here in New Orleans.  People had no problem picking up statues of Goetic demons or objects meant to curse, but the moment they saw a spirit board/Ouija board they refused to touch it.  It's amazing how fearful people have become of press board with a decal on it and a plastic planchette.  I mention this because today's film is loosely based on a woman named Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro that supposedly ran afoul of a spirit board and it lead to her death.  To this day it's Spain's only officially documented police record with a focus on supernatural and the unexplained.  You can find all that info online so I won't go into it.  What I will go into is our review!!

Veronica is a Spanish film where our title character and her two friends attempt to hold a seance during an eclipse with hopes of contacting passed loved ones.  They make contact with something but in the process it seems that the spirit has latched itself to Veronica.  She and her siblings become threatened by the spirit, shadow people roam the house, and strange stains begin to appear on under their beds.  Not even the blind nun nicknamed Sister Death can help Veronica as she is told her only hope is to be able to outrun the entity surrounding her.

I've noticed that the more horror films I watch for this website, the more grizzled I become.  My skin is much thicker than it was say 10 years ago.  With that in mind, I think the younger version of myself would've been way more into this movie than I was.  There are some really decent visual effects involving hands coming out of the bed and grabbing people and shadows moving inside of the apartment.  I liked the overall story telling, it's supernatural gonzo-fiction but that's what makes it a movie and not a documentary.  My only complaint (once again) is this weird mix of magickal practices contained inside of the literature that accompanies the board.  I know, it's not meant to be some sort of "official" anything and is just this weird hodgepodge of info, but I'm pushing a pair of glasses up the bridge of my nose and scoffing like a douche at it.

I give Veronica 2.5 haunted paintings out of 5:

The Vault (2017) 1h 31m

I feel like film production companies still have this odd assumption that casting people based on name or affiliation alone will make a movie good (or at least draw).  We know this isn't true based on some of the big flops that have existed *cough*TomCruiseMummy*cough* but yet we still get these middle of the road, or worse, films that have some heavy casting done.  I would rather these companies save their money and give us a better film rather than wasting that dough of what is essentially turd polish.

The Vault focuses on a bank robbery gone dumb and the eventual release of ghosts in the bank?  I think.  Or the bank was just haunted and opening the second vault made it more haunted?  All I know is that people have quit this bank due to the weird things that happen around the downstairs where the old vault exists.  In the 80's a bank robbery went wrong and it lead to the death of pretty much everyone involved except the unaccounted for leader.  They all haunt that downstairs now but may be locked in that vault.  Either way, this odd group of white trash (including the woman that plays Pennsyltucky from Orange is the New Black) stir up some shit and end up dead thanks to these bland specters.

That's the whole film pretty much.  We do find out that the person that points them to the vault and attempts to save everyone is the ghost of the bank manager from that original robbery, but you could kind of tell that by his porn stashe and outdated suit.  I was bored the whole way through The Vault.  It has what could be labeled the worst use of the song Crimson and Clover, jailhouse tats that look like they were Sharpied on just prior to filming, and a Wilhelm scream.  A fucking Wilhelm scream in a 2017 film!  How hard is it to have someone record their own death scream? 

I can't with this film.  I really can't.  Hopefully that vault actually exists so they can take all the copies of this film and lock it inside.  Then if anyone opens it they're haunted by this film for the rest of their life.

I give The Vault  0 thieves out of 5:

Little Evil (2017) 1h 34m

This is the third fuckin' horror movie I'm doing on here that has Adam Scott in it! Piranha, Krampus, and now the Netflix original, Little Evil!  Is he becoming the new Christopher Walken, popping up all over the place because he doesn't want to get bored?  I'm not complaining.  He became a boy mayor and blew the town's money on a giant winter sports complex named Ice Town!  And if you don't understand that then go watch Parks and Rec you uncouth fart!

Little Evil is a horror comedy based around the premise of The Omen... or maybe just an AC/DC album since the kid looks more like Angus Young than Damien.  Gary marries the woman of his dreams without having ever spent time with her son Lucas.  Lucas is literally the child of the devil, conceived through some strange cult ritual.  Gary just wants to be a good step-dad for his step-son, Lucas wants to bring about the apocalypse, the mother is oblivious.  It's a step-dad support group vs. a doomsday cult while Gary attempts to become the father he never had.

Netflix hasn't really been pumping out good content when it comes to their original horror films (ex: I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House) but they do a much better job when it's a cross-up such as this.  It's like an America swing at making a film in the vein of Shaun of the Dead.  We get nods to The Shining, Poltergeist, and some Ghostbusters humor thrown in.  We're also treated to one of the best uses of Rush's "Tom Sawyer" for a device reveal.  I had a good time watching Little Evil.  It's one of those films where you could have some friends over, order some food, and make a Friday night of it.

I give Little Evil 3 copies of High Voltage out of 5:

Nails (2017) 1h 25m

I've recently been trying to get back into shape.  I was never ripped but I played ice hockey from the age of 5 up until I moved to the deep South... where ice exists only rarely and when it does the entire city shuts down.  Why am I sharing this info with you?  Because if I take nothing else away from this film, it's that you can try to be as healthy as you want but you can still get wrecked as fuck by something beyond your control.

Dana is a track coach going through her usual yoga/morning run routine when she is hit by a car.  The driver immediately leaves the scene and only through sheer luck does Dana end up in the local hospital.  When Dana comes to she has the feeling that she's being watched by an unseen figure at night time.  During her recover she finds that the hospital had an orderly that acted as an "angel of mercy" to five sick children before he was found out.  His nickname was Nails, due to his habit of keeping fingernail clippings from the children in envelopes.

This is another film that would've worked out much better if it were a thirty-minute short.  There's a sub plot of Dana's husband having an affair that serves no real purpose aside from the ghost showing Dana a weird video of it.  We also get a large amount of time spent showing that the hospital is poor and practically in disrepair.  It's filler that did nothing to further the main plot and only padded the movie out.

The final act of this film jumps the rails completely.  In fact, it doesn't just jump the rails, it jumps to another rail, grinds that into a combo and finds a secret tape hidden there.  We become established with why Nails wants to kill Dana but now he's just killing anyone and everyone in the hospital.  It's one of those moments where you ask yourself why he didn't just do that shit in the first place.  You're a ghost with ghost powers, use them!  Ghost it up!

I give Nails 2 weed leaf nails out of 5:

Creep 2 (2017) 1h 18m

I've covered the original Creep way back in my second cut.  I wasn't overly impressed with it and found its story to be lacking a strong punch.  So when Creep 2 was released and people were suddenly saying how good it was I wasn't buying it.  I couldn't conceive how Mark Duplass would build off of the original film and come up with something that was suddenly so adored.  Then I watched this sequel...

Creep 2 picks back up with Aaron (Duplass) in the midst of one of his spying/lying schemes to kill his latest victim.  This time though, it's different.  In his set-up to the murder he begins to confess about the stalker being him and that he has been feeling off in some way.  The murder still happens but his speech continues as his victim bleeds out.  He is having a personal crisis on if he still finds enjoyment in his "work."  Enter Sara.  She's her own brand of odd as she is attempting to create a YouTube show where she replies to random online dating ads and then tapes the strange encounters.  After two failed episodes she has her own breakdown but in the morning finds an ad placed by Aaron.  The two meet for Sara to actually tape Aaron's confession about being a serial killer, although she doesn't believe him.

I liked the plot of this movie so much better than the first.  Starting with this bizarre depressive crisis from a sociopath that doesn't get a thrill from the hunt anymore is such an odd but engaging concept.  I found myself actually wanting to know where Aaron was going to go mentally.  Sara also brings her own manipulations which just ups the ante and made me try even harder to figure out where this was going.

I assumed three possibilities:

1) They're going to get together and become a murderous power couple
2) He's going to groom her to take his place
3) He's going to kill her and get that spark back

I'm not going to say if any of those were right or wrong because that gives away too much.  I will say this though:  The ending of and the perceived endings of this movie left me fulfilled each time as a horror fan.  Good job with the rally cap, Mark!

I give Creep 2 4 singles of TLC's "Creep" out of 5:

Cult of Chucky (2017) 1h 31m

If you've been with us from early on then you'll know that I covered this film's predecessor, Curse of Chucky and was blown away by the franchise's return to being actual horror films.  I'm not sure why but when I saw that they made yet another Chucky (do we still refer to this as Child's Play?) film then there was some trepidation that Cult would not live up to Curse.  Luckily, I was not let down.

Cult of Chucky takes us a few years beyond the ending of Curse.  We find out that Nica was blamed for the murder of her family but her insistence on the actual murdering being the Chucky doll lands her in a maximum security psych hospital.  She is eventually deemed safe enough to be moved to a medium security space by her doctor.  At the same time, Andy (from the original Child's Play films) is all grown up but still tortured by his past.  He keeps a living Chucky head in a safe believing that this is the best chance to prevent him from doing anymore harm.  Unfortunately for both of them, Chucky learned a spell from VoodooForDummies.Com (yes, that's a quote) and with the help again of Tiffany, he tries to finish everything he started all while creating a true cult of Chucky.

I can't believe that I was blown away again by a Chucky film.  It's the perfect mix of meta humor and knowing when and how far they can take a joke.  Combine that with some gruesome kills and an overall solid story and this movie is near perfect.  Alex Vincent returns as to play the adult version of his childhood role of Andy, Jennifer Tilly is still on board, and Brad Dourif is doing Charles' voice again.  What more could you want?

I give Cult of Chucky 5 My Buddy dolls out of 5:

Temple (2017) 1h 18m

Horror films have taught me many things over the course of my life.  One thing is that children are most likely all ghosts or the devil.  Just because that creature was "born" doesn't make up for the fact that there were a solid nine months where you had no idea what it was really doing in there.  I've seen sonogram images that look like that thing is summing all the powers of the dark lord into him!  Seriously! Do you have multiple children?  Well then one is a ghost and one is Satan, or they're both the ghost of Satan, I don't know.  I don't have kids!

The Temple takes us to Japan where white people act like entitled assholes and can't take "no" or "not for sale" for an answer.  A woman finds an old journal in a used book store but when she attempts to buy it the shop owner tells her that the book is cursed, not for sale, and kicks them out and closes up shop.  If this isn't a sign of "don't fuck with that book," I don't know what is.  Of course, one of the men with her goes back to find a small boy in the shop and buys the book from him (red flag #2).  He stops at a ramen stand where he is told by the chef and the other patron to not go to the temple in the journal (red flags #3 & 4), but one of them still tells him where the temple is.  So guess where these people all go the next day?  This plot is trash.

I was really hoping for something great when this film started but it took me down a long and lonely road of boredom.  I held no sympathy for any of these people because they're all trash and multiple levels.  It's the deepest trash I've ever seen.  An ocean of trash.  The only thing that caught my attention was maybe three to five seconds long and it was the guardian spirit of the temple coming to life and attacking one of the men.  The rest of this film can be shot into the sun for all I care.

I give Temple 0 dumpsters out of 5:

Happy Hunting (2017) 1h 31m

This is an odd way to start a review, but I feel that the term "redneck" gets overused in horror.  It has become a catch-all for any non-urban/non-suburban villain character(s).  Take this film for example.  The descriptions mention the townspeople as "rednecks" but I find them more akin to the villagers in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.  Their actions may be shocking and wrong to us, but to them it's what they have been doing for ages.  I'm not justifying either groups actions here as by modern social and moral standards both are viewed as wrong.  The people here don't really fit the stereotypical overalls, flannel, banjo playing bumpkins we typically visualize, so why not find a better term?  Anyway, let's get back on track here.

Happy Hunting's main character is Warren, a crank making alcoholic.  He receives a call from Mexico saying that an ex-lover has died and that he has a child.  Warren mans up, tries to quit drinking, and sell some bunk crank to make it to Mexico.  The deal goes south but so does our man until he ends up in the town of Buffalo Flats.  It's a town known for its rich hunting heritage despite being a desert region now.  He arrives just in time for their annual hunting festival where this quickly turns into The Most Dangerous Game with Warren and four others attempting to flee from the towns elite huntsmen.

It's been a while since I've watched one of these Running Man style films.  While it lacks the panache of a lot of its predecessors I can't really find any heavy faults with Happy Hunting.  Sure, we have a ton of time spent in the desert without much action but I found myself on Warren's side and had some emotional reactions to characters being killed.  I also appreciated the speech from the Sheriff about the hunt being about how they "deal with problems," in this town.  Once again, it doesn't justify their actions, but it helps you understand them.  Overall, I'm probably not going to watch this film again, but if it's already on somewhere then I'm not adverse to seeing it again.

I give Happy Hunting 2 copies of Guns & Ammo out of 5:

Ghost House (2017) 1h 29m

At some point soon I would like to write a book that's an "everything I needed to know about life I learned from horror movies" type thing.  In it I plan on having a section on foreign travel because holy fuck do white tourists just do the dumbest shit!  Agreeing to ride out to the country in a foreign land with people you just met, yeah, fucking stupid!  Taking an object from something called a "ghost house," you're an idiot!  Basically being a tourist, you're probably an asshole, and I say that living in a city that is a tourist wonderland.

Ghost House sets us up with a couple on vacation in Thailand. On their first day they befriend two other tourists that are staying in their hotel.  After an evening of drinks and strippers our couple is convinced to go out to a remote spot because the fiancé is jealous of her man friend having lipstick on his face and she is told that she could get some cool pictures out there.  The other couple tricks them so that a spirit possessing their friend will possess our cranky lady.  Now, with the help of their tour driver (Gogo) our man seeks out all kinds of shaman and mystics to save his betrothed.  He has three days to do so before her soul is taken into the abyss.

This film had a really sharp reverse bell curve.  It started out strong, despite relying heavily on jump scares, but there were about 15-20 minutes where it just couldn't keep my interest.  By the end of the film it came back around and I want to create an award just to give to the actress that played the witch at the end (or whatever she might be called, my occult knowledge doesn't extend too far into Asiatic countries).  She by far has the best "fuck you I did it!" laugh I've ever heard.

As for our ghost woman, except for the very end she is shown in quick and jerky shots.  We get a few close-ups which end up disappointing because the facial appliance looks a bit rough.  I don't know if it's what they molded it out of, or the paint job, but it looks a bit too Halloween mask for me.  I've also been rewatching Syfy's FaceOff from the beginning and I'm finding myself more critical of stuff like that.  Curse you Glenn Hetrick!

I give Ghost House 2 ghost houses out of 5:

The Hatred (2017) 1h 30m

 

A couple of weeks ago I went to a local pro wrestling show.  On the card for that night was a "hardcore" match, which essentially means no disqualification, falls count anywhere, and weapons will be involved.  Mid-match, one of the wrestlers rolls out a shopping cart full of the traditional wrestling fare, but the other went the extra mile and pulled a kitchen sink out from under the ring.  We all get the joke but it's one you groan at.  Why am I mentioning this story?  Because this film pulled the kitchen sink out from under the apron.

Our introduction to The Hatred is its own short film.  We have a post World War 2 nazi hiding out in small town USA.  How a woman fell in love with and bore him a child is beyond me because this guy is just a prick.  One day he receives a package containing a personal artifact of Hitler's known as the Amulet of Hatred.  He cements this thing into his wall and it turns his crazy level up to 100 because he then murders his daughter and hides the body.  The mom knows what's up and kills him.  Then we go to modern time where some fresh-outta-college girls come up to help watch on of their professor's children for a weekend.  Too much crap happens.  Seriously, a lot of shit goes down,

If ever there were a film that was written based off of a bunch of Post-It notes stuck to a wall then it would be this one.  We have nazis, a magic French amulet the Germans had but was sent from Brazil, Japanese Grudge noises and growing black mold corners, some sort of creature thing, ghosts, creepy dolls, and the use of a creepy pasta (the one where the kid says there's something under their bed, and the person checks and it's the kid saying the thing on the bed isn't them).  It's like they had no idea where to go and instead of sticking with one direction they threw everything at it.

The one positive thing The Hatred does have would be the existence of one of my top five harbinger characters, ever.  The woman doesn't do much except act nervous, glances in the house, mumbles about it being evil, and then all but runs through the front yard.  It was awkward and hilarious and even the characters are weirded out by this display.  I just laughed my ass off.  This film should have embraced her and played Yakety Sax as she ran away and it would receive a higher rating from me. It doesn't, so fuck it.

The Hatred gets 1 Sgt. Hatred out of 5:

Aliens: Zone of Silence (2017) 1h 19m

 

Oh found footage films, we meet again.  Only this time you're on Netflix due to an inside job.  This is the directorial debut of Andy Fowler, also known as the Director of VFX for Netflix itself.  Yes, this film is on more streaming platforms than just Netflix, the fact that this was a direct to streaming production and had no theatrical release gives you an idea of what I had to deal with here.  So why am I'm being such a cranky bastard with this film?  Journey with me, into the zone of silence...

Based off of a real location in Mexico, Aliens: Zone of Silence follows a woman as she tries to find her brother after he disappears while searching for aliens for his YouTube channel.  Similar to the Bermuda Triangle, the Zone of Silence has issues with magnetic fields and the breaking down of mechanical instruments.  Lucky for our leading woman, she has the help of Goose, an ex-communications officer in the military that seems to have his own command station at his house.  They're able to keep in constant visual and audio contact except for times when the aliens are around.

This movie should be called the White Woman: Slog of Boring.  It's just a bunch of camcorder, GoPro, and computer screen shots that were so uninteresting to watch that I listened to this movie more than I watched it.  It reminds me of the night shots of Blair Witch only they're mostly in a tent or in the daytime so it takes away the suspense factor.  Also, Goose is the worst physical actor I have seen in a while.  There's a section where he's supposed to be having this inner panic of what to do since he lost contact with the woman and it was painful to watch.  Side note:  Don't name someone Goose in your film, it makes me think of Top Gun.

We never see the aliens.  Instead we get the fake hand of a grey pushing on the side of a tent.  The final shot we get looks like someone took a picture of Jesus and/or Mary statues and then put a bunch of vapor wave video filters on them.  That's cool with the kids, right?  We can make this ending relevant to youth culture, right?  Fuck off!

I give Aliens: Zone of Silence 0 photos of Goose from Top Gun out of 5:

XX (2017) 1h 20m

Anthology horror films have started to pop up more and more.  We have the V/H/S films, Southbound, The ABCs of Death series, and now we have XX.  An anthology where the focus is on the women in horror that aren't scream queens, but are the ones that make the scream queens scream.

XX consists of four short films: The Box (based off of a Jack Ketchum short story) where a boy catches a glimpse of what's inside of stranger's present and he is never the same.  The Birthday Party which has a mother about to host her daughter's seventh birthday party only to find her husband dead of pills and booze and she tries to hide his corpse.  Don't Fall, where four 20-something campers stumble across an area which caries a violent curse.  Then the final short is Her Only Living Son, in which a single mother is dealing with the fact that her son is coming into his own around his 18th birthday and the past catches up to them.  All four of these are framed by strange stop motion sequences which I could only describe as if a living house were into gothic-lolita.

I was glad this film came up because I spent a lot of time this week trying to remember where I saw The Box before.  It's my call for the strongest of these shorts but each of them are really well done.  If I had to pin one down as the weakest short then it would be The Birthday Party. I'm only saying this because when you get to the very end you realize it was a 15 minute set-up for a joke, and it's one of those jokes though where you kind of laugh but then do an exhaled sigh at the end because a part of you just died for laughing.  It is worth watching though because the styling and usage of color are fantastic.  Also, I would like a large purple toilet costume.

I give XX 3.5 Rosie the Riveters out of 5:

Residue (2017) 1h 22m

There's so much going on in that poster.  Just take a second and really look at it.  You have some demon thing, a bug woman, Max Headroom, the Smoking Man from X-files, and some strange lighting from the late 70's early 80's.  This poster looks like Pagemaster on PCP.  In a way, this film kind of was.

Residue focuses around a journal of partially unknown origins.  Being that it's a journal you have some info but the book itself is a descent into madness.  After a theft and botched hand-off of a "package" our main character comes home to find out he was delivering this book.  He makes the mistake of starting to read it and only after someone completes reading the book does the supernatural shit around them end.  By "around them" I'm talking the entire apartment complex and people living in it.   It is rare that someone lives to finish the book.  The actual "residue" the film gets its title from is a black slime that exists on and in some of the journal.

I don't know how I feel about Residue.  It attempts to do a Neo-Noir style thing with the character narration combined with some advanced tech but then leans more into a serious version of John Dies at the End.  The latter of these two should not be attempted in a serious manner because the humor is what makes that a good film.  There were some background moments you had to catch at the right time or you would miss them and I love when films do that well.  I don't have any legitimate complaints other than the supernatural elements became a bit too disjunct from the journal and what we knew of it, but I'm still not totally sold on it.

I give Residue a 2 Journal 3's out of 5:

Death Note (2017) 1h 41m

I knew this day would come.  I fucking knew it!  I just hoped that it would be much later than this, and on Halloween of all days!  So I've read all of the original Death Note manga, saw all of the anime, and own two of the three Japanese films (Death Note and Death Note II, but not L Saved the World).  When Netflix said they were going to make their own movie based on Death Note it was met with some excitement and some skepticism.  Then it came out and all I heard about it was that it was trash upon trash.  So how does this really measure up?

If you're unfamiliar with the premise, Death Note is about an ultra intelligent teenage boy named Light.  He finds a notebook labeled as a "Death Note" and a list of rules inside of how to use it.  The book itself belongs to a Shinigami (death god) named Ryuk who acts as an influencer and voyeur to Light's use of the Death Note.  After donning the name "Kira" (an indirect form of the word "killer" in Japanese), Light uses the Death Note in a self-conceived notion of global morality by eliminating criminals.  A special operative, another teenage boy of extreme intelligence, known only as L is put on the case to flush out Kira.

That pretty much sums up what is maybe the first quarter of the original story and more info than you're given for the entirety of this film.  If you know nothing at all about Death Note then you might like this film.  If you know even the slightest bit about Death Note then you know this is a bastardization of the source material set in America.  I could go on and on about why this wasn't good, but those reviews already exist so I'll jump to the two things I did like about this.  First, Ryuk (and more importantly Willem Dafoe's voice acting) was a shining star in the black void of this film.  The lines were dead on, the look was great, and Willen Dafoe fucking kills it with his laughs and line deliveries.  Second, this version of L was much more proactive than the original.  He took risks that were out of character for L, but it made him a bit more interesting.  It doesn't help that I'm not really a fan of L in the manga/anime and much prefer Near, but with this film you have no clue what I'm talking about.

So is this movie the turd sandwich people say it is?  Ehhhh... Like I said, if you have even flipped through the manga then you know this movie is trash.  Although, for people that have no clue about Death Note, maybe this will be their gateway into the real thing, or maybe it will be their intro to manga and anime.  So I can't really shit on that.  Kids still get into metal based on new Metallica albums.  If it leads to them finding good metal or visiting the old Metallica albums, then good for them.  Metal up your ass...

I give Death Note 1 apple out of 5 (in honor of Willem Dafoe's Ryuk):

The Black Room (2017) 1h 31m

There had to have been some house, empty since the mid-80's, that was getting renovated and they found this script hidden in the floorboards.  The only catch is that it was written by some 14 year old boy that was sexually repressed and this was the closest he would ever get to woods porn.  Then this cursed script found its way to a director who adjusted himself and decided to make it come to life!

The Black Room has a traditional horror premise: house has a demon in it, new couple moves in, demon attempts to use them for his evil purpose.  The difference here is that the demon is hyper-sexual in order to create a human/demon hybrid child.  So think Amityville Horror meets Species.  You know, two films you never thought you'd hear compared in the same sentence.

I feel like this would be one of those VHS tapes I would see for rent as a kid and the cover would scare the shit out of me. It looks so 1984 horror.  The entire film had that vibe, just under a modern lens.  The old school rotoscoped lightning effects existed with modern practical effects and make-up for a good blend.  I will say that The Black Room had a few sloppy moments with such things as showing a full hand after the fingers just got cut off or, and this is more of a personal gripe, a brand new GBH patch on the goth/occult girl's bag.  Seriously, she's not listening to GBH.  Fuck, I'm not sure anyone still listens to GBH and that includes people that were in that fucking band.

There are also unexplained elements that aren't important to the story but still confusing.  Did this couple buy the house fully furnished and just moved in?  Are they not creeped out by that?  Who has a giant Tibetan Buddha statue when you walk into your house?  Why would you not cement over that door in the first place?  Scorpion tail dicks?!

I give The Black Room 2.5 Mortal Kombat Scorpions out of 5:

Clinical (2017) 1h 44m

Netflix has entirely too much money.  Sometimes they put out great things, and sometimes they put out trash.  Sense 8, great.  Castlevania, great-levania.  However, having a shit ton of money burning a hole in your pocket means that you'll take risks.  Much as how I plan on going to the toy store later and I just got paid.  If I'm not careful I'll end up wasting some of that money on trash instead of putting it toward something good.  This was one of those times where the money was probably doled out by being drunk and making it rain only to realize later Netflix needed to pay rent or some shit.

Clinical is a mash-up of time jumps.  We start with a psychiatrist finding a female patient in her office with bloody hands and a shard of glass.  After attacking the psychiatrist the girl then cuts her own throat.  We find out later she survived.  How?  Well, this is the one thing I liked about this film and one of the weird things I picked up in random research.  When a person cuts their own throat they never complete the cut, you get about midway before the body enters shock and you pass out.  They stuck true to this and I applaud them for that.

Moving forward, after therapy of her own, our psychiatrist reopens her practice but avoids dealing with trauma cases because that's what her last patient was.  Eventually she gets a call from a man named Alex that says he was told she would be the only person to help him with his trauma.  She concedes and begins treating him.  He had a face transplant and his story was that there was a car accident he stopped to help and this lead to a mess of shit where his face got all kinds of jacked up.  That's a lie, he's actual the previous girl's father who was a fucking sick ass pervert and that was the girls trauma.  We'll leave it at that.

The girl begins showing up and you think it's either a ghost, flashbacks, or dream sequences but it ends up that she was released from the mental hospital she was kept in and just began fucking with the psychiatrist.  Lots of shit happens and it all leads to our protagonist pulling off the entire face transplant in one big ol' face pancake.  This makes no sense since it was a transplant from like a year ago and would have healed, but fuck science!  They spent it all on throat cutting research.

This review is way too long but there was a lot going on that was too confusing with establishing if it was past, present, or a dream.  I assumed that Alex was the girl's father early on and then they tipped their hand waaaay earlier than the reveal.  The acting and general cinematography were good but the directing and editing were kind of a wet fart.

I give Clinical 1 computer rendered clinic out of 5:

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