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:

Day 21: Wolf Creek 2 (2013) 1h 46min

My life is composed of sequels of which the originals I have never seen!  After watching Wolf Creek 2 there are two conclusions I have come to: 1) I might go back and watch Wolf Creek 1; 2) The Outback is fucking frightening!  Unless it's Outback Steakhouse, then it's just tame and fake with mediocre steaks.  That rhymes so it must be true!

For the most part I spent a majority of this movie thinking that if this were set in say, Alabama, and some xenophobic redneck were killing off foreigners then people would view it totally differently.  Luckily for us, this is set in Australia where xenophobic redneck Aussies aren't a worry for those of us in the states!

Wolf Creek 2 is loosely based off an actual Australian serial killer, kind of in the way that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based off of a serial killer.  The main difference being that TCM goes deeper into a more horror-horror sense and WC2 goes into the realistic-horror.  So this film tricks us into thinking we're following a German tourist couple that is hitch hiking across Australia.  Now, I lost my shit instantly because there are a fuck ton of species living in Australia that will pretty much kill you.... possibly included that thing from the movie Species that wants to have your baby!  So I'm not down with this jaunt across fuck-all.

Truthfully the couple is worthless aside from making us read subtitles a bunch.  The real person we tend to follow is the killer himself, who looks like how you would picture the Australian version of an American redneck.  Throughout this film he kills two cops, the German couple, an elderly couple, and has a trap that ends up killing our jump scare girl.  Speaking of her, definitely a good and frightening jump scare.

Our focus shifts to an English chap that gets tangled up with the killer.  In his escape we see just how fucked up this murderer is because they're in some sort of catacombs where there are just tons of bodies chained up, dead, rotting, and some have christmas lights!  Happy holidays, fucker!

Our new hero does survive, but not after being fucked up (and possibly fucked) by our psycho.  This film was good.  It had just the right length for its peaks and valleys of action/suspense.  I will say though that it feels like two short films that got spliced together to make one long film.  This shit felt epic in length.  It could've ended midway through but they eventually wanted a torture porn scene so they drug it out.

I give Wolf Creek 2, 2.5 Paul Hogans out of 5: