Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld (2015) 2h

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! If there's one thing I love it's over the top Japanese horror.  It's strange then that this film comes to us from Argentina because if you switched out the Spanish for Japanese then I would have assumed this was 100% Japan A-Number-One!  Most of my notes for this movie start with "HOLY FUCK" or "OH SHIT" and then end in exclamation points, so let's get into it.

Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld is a mix of the supernatural and modern-apocalyptic cyberpunk.  That's a lot to take in, but trust me, that's the only way I can describe it.  A wizard is hired by some military operation to summon a demon in order to make a trade for power.  The wizard does it but the leader of the group chose not to follow the instructions he was given.  This leads to the demon (looking like a mix between Mumra and the offspring of Darth Maul and a sand person) killing almost everyone, but making a deal with one survivor named Razor.  Razor becomes a powerful man but has four bodyguards created in order to protect him from the return of the Demon to collect Razor's life.  The wizard is being hunted, Razor is a military tyrant, and demons are controlled by humans with sick shit like gatling guns for arms.

This movie has everything!  Great make-up so that each of the demons on screen is different, katana fights, Japanese rope bondage, school girl outfits, and a final fight straight out of a manga with rad dive kicks and Ora! Ora! Ora! punches!  The costuming varies from Shadowrun to Colonial America and everything in between.  I've never had two hours fly by as fast as they did with this film and I would've wasted another hour taking everything this film had to give.

The plot is a bit of a loose thread.  It could easily unravel the whole thing but luckily no one pulls on it so we still get a cohesive story.  Besides, when you're watching people explode and sick fight scenes then it doesn't matter!

 I give Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld 5 Gendo Ikari's out of 5:

The Veil (2016) 1h 33m

Oooohhhhh shit!  I fucking love cults!  Between this NXIVM stuff that's all coming out, a documentary series on the Rajneesh group from 80's Oregon, and meeting someone currently in a legit cult, I've been getting my fill recently.  Now throw a bunch of supernatural shit in it and I'm all on board.  I don't want to join your cult, I just want to watch the craziness.

Think of the Jim Jones cult, then cut that down in size and put them in the south of rural America.  After this group appears to have all committed suicide, the only remainder is a small girl, Sarah.  Fast forward to her adulthood and an indie documentarian wants to take Sarah back to the land where the cult was and film.  The thing that the crew doesn't know is that more than Sarah have a connection to the events that happened there, and the cult killed themselves because they knew they would come back.

I'm legitimately all in with this film.  The setting is creepy, there are strange unexplained things happening all around them, and throughout the whole film you just keep getting handed more and more pieces to the puzzle.  Then, once it's complete, you're treated to one of those "holy fuck!" moments.  It's worth it, 100% worth it.

I give The Veil 5 cult members out of 5:

Day 24: Odd Thomas (2013) 1h 37m

First off, RIP Anton Yelchin.  It's kind of a shame that you'll be known more as Chekov in the Star Trek reboots than anything else.  Not that I'm saying Odd Thomas should be the number one thing he's known for, but he should get recognition for this.  It was a fun horror comedy.

Odd Thomas (which is literally his name) has psychic abilities as well as the ability to see ghosts and demon-like entities that thrive on feeding off evil, chaos, and death.  After noticing a large group of these demons following "Fungus Bob" around, Odd begins to uncover an insane mass murder plot for the devil.  Not that the devil asked for it, but some fake "satanic" stuff gets thrown in and the plan is to do it for Satan and then probably some sort of honor.  This sounds really random but it's because I don't want to give too much away.  Why?  Because you should see it.

I'm not sure how true it is to the Dean Koontz book of the same name as I've never read any Koontz.  For some reason, despite him being a contemporary of Stephen King, I never see a Koontz books and think of supernatural thrillers.  King's son Joe Hill?  Sure.  Brian Keene?  Yes, Dean Koontz? Idkwtfbbq.

Regardless of the source material and your knowledge of or inexperience with it, Odd Thomas made me think of films like John Dies at the End (which I mention on here a lot) and Shawn of the Dead.  I'm not saying it's as good as those films in overall humor, but it's not far off.

I give Odd Thomas 4 unrelated but sweet lizard men images out of 5:

Day 23: He Never Died (2015) 1h 39m

I have to begin this review with full disclosure:  I have a Black Flag tattoo,  I own almost every book Henry Rollins has ever written, I have seen Rollins Band live, I have seen Henry Rollins do spoken word live, I have DVDs of Henry Rollins doing spoken word live, I have many random and terrible movies because he is in them.  The point is that I am a fan of Henry Rollins and the work he does.

However, this does not rose tint my perception of him as an actor.  I know that he isn't the greatest actor.  Hell, he knows he isn't the greatest actor and has said so on many an occasion.  With that out of the way, as He Never Died went on, I think he just might have been the right person for this film.

A simple rundown of the film goes as such:  Henry Rollins plays Jack.  Jack pretty much doesn't care about much of anything and just has his routine.  He has an air of "seen it all," so he is pretty blasé to the world.  We come to find he has a daughter, but more importantly that he can't be killed.  People keep trying, and a lower level mob is involved, but after his daughter is kidnapped he finally takes an interest to the world.

There's much more to the story such biblical and supernatural tie-ins, but in truth I don't want to spoil those.  As a whole, the film did start a bit slow and I wasn't sure how to take Henry's flat affect.  Although as time went some actual character began to peak out before he gets his actual definition in the world.  Hearing things like "I remember I hate you" in such a deadpan tone is actually really funny and, in truth, Jack's dryness makes the emotional moments have a greater impact.

I give He Never Died 3.5 pictures of Henry Rollins holding a cobra that I screen capped from the Illumination video out of 5:

Day 13: Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) 2h 3m

What happened?  Where was I?  I watched this film while I was home sick from work and it sent me into an over-analytical spiral where I tried to really understand certain scenes in this movie.  That's partially true.  The other part is I had a lazy/busy period where if I wasn't doing something I wasn't going to do something.  Sorry, shit happens... or doesn't.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus isn't a horror film.  It was under the list of horror films in Netflix which is how I ended up rolling it, but this movie is much more of a drama with a supernatural element.  Written and directed by Spike Lee, and based off of the 1973 film Ganja & Hess, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus follows Hess, a researcher of African cultures, studying a ritual blade of the Ashanti people.  After his assistant has a psychotic episode and stabs him with an artifact, Hess comes back from the dead and has a need for blood as his primary sustenance.  Hess isn't quite a vampire in the traditional sense, but represents more of an evolution or mutation of man based on the esoteric practices of the Ashanti (as stated early in the film).

There are some plot points that I found really well done in this film.  For one, if blood has been tainted by alcohol or disease then it can't be ingested.  When Hess does one of his first kills it is with a woman he picked up in a club.  After he vomits from her blood he finds HIV medication in her purse.  Panic sets in and the next set of scenes is Hess at a clinic getting a tested.  Aside from the blood drinking, the rest of the scene felt very real.  This is part of my over analyzing of this film, but I wonder if this was meant to almost be a warning of the very real threat of HIV/STD's.  The scene ends with the nurse telling Hess to wear a condom, to which he says he will, but as the screen goes black we just hear the nurse say something to the extent of "yeah, they always say that."

My only criticism is there were a few scenes I wasn't quite sure what the purpose was.  A lengthy lesbian seduction and sex scene happens and it felt out of place.  That's my only real complaint.

Since this wasn't really a horror movie, I don't feel like I can give it a regular rating on here.  If I were going to give it one the I would give it a two out of five overall.