From The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and Andrew Leman comes the excellent “The Call of Cthulhu,” a short film I was lucky enough to experience years ago and was lucky enough to re-visit. From 2005, the independent effort channels the horror and sheer terror of HP Lovecraft’s mythology so well, the time manages to fly by without a hitch. “The Call of Cthulhu” is a brilliant throwback to the silent film era channeling the likes of Val Lewton to bring audiences a love letter to a time in film when horror meant the twang of the score, and focusing on the horror of our actors.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016)
It’s too bad we get a Halloween comedy, but it’s a man who’s based his entire career around a character tailored for religious audiences. I’m not saying the religious can’t celebrate Halloween, but Tyler Perry seems to center his movie on the holiday for absolutely no reason other than grabbing October crowds. “Boo! A Madea Halloween” isn’t a bad movie by any stretch, but it is Tyler Perry’s most unfocused and tonally inconsistent. Perry has no idea how to handle the aesthetic of Halloween. He can’t even use it as a means of conveying what could have been a very touching story about a dad who is trying to gain control of his increasingly out of control daughter. Halloween is more of an after thought here.
The Night Before Halloween (2016)
“The Night Before Halloween” should actually be called “I Know What You Did The Night Before Last Halloween Around 11:50pm,” as it borrows heavily from those slasher themes and, once again, steals a lot from “The Ring.” Someone at the Syfy Channel must have loved “The Ring,” as they seem persistent on copying its themes involving teens running from a dark curse that is targeting them or some such nonsense. Seriously, a movie like this should not be so complicated and confusing to follow. The storyline and mythos behind it is actually so confusing no one in the movie can ever explain what the hell is going on. To anyone. Set on the night before Halloween, a group of girls have a vicious prank played on them from local boys in their school. During the prank one of the friends, Beth, is accidentally electrocuted and nearly killed.
All Hallows’ Eve (2016)
“All Hallow’s Eve” is the fiftieth movie involving Halloween in the last five years named “All Hallow’s Eve” but this time it’s more of a low budget Disney-lite family film. Its Harry Potter meets “Halloweentown” in one of the more painfully derivative and hokey attempts to build a franchise around a teen witch in a long time. It’s not to say “All Hallow’s Eve” is terrible, but it’s a movie that has way too many ideas and not enough of a budget or script to help realize them. So characters spend a lot of time sitting around and explaining things, rather than allowing us to bask in the awe of magic and fantasy. In “All Hallow’s Eve,” Lexi Giovagnoli plays Eve Hallow. No seriously.
The Last Pinoy Action King (2016) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
Filipino cinema has its own culture and during its action heyday, actor Rudy “Daboy” Fernandez was one of the biggest, if the not THE biggest action star the country ever saw. The documentary explores his films, his fame, and his life. It also explores action cinema and cinema in general in the Philippines at the time of his rise to fame and his reign on action films. Documentary co-directors Andrew Leavold and Daniel Palisa, who previously made the Filipino cinema documentary The Search for Weng Weng put together a very informative piece on a beloved actor.
The Biker Warrior Babe vs. The Zombie Babies from Hell (2014)
In the small town of Cranberry Lake, a wannabe witch and her succubus assistant attempt to summon a demon, when this goes badly, an army of zombie evil babies is unleashed on the town for which the only hope if a group of teenagers who have seen the evil and want to survive. Writer/director Jeremiah Morehouse has some good ideas in the script that he tries his best to put on screen but the script may have been a bit too ambitious for its super micro budget. This budget is estimated at $10,000 and this unfortunately shows a lot in the film. The story is ambitious and wants to achieve a lot which is lost a bit due to the effects and other issues in the film that are mostly blamed on the budget and a bit on a lack of experience. However, the film’s ambition and love for its genre shows and this helps it greatly.
The Windmill Massacre (2016)
Known as The Windmill Massacre or the The Windmill depending on the country and release, this supernatural slasher set in Holland follows Jennifer who is running from her past and goes on a tour of the countries beautiful windmills. Once in the countryside, the bus breaks down and the passengers start getting picked off one by one. Director Nick Jongerius creates an effective slasher with a twist written by Chris W. Mitchell and Suzy Quid, based on a story by Jongerius. The characters here are varied which gives the film an edge over the usual slashers where high school or college students are the only one being picked off.