Sometimes shocking simplicity is all you really need to give audiences a good scare here and there. With a noticeable low budget, director Joe Begos doesn’t aspire to deliver anything more than a gruesome alien horror film while also sticking to the basics of what makes a good horror movie work. “Almost Human” is a very well made horror science fiction movie in the vein of “The Thing” and “Xtro.” It works within a limited budget and still delivers a pretty eerie and tense, albeit flawed, horror entry. If you can forgive the obvious nods and winks to films like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and “The Terminator,” you’re in for a good time.
Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
I’ve never gone in to a movie wanting to love it so much and come out of it feeling so utterly disappointed. Except maybe “Cabin Fever.” In either case, I wanted to love “Frankenstein’s Army” if only for its interesting tale of a Russian squad going in to battle and finding a madman scientist using soldiers to form his own army of decrepit freaks. Normally I’m a big fan of the found footage sub-genre as well, but once I realized “Frankenstein’s Army” was found footage, it threw me out of the narrative almost immediately. I can see the found footage formula working in the age of digital camera, and digital camcorders, and cell phone videos. I can even see it working in the nineties with VHS camcorders, but to have us believe there’s a found footage movie set during World War II is immensely absurd, and just downright desperate.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
It’s surprising how quickly “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” becomes a vanity project for director Kenneth Branagh. Rather than a tale of a monster wreaking havoc on his master, the film feels more like Jane Austen co-starring the monster who is kind of a nuisance and then becomes a threat to his creator. I’ve rarely seen Frankenstein movies where the creature is the third banana, but lo and behold Branagh pulls it off in what is more a film about Victor Frankenstein having a lover’s spat with his wife, who discovers her husband has committed some evil selfish acts. To his credit though, Victor Frankenstein is no hero. He’s selfish, self-centered, and has a God complex, but Branagh is very obsessed with chewing the scenery. So much so that he even manages to outdo Robert DeNiro.
V/H/S: Viral (2014)
I think “V/H/S/ Viral” might prove to be a little too cynical for horror fans that love their anthology horror movies chaotic and somewhat over the top. “VHS 2” was a hard act to follow, and “V/H/S/ Viral” thankfully doesn’t try to top the previous films, so much as accompany it with a magnificent social commentary that tops off a pretty excellent trilogy, all things considered. If “V/H/S/ Viral” is the last in the Collective’s indie anthology horror film then it’s a marvel to end on, as “V/H/S/ Viral” is a sick and demented film about society’s unquenchable thirst for instant fame in a world where everything can be accessed with a button and a massive online world. “V/H/S/ Viral” is cryptic and often very confusing, but all roads converge in to the theme of fame.
Emilie Black at the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival San Diego
October 11th-13th 2014
For the last 5 years, San Diego has had the luck of getting a great horror film festival for 3 days every fall. This year’s was not exception. Horrible Imaginings is brought to San Diego by a madman and a movie lover known as Miguel Rodriguez. His passion for film is clear in every introduction he makes for the festival, every film or piece being given it’s proper attention and the public getting a class in cinema and cool nerdiness from the man. For those who go to Fantasia or are familiar with its own madman of movies, Miguel reminds one of Mitch Davis in passion and how they present movies with the utmost excitement. You can feel their love for the medium and for their chosen favorite genres.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
It’s surprising how quickly “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” becomes a vanity project for director Kenneth Branagh. Rather than a tale of a monster wreaking havoc on his master, the film feels more like Jane Austen co-starring the monster who is kind of a nuisance and then becomes a threat to his creator. I’ve rarely seen Frankenstein movies where the creature is the third banana, but lo and behold Branagh pulls it off in what is more a film about Victor Frankenstein having a lover’s spat with his wife, who discovers her husband has committed some evil selfish acts. To his credit though, Victor Frankenstein is no hero. He’s selfish, self-centered, and has a God complex, but Branagh is very obsessed with chewing the scenery. So much so that he even manages to outdo Robert DeNiro.
Amazing Stories: The Movie (1987)
For many years, I was unaware that “Amazing Stories” was actually a Television series, albeit one that came and went like a lightning bolt. I didn’t discover “Amazing Stories” was first a TV show until the early nineties, and just wanted more fantastic tales of wonder from Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. Before then “Amazing Stories” was just a really entertaining and incredible anthology film that mixed horror, fantasy, and comedy together in one great package. “Amazing Stories: The Movie” is two segments from the TV show paired together as a movie. There are apparently various versions of “The Movie,” one of which had three segments and was only released internationally. I was lucky that “the movie” I saw played on local TV stations in New York when I was a child, and featured two great segments from the series. So my introduction to Robert Zemeckis began with “Amazing Stories: The Movie.”