Tag Archives: Horror story

The Evil of Halloween Horror Fest

Posted on by
Reply

It’s time for more mini horror film reviews, as we celebrate spooky month! What have we got tonight?

The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)

What we have here is the first Hammer Horror for this years Festival of Fear! This is the third film in the Hammer series, again starring the legendary Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein.

This time around, the Baron and his assistant Hans (Sandor Eles) are on the run following some dastardly grave robbing antics, so they decide to go back to his hometown of Karlstaad, despite being banished. There they hope to use valuables from the old Frankenstein castle to fund more research. Instead, the Baron finds that his old home has been looted – by, it turns out – the local authorities.

On the run again, they’re aided by a local deaf-mute girl, and hide in the mountains. The Baron discovers his old creature, frozen in ice. After rescuing the creature, they’re unable to bring it back to life fully, so decide to seek the help of a carnival hypnotist, Zoltan (Peter Woodthorpe). Zoltan is successful, but jeopardises everything by using the creature to enact his own cruel revenge…

It’s a funny old hodgepodge of a film, this one. The first Hammer movie, Curse of Frankenstein, is recapped but reimagined – it’s re-done and is very different this time round. The whole thing feels like different elements thrown together to see if they stick. Although the creature, this time played by Kiwi Kingston not Christopher Lee, looks more like the classic Karloff version, the makeup looks strange and false. The excellent sets and another great performance from Cushing help save The Evil of Frankenstein from failure.

7/10

Twilight (2008)

Hey, it was my teenage daughter’s choice – so what?! We take turns to pick something to watch, and Daughtertron is very into this Twilight stuff at the moment. So fair’s fair, we gave it a go.

Twilight is about a young woman named Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who relocates from Arizona to the very different state of Washington, to live with her father. She attends the local school, makes some friends but gradually becomes intrigued by another classmate, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).

After a frosty start, the two are slowly pulled together, and Bella discovers that Edward and his “family” are vampires. All is going well in a teen love story fashion, till a separate, wandering group of vampires happen upon the Cullen clan – and Bella – and there’s a big fall out during a baseball game.

Despite some bizarre ideas such as sparkling vampires and vampires playing baseball, the film wasn’t too bad. Twenty minutes too long and far too soppy, Twilight was still fairly watchable, even though I’m not the target audience. I’ve seen worse. I mean, it was better than Harry bloody Potter.

5/10

.

Vault of Halloween Horror Fest

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome back, horror fiends! Let’s take a look at a couple more spooky movies for Halloween Horror Fest…

Vault of Horror (1973)

For our first film tonight, we’ll venture into the Vault of Horror, a portmanteau film from Amicus. Like its predecessor Tales from the Crypt, the five short stories that compose Vault of Horror are inspired by the classic, notorious EC Comics of the same title.

In this movie, we journey to a vampire café, witness an obsessively neat bully get his comeuppance, and see a nasty stage magician mess with forces he should’ve left well alone. Then there’s the tale of an insurance scam gone wrong with the protagonist buried alive, and an impoverished artist resorting to voodoo to enact his revenge.

The stories vary in their effectiveness, but all have a charm and entertainment value. My favourite segment is probably the first, the bistro of the undead – but the last two have the more chilling narrative. Great performances from a cast including Terry-Thomas, Glynis Johns and Tom Baker keep everything on track.

Obviously I’m a huge fan of both the old EC Comics and Amicus films in general, so I enjoyed every second of Vault of Horror. It may be dated, but class like this never goes out of style.

8/10

Rec (2007)

Rec is a Spanish horror movie in the found footage genre. It follows a TV reporter and her cameraman filming a local crew of firefighters, who end up trapped in a residential block. They’re effectively quarantined inside the building with several residents, while an outbreak of some unknown disease starts to spread and the infected attack and kill survivors.

As the situation intensifies, Rec does a fine job of keeping the viewer on the edge, ramping up the scares as we go. The found footage approach works excellently to give a sense of realism and immerses the viewer in the confined surroundings.

Rec was remade in the US (as they do) as Quarantine, though I’ve never seen it. Don’t let the subtitles in this version put you off – if anything, it’s another effective way to make the viewer feel isolated. Like Blair Witch does 28 Days Later, Rec is a harrowing, unnerving film. Rec-ommended! Hahaha!

8/10

The Halloween Horror Fest Must Die

Posted on by
Reply

Happy Halloween, folks! Here are a few more spooky movie reviews, hope you enjoy!

The Beast Must Die (1974)

A departure from the more familiar horror anthology tales produced by Amicus, The Beast Must Die is an interesting curiosity. We meet a millionaire big game hunter, keen to bag himself the prize of a lifetime: a werewolf. Hence he invites a group of guests, all of whom could be suspected to be a lycanthrope, to his sprawling mansion with its high security.

Only one of them is a werewolf – can you guess which one in the “Werewolf Break”?

The break is a thirty second countdown, allowing a brief pause for the audience to decide for themselves which of the guests is the werewolf, before all is revealed. And yes, it actually appears in the film. An odd gimmick, but there you go.

The film actually plays more like a detective story, or episode of a 1970s television thriller. As such, there are plenty of opportunities for some real suspense and jumpy horror that are squandered. But with a great cast including Peter Cushing, Charles Gray and Michael Gambon, this is still worth checking out. The Beast Must Die is a definite watch for any fan of 70’s British horror, like me.

8/10

Wolf Creek (2005)

Now if the snakes, spiders, sharks and God knows what else aren’t enough to put you off visiting Australia, then there’s always the deranged Outback serial killers.

In Wolf Creek, some typically annoying young studenty backpackers are travelling across the mundane wasteland when they run into some psycho called Mick Taylor (John Jarratt). Although he promises to help them with a broken down car, turns out Mick isn’t really very nice. What follows is a shocking and disturbing account of what can only be termed torture porn, as the kids try desperately to escape the clutches of the cork hat maniac.

Wolf Creek is actually a well made film, featuring some very good performances. It’s extremely tense and downright nasty. If you can deal with that, this film is definitely worth a watch. The viewer can’t help but empathise with the kids and imagine themselves being in such a horrific situation. But the plot is kinda obvious and unfulfilling in the end, a bit like an episode of Neighbours.

So, what’s the moral of this particular story? Don’t go to Australia.

7.5/10

The Fly (1958)

Not the crappy David Cronenberg remake, this is the original 1958 classic sci-fi horror starring the legendary Vincent Price. The story unfolds of Price’s brother, Andre (David Hedison), a scientific genius, and his sadly disastrous experiment with matter transferral.

After some initial success, Andre eventually goes too far in his explorations, as a rogue house fly enters the matter transmitter with him. The result is a gruesome hybrid of the human being and a fly, and the race is on to try to reverse the process before the scientist loses all trace of humanity.

This brilliantly clever film is also very touching, as the brilliant scientist and his family are subjected to terrible events that they cannot escape. Great performances, of course, and a bizarre twist in the tale make this first version of The Fly the definitive version. Absolutely unmissable.

9.5/10

Halloween Horror Fest Out of Space

Posted on by
Reply

More Halloween friendly movies for your enjoyment – here’s Part 2 of our 2025 reviews!

Color Out Of Space (2019)

Based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story The Color Out of Space, this film attempts to create an authentic retelling in modern times. While it’s not totally derived from the source material, it makes a decent job of reimagining it for a new audience.

Nicholas Cage plays Nathan Gardner, who has relocated with his family from the city to his father’s farm in a remote New England area.  One night, a mysterious meteorite falls from the sky, bathing everything in a strange, indescribable colour. 

Very soon afterwards, things start to get weird for the Gardner family.  Unusual plants and insects begin to appear, electronic devices go haywire, and the family begin to lose the plot.  And with daughter Lavinia playing around with the dreaded book, the Necronomicon, things can only get worse…

I can’t decide if Color Out of Space is just “good” or really excellent.  As events spiral out of control, the film goes from unsettling to downright grotesque.  Cage’s performance is vintage Cage, crashing into an unhinged state.

But the sound design, music score and glorious photography make this film an unnerving experience.  Add in some nods to Lovecraft’s existential cosmic horror and you get a very disturbing, nihilistic film.  You’ll either love this film or be completely unmoved by it.  I loved it.

8.5/10

Scooby Doo (2002)

After the warped intensity of Lovecraft, it’s time for a change of pace!  And what could be better than some Scooby Doo?  The old Hanna  Barbera cartoon was a childhood gateway to all things spooky for me and many, many others – so Scoob and the gang are totally appropriate Halloween viewing.

This live action film sees the animation come vividly to life.  Though the human characters are actors, Scooby Doo is CGI so everything feels like the cartoon transposed into the real world.

Tensions are high within Mystery Inc, leading to the gang going their separate ways.  Shaggy (perfectly played by Matthew Lillard) is still paired with Scoob, and they find themselves invited to a tropical resort to solve a mystery.  Their erstwhile comrades have also been asked to attend, so slowly Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Velma (Linda Cardellini) find themselves working together again.

The casting is spot on for this film, though some of the character’s foibles have been exaggerated from the original cartoon depictions.  The Scooby Doo film is silly, but its great fun for kids of all ages – if the older “kids” can just go with the flow and enjoy it.

7/10