horror

DOUBLE DATE

Cert 15 89mins Stars 3

Get the weekend started with this British comedy horror which offers shots of gore, sex and humour in roughly equal measure.

Michael Socha plays an idiot jack–the–lad tries to engineer the loss of his mates virginity. Danny Morgan is the guileless soul who turns thirty the next day and  is routinely humiliated for his poor physical condition. 

The quest for casual sex leads them to a bar where they identify two sisters as suitable conquests.

Kelly Wenham is impressively ripped as a kick boxing vamp while Georgia Groome is the sweet and sensitive young sibling. However the women have a butterfly fixation, daddy issues and their own agenda.

Soon events turn messy in a toxic rush of alcohol, drugs and violence, and complications arise when two of the four developing feelings for one another.

It’s much more than the town which ends up painted red in the energetic and bloody finale.

 

ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE

Cert 15 Stars 4

Catchy tunes make the blood-splatting violence sing in this inventive and entertaining teenage zom-rom-com musical set in a Scottish school.

Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming and Marli Siu lead the bright, attractive young cast as they sing, dance and fight through a zombie apocalypse, which interrupts Anna’s plot to escape her humdrum small town life.

There’s evident glee at the volume of guts, gore, music and mayhem the filmmakers can squeeze out of the low budget, and it feels like a big screen version of the Buffy The Vampire Slayers’ musical episode, Once More With Feeling. And I mean that in a good way.

 

THE HOLE IN THE GROUND

Cert 15 Stars 3

Seana Kerslake’s single mother is taken to the precipice of sanity in this brooding and ambitious Irish rural family horror as her young son struggles to adjust to their new tumbledown farmhouse home on the edge of a large forest.

She’s an increasingly desperate and isolated figure as she suffers panic attacks, hallucinations and premonitions.

Strong on mood, focused in its intent and anchored by performances, the sound design assaults the audience with both barrels while the cinematography makes us feel the damp chill of the wood, making for an impressively pungent directorial debut from writer, Lee Cronin.

 

MOTHER!

Cert 18 121mins Stars 5

Jennifer Lawrence is back on Oscar worthy form in this fist in the mouth intense horror. It’s a nightmarish fantasy of biblical madness from the director who dared to cast Russell Crowe on a sea of trouble as Noah.

Billed only as Mother, she plays the wife of a writer who spends her time lovingly restoring their grand old farmhouse home, to which she seems to have an almost supernatural connection.

A fan of the writer calls by and her husband invites him to stay the night. The next day members of the stranger’s family arrive, bringing with them chaos and violence.

Still only 27 years old, Lawrence has every chance of a fifth Academy award nomination and a possible second statuette for this phenomenal and punishing performance.

Despite it’s early moments of dark humour, Mother! is a very different movie from the romcom Silver Linings Playbook for which Lawrence won in 2012.

A welcome temporary lull in her blockbuster commitment to the X-Men superhero franchise allows her to team up with indie darling Darren Aronofsky.

The writer/director inspired Mickey Rourke to a nomination in 2009 for The Wrestler and guided Natalie Portman to an Academy award in his 2010 horror, Black Swan. He does his absolute utmost to repeat a similar trick here.

His camera almost sits on Lawrence’s shoulders, immersing us in her world as it spirals insanely out of control.

Employing biblical allusions with tremendous finesse and huge ambition, Aronofsky unleashes an apocalypse of condemnation on his targets. These include the control organised religion exerts over women, the cult of celebrity, and the vanity of the male creative process.

Javier Bardem oozes narcissistic charm as the writer and Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer provide strong support.

With every department working at full mind bending tilt, this is an extraordinary experience which may leave you crying out for your own mother.

THE VAULT

Cert 15 91mins Stars 1

Clint Eastwood’s daughter Francesca leads a team of bank robbers in this a shoddy mess of a horror heist movie.

The actress is variously described as a model, television personality and socialite, and is best known for a reality series. She’s a decent enough actress undermined by some appallingly weak material.

Beginning the film as a baby doll blonde, she reveals herself as strong and determined character. But her best moves can’t save this shocker from its many flaws.

When the thieves find the safe boxes empty, James Franco’s asthmatic assistant bank manager tells them of an old vault downstairs, which many of the staff believe to be haunted.

There’s an unforgivable absence of fun to the brain drilling violence which follows, conducted with a grim determination to survive an increasingly difficult job. Which exactly mirrors my feelings towards the film. 

A nasty, repetitive, grisly and garbled work where nothing is more alarming than Franco’s 1980’s style stringy moustache.

 

IT

Cert 15 135mins Stars 3

The previous adaptation of a Stephen King novel I had to endure was the astonishingly dull sci fi bomb, The Dark Tower.

This new version of his famous horror story is excellent in many ways except in the most important, it fails to scare.

A superb coming of age take ruined by the frequent inclusion of supernatural silliness. Everything would be much improved by removing the stupid monster.

Pennywise is a psychopathic spirit who takes the form of a freak show circus clown who feeds on fear but isn’t terrible effective in tormenting his young victims.

Tim Curry played Pennywise in a memorable 1990 TV miniseries, here we have a very physical performance by Bill Skarsgard who indulges in much alarming leaping. I kept worrying he’d put his back out.

There is handsome production design and first rate performances from the younger cast members. Jaeden Lieberher plays Bill, who leads an adolescent band of social misfits on a search to find his younger brother whose been missing for a year.

Self styled as ‘the losers club’, their camaraderie is wonderfully believable, sweet and funny. Sophia Lillis is tremendously affecting as the token girl member.

Though sinks explode with blood, mattresses ooze gunk and severed heads bob about in sewers, the ordinary real life dangers facing the teens are far more scary.

Bullies, beatings, abusive parents and the struggles of talking to the opposite sex carry more emotional weight than all the spooky shenanigans.

All the best moments call to mind the superior King adaption, Stand By Me, such as when The Losers Club are tormented on their journey around town by a car driving bunch of high school hoodlums. 

Three writers are credited on the script which draws heavily on King’s excellent ear for dialogue, strong characterisation, and stresses the importance of loyalty and friendship. 

However the threat of a sequel is the most terrifying on screen moment they can conjure.

 

THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM

Cert 15 109mins Stars 3

Get lost in the gothic and grisly gloom of this blood curdling murder mystery.

This pea souper of fact and fiction sees real life Victorian characters mixed up in a fictional serial killer in London’s down market Limehouse district.

With more than a dash of Hammer House of Horror blood splashed about, it all resembles the case of Jack the Ripper as if it were being investigated by an ageing Sherlock Holmes.

With his cadaverous face and grave manner, the venerable Bill Nighy is well cast as Inspector John Kildare, in a role originally pencilled in for Alan Rickman before his sad death.

Wild rumours suggest the mythical Golem is responsible. When the ageing detective is sent to investigate, he stumbles across a second murder case which may be connected.

Former singer and dancer Elizabeth, the prime suspect in the poisoning of her playwright husband.

Oldham born actress Emilia Cooke is fabulous in the role and in a flashback to her stage routine, her incandescent vitality and talent outshines the limelights and is the best reason for watching.

Picking his way though a shroud of intrigue, corruption, exploitation, rape and of course, murder, Kildare is led to the music hall where the famous Dan Leno performs.

The real life drag artist, dancer and comic is played with a suitably theatrical flourish by Douglas Booth.

He’s part of a bawdy repertory of performers and trapeze artists who all have their secrets, allowing for a shoal of red herrings to be scattered.

Cursed with a limited budget which doesn’t stretch stretch to grand spectacle, the money has been spent wisely on the period costumes and interior design.

Filmed on location up north, Leeds and Manchester stand in for the capital and show how sinister they can be at night. 

So beware the danger lurking in the shadows when you slip out to see the Limehouse Golem.

 

 

 

 

ANNABELLE: CREATION

Cert 15 108mins Stars 3

There’s no escape from the blood dripping, knuckle crunching terror in the most scary of the fourth film in the Annabelle franchise.

A prequel to 2014’s Annabelle and the two related Conjuring films, Creation tells the origin of the demonic dead eyed doll, Annabelle.

Half a dozen orphan girls are bussed to a new farmhouse home, it’s owned by the craftsman who handcrafted Annabelle for his now deceased daughter.

The house has a deep well, a creaking dumb waiter, and a mask wearing mad woman locked in her room.

Prior to this episode the formula has led to the series making £680m from a combined budget of £51m.

And the producers stick rigidly to their successful financial formula by keeping the action to a single location, casting largely unknowns and using old school physical effects to keep the costs low.

But there’s no skimping on the horror and the shocks are as well crafted as the wooden girl herself.

RAW

Cert 18 Stars 5

You’ll need nerves of steel to stomach this gut wrenching horror based around the initiation ceremony at a university for aspiring veterinarians.

It begins with buckets of offal are thrown over their heads, and that’s just the beginning of the grisly week long rite of passage.

New student Justine has her vegetarian tastes tested from the off as she’s plunged into a wild, violent and blood soaked journey of outrageous appetites.

Full of finger licking behaviour, this graphic, visceral and extraordinary film will have you gnawing your fingernails as you try to digest the meaty pleasures on offer.

 

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

Cert 15 86mins Stars 2

Despite the intriguing premise of this supernatural horror, the rigor mortis it reveals will leave you bored not scared stiff.

Following a multiple homicide, a local cop deposits the cadaver of an unidentified and beautiful young woman in the care of the local mortuary.

Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are curiously cast as the father and son owners. And as the girlfriend, Ophelia Lovibond completes the trio of underwritten characters.

They’re tasked with establishing the cause of death of the mysterious ‘Jane Doe’, and begin to take her apart in order to piece together a picture of her life .

There’s an enjoyable reliance on old school effects such as smoke, mirrors, prosthetics and and sound effects. But sadly the most scary aspect of this poorly thought out exercise is the alarming lack of narrative vigour. And it’s painfully obvious where it’s all headed.

Jane Doe is probably best left dead and buried.