Random Horror

This film had all the signs of being an instant classic. Good cast, eye-catching case and the pedigree of Guillermo Del Toro as producer and co-writer. In reality what we have is a sub-standard remake that delivers very little on its promise of “Horror film of the year”. Thank you very much Billy Chainsaw of Bizarre magazine but I’m sorry, you let me down! In brief, Sally (Bailee Madison) is sent to live with her father Alex and his girlfriend Kim (Guy Pearce & Katie Holmes) Alex is an architect and Kim is an interior decorator, together they are living in and restoring Blackwood Manor... The house, is supposed to be set in Rhode Island despite it being unlike anything you may find in Rhode Island! It is creepy enough and as the film’s opening shows us, it has history. The opening sequence involves Lord Blackwood, a house keeper and a hammer and chisel. It actually provides us with the first and unfortunately last squeamish moment. As Sally gets used to her new surroundings, she...

As anyone who is familiar with various other pieces I have written will know, I hate The Exorcist. With all the bad films I watch, all the low-budget, no-budget crap that passes through my line of sight, I still consider The Exorcist to be the worst horror film out there. Over-rated and extremely boring! If this opinion offends anyone, I implore you to make your case.... No, I’m right, it’s just 122 minutes of self indulgent tripe that sends me to sleep just thinking about it! Rant over. While I didn’t enjoy The Exorcist or any of its sequels or prequels, I still opted to give Emily Rose a try... That didn’t really ignite my imagination either. While I have thus far skipped past The Last Exorcism, purely because of past experiences, I found myself watching The Devil Inside. I was instantly intrigued and continued watching. By the end, I discovered a new found appreciation for exorcism films in general and I am now adding The Last Exorcism to my list of “to Watch” films.  The...

This film was first brought to my attention a few years ago while perusing my monthly copy of Total Film magazine. It wasn’t until recently that I finally got around to purchasing the film and giving it a watch. I will start by saying, not far into this film, the misses and I were happily sat on the sofa watching the film and drinking some happy juice when from outside we heard some suspicious noises. I don’t need to tell you that with the current subject matter permeating our consciousnesses’, we were startled! We paused the film and stood in the doorway... Being that we are both from a town very close to an army barracks, it didn’t take long to deduce that the sounds were in fact those of soldiers close by running exercises! Although Monsters is far from a horror film, I have been branching out to more genre’s recently and Sci-Fi is a personal favourite. Especially when the budget is low and the techniques used were so inventive. A statement that perfectly describes this film. M...

Well, there we go. Halloween is over for another year. All those people who decide to make that one day something special will have a long wait for the next one. As for the rest of us, you know, those people who are horror 365 days a year and don’t necessarily need that one day to cement the fact are continuing on. Business as usual!  I know, how very cynical of me and I don’t mean it really. I love Halloween. Being from England, there is very little to get excited about on Halloween. The day passes by with very little notice in most places. Example, we dressed our house up, carved the pumpkin went trick or treating and my daughter received a handful of sweets! In contrast, our street contains approx 30 houses. Of which, 4 were dressed up, 20 were in complete darkness so as to look empty and the rest were playing ball to an extent but all in all, very disappointing. As a Brit, we see films, TV shows and other media from the States and the wonder of Halloween is something to beh...

Triangle first came to my attention after buying something on Amazon. It was under the “Customers also bought” scrolling bar that often proves helpful in searching out the vast library of Random Horror films that are available. It wasn’t until a chance visit to a newly opened DVD/Games outlet that I saw the opportunity. £3.50 on Blu-Ray! Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. It was this weekend, in the wake of Halloween that I decided to sit down with the misses and watch said film. Triangle is a 2009 thriller that stars Melissa George as Jess. The film starts with Jess at home with her son. Nothing untoward appears to be going on until the doorbell rings. When Jess goes to answer it, she is confronted with nothing. Your mind goes on and story continues... Jess soon heads off to go sailing with some friends but before too long, a huge storm comes and threatens their lovely excursion. After some bizarre radio transmissions which seem to go unsolved, their boat is battered and ca...

When you’re me and you see a film called House of Bones, you pick it up and without question hold it in your hand while you look for more films to buy. Then when you get it home and realise that it stars Corin Nemec and Charisma Carpenter, an eyebrow raises as you think to yourself, not bad. Could I have found one of those rare hidden gems here?! The film begins with a flashback to the 1950’s and the (not so mysterious) disappearance of a young boy. Skip forward 60 years and we are confronted with a cheesy, TV style opening credits in which we are introduced to a few of the characters and the overall premise for the film. A crew of Ghost Hunters filming a reality TV show have chosen their latest haunt! It soon becomes apparent that this foreboding house known as The Wicker House may have more than just skeletons in the closet! As I said before, the film “stars” Corin Nemec but I can’t help feeling that maybe he owed someone a favour. He plays the “face” of the show called Sinister...

When you consider that the last After Dark Original I watched was the very entertaining Husk and before that, it was the previously reviewed The Task, I was expecting more of the same. Unfortunately, all I can say is I hope the next one I watch will be a marked improvement on this dull, lifeless and all round lacklustre attempt at a Horror Film. Let me take you back a bit. I received The Task as a Christmas present and on the back of that I decided to get the collection of After Dark Originals. Having previously enjoyed various After Dark films including Penny Dreadful and Zombie Virus on Mulberry Street I knew that this collection of films would be one for me. I did my usual pre-movie research which includes reading the cover of the DVD and a quick look on IMdB to see how the rest of the populous rate it. After looking on the cover for Scream of the Banshee, I was filled with promise as I noticed the horror legend that is Lance Henriksen has a credit in this film. My thoughts were ...

Let me set the scene. I am stood in my local DVD retailer and I’ve just realised I have accrued enough points to warrant a free £10 in store. After perusing the latest releases, I decide that the smart money would be spent on a few more Random Horror films instead. One such film came in the shape of this talkie from 2006! Although the film has all the clichéd hallmarks of a lower budget horror/thriller, it is not without its charm. Starring Leah Pipes, Kristin Cavallari, Josh Henderson, Andrew Lawrence and the one and only, Lou Diamond Phillips. Fingerprints starts with the horrific scenes of a tragic bus-train accident in the 1950’s in which a lot of the town’s children lost their lives. The story jumps forward to present day where we are introduced to Melanie (Pipes) and her sister, Crystal Cavallari).                As the film goes on we establish the “clichés” the love interest, Penn, pl...

Ok, so I know this is supposed to be Random Horror but I recently watched a few personal favourites and I thought I would utilise this medium to write about one of them. Everyone has that moment while watching a particular movie or even several when you find yourself with an overwhelming urge to watch it again immediately! Granted, that probably happens to me a lot more than it happens to most other people, what with my love for “rubbish” films and a reluctance to dish out any sort of bad review. One such occurrence came about 30 minutes into the remake of Dawn of the Dead! Anyone who has read my previous post about remakes will know that I rate Dawn of the Dead as the best Horror remake so far and for anyone who likes horror films and has seen DOTD will hopefully agree that it deserves its place among the elite. Even for a remake, in my humble opinion it holds its own against the originals of the world. For anyone who has not seen the remake, or dare I say it, the original ...

Welcome to the next part of my horror summary... It’s been a while since I did Fangs, Claws, Tentacles and Jaws but I thought I would return to my brief histories piece. Next under the knife (pun intended) are Slashers! Slashers occupy that small void of space between thriller and exploitation. Without any doubt, Slashers are the least educated of all the horror sub genre's and they are generally down the list in terms of everything else too. For the purposes of this entry, Slashers also include "splatter" and gore films. Slasher films are generally low budget and usually follow a very similar and often linear pattern. As with the previous two parts (Zombies, Fangs, Claws, Tentacles & Jaws) there are far too many films to remember so this is a very broad and generic overview. Hopefully I will not upset anyone and if I have left out any obviously note-worthy slasher films, I apologise in advance. So without further ado, let me begin... Maybe it wasn’t actually th...

Although this is less of a horror film and more of a sci-fi, the opportunity to watch and review a film which was sent to me by the co-director/co-producer/co-writer, Jonathan Chance was too good to pass up. Especially considering the last short that was sent to me by a director/producer was the brilliant Familiar . Anyway, Mr Chance is one half of movie makers, The Chance Brothers, who also appear in the film, they have created a very quaint, suspenseful thriller which is enjoyable and thought-provoking in equal measures A businessman walking through the streets of London, suddenly finds himself flung into the unknown without warning or reason, he is transported to a scarce, barren land of an unknown location. One can only assume that he has somehow found himself in another time! He frantically searches for some explanation or even a sign of where he is, without success. It isn’t long before the elements begin to take their toll and he must now battle for his own survival....

Well, here I am again. Back after a very long absence. The misses and I welcomed a new addition to the Random Horror family with the birth of our second child. While knee deep in nappies (Diapers to my American friends) I thought it would be a good time to share with you my thoughts on the theory behind Random Horror and how I came to admire what most will never give the time of day too. It was probably around 2006 when I first decided to watch what I now consider to be a “Random Horror” film. Let me set the scene, my future wife and I decided to settle down on the sofa, as we usually did on a Saturday night with a 1.5l bottle of non-descript Vodka, some lemonade and a few films. At this time my DVD collection was just starting to flourish, the vast majority of the two tiered shelf taken up by Action flicks like Independence Day, Tomb Raider and Die Hard! Although I had always had a great love for horror films, they were never as readily available as others so it would be a few years...

It was nice to do a few posts about good horror films but now I am catapulting myself back to the abnormality and crazy world of Random Horror! While perusing round my local random horror treasure cove last week, I stumbled upon a rarity. A film that looked half decent but had Billy Zane on the cover! Weird or what! Now, for anyone who is in the dark about this Zane character, his most notable roles to date include Kate Winslet’s fiancé in Titanic, one of Biffs’ gang members in the Back to the Future films. Other roles include the title role The Phantom and the villain in Dead Calm, an Aussie thriller starring Sam Neill & Nicole Kidman. Surviving Evil or Evil Island depending on where you purchased the film follows the misfortunes of a documentary film crew as they attempt to film a Bear Grylls style survival doc. The group, led by Seb (Zane) start out on their adventure into the depths of a Philippine island but when strange things begin to plague the film crew, it isn’t long...

Michael, Jason, Freddy? Who’s your favourite? The best bad guy as a sentence almost sounds wrong but it’s a question I pose to you now. I will of course give you a brief overview and add my own little opinion but who is the greatest Horror movie villain? For as long as there have been horror movies, there have been antagonists, a focal point in stark contrast to the hero, whether that is a man of earthly origins or something much worse. I say worse but when we dissect the list, the vast majority of the really evil ones are human! Male or female, mutant or freak in one way or another humanoid. Going back to early films, characters like The Golum along with countless vampires and werewolves were very prominent. The Golum being an ancient Jewish legend that depicts a clay statue which was brought to life by a rabbi. With this film being made originally in 1915, very limited footage remains but there were two more Golum films between 1915 and 1920 both of which have survived q...