Doghouse

Title - Doghouse
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy, Zombie

Vince is about to get divorced so his friends decide to to take him out for a lads weekend away.  They arrange to go to the  to the small village of Moodley where the women are supposed to outnumber the  men 4 to 1.  When they reach Moodley it’s surprisingly quiet, all the shops are closed except for the pub so the group split up, Mikey goes to get the key to his nan's house, where they are planning on staying and Matt is sent to get the mini bus driver, who is the only female of the group.

As Mikey walks through the village we see how empty it is, there are hand prints on some of the windows and a couple of bloody hand prints on some walls.  On his way back from getting the key Mikey passes a garden where he hears a strange noise and, when he looks he sees a woman in a wedding dress eating a dog.  

As the only sign of life in the pub is someone in the toilet who is being sick the rest of the guys go to see if they can find out what is taking Matt so long.  They find him looking in the window of a magic shop when a homeless looking woman walks around the corner. As the group are checking the pockets for any change to give her a man dressed in army combats runs around the corner and attacks her.  The group try to get the man off her but her hood falls down revealing a dead looking face, she attacks Neil putting a knife through his hand but she is stopped by Mikey, who arrives on the scene after running away from the bride, he hits the homeless woman over the head with a garden gnome, knocking her to the ground.  As they back away and try to assess the situation the bride comes round the corner and is quickly joined by by other female zombies from the local shops.  The group of friends make it back to Mikey’s Nan's house but now they have to make out of Moodley alive.

Doghouse is a good horror comedy and is surprisingly different.  Vince and his friends are a regular group of ‘blokes’ with a slightly misogynistic outlook on life (Neil is always saying that women find him irresistible) and a lot of the time they come off looking stupid.  The all female zombie cast aren't your normal brain eating zombies, in fact there is a conversation at the beginning of the film before the cast get to Moodley which could be used to argue that they are not zombies but some other type of  ghoul drawing parallels to the deadites from the Evil Dead films.  Although the Zombies do eat their victims it is not all they are interested in, one captures Neil and, although she is slowly trying to eat him she also wants his company.  They are also more intelligent than alot of other movie Zombies and many use weapons with one even using an axe chop down a post that supports the hiding place of one of the group.

Dog house is a film which, at points looks like it is going to make it’s male protagonists realise that they are wrong in their views of women, even making some of them get in touch with the female side by having to dress (drag) up to get past the zombies, but instead of them changing their views it just becomes another reason to joke around.

The Costumes and style of doghouse are quite striking partly thanks to Dan Schaffer’s  influence (writer of the comic Dogwitch).

Dog house is an entertaining film with a good amount of laughs gore. 

Evil Dead trap 2

Title - Evil dead trap 2
Language - Japanese
genre  - horror, slasher

this will have spoilers for the first and second film

Evil dead Trap 2 does not really follow on from the first film reviewed here and can easily be watched with no knowledge of the first film.

The main protagonist is Aki a female projectionist at the local cinema, she is a shy, quiet woman who keeps herself to herself most of the time.  Aki watches the film and the audience from the projection booth and, on the first night of the film she is surprised to see a young boy looking up at her.  After her shift Aki goes out to meet up with an old school friend, Eimi Kageyama who is a reporter for the local t.v. station and who is currently reporting an a series of murders that have occurred recently.  Eimi has invited a friend, Kurahashi to the meal and spends a lot of the time telling Aki that she should spend more time with men and try to get a boyfriend, hinting that Kurahashi may be interested.  She then gets a Phone call and leaves Kurahashi and Aki together.  Kurahashi tries to  it on Aki but she ‘s not interested and leaves which Kurahashi is not happy about.

next scene and we are in a carpark, there is a dead body on the floor and Aki is covered in blood holding a pair of sharp ended cutters of some kind.

The next night at the cinema Aki see’s Eimi and Kurahashi making out in the seats below her, a deliberate ploy by Eimi to make Aki jealous and to try to get together with Kurahashi.  Kurahashi then goes to speak to Aki but she rejects him again.  Kurahashi goes home and we see that he is married, his wife is in a child's bedroom and tells him that ‘Hideki hasn't come home

Aki goes out and spends some time at a restaurant that is a bus. Most of the the other customers are male and two of them follow Eimi out of the restaurant the both go to have sex with her but are scared off by a young boy. There is another murder.  Eimi Sleeps with Kurahashi & then tells him she’s pregnant.

Eimi throws a party but most of the guests leave early and Aki finally sleeps with Kurahashi.  Kurahashi goes home and finds that Hideki has come home, hes a the young boy from the cinema. Eimi is sent to a cult because no one believes her about the boy.  When she comes back she has a row with Eimi who tells her she made Kurahashi sleep with her.  Aki goes to see Kurahashi but he is not around and his house is trashed, she meet up with Aki who then tells her that her child is the one Aki had aborted.  And then things get weird.

So a lot happens in Evil dead trap 2 but the thing is the first hour is slow Each murder gets more gory but they are well spaced out.  The relationship between Aki, Eimi and Kurahashi is built up over time and events build up over time.  The problem is if up look away you could miss something especially if you are relying on subtitles.

After Aki visits kurahashi the film changes, Aki & Eimi have a very bloody fight, dead characters seem to come back to life and they fight again and the whole thing plays out as some kind of a dream jumping around.  The final scene has Aki against the wall of the mall they fought in with a giant doll approaching her but the set up, lighting and way she is sitting is reminiscent of a room in an insane asylum.

There is not much of a connection between this and the first film.  Hideki is the threat but not the killer and he is not the siamese twin of the first film.  Eimi could almost be Nami from the first film.  It is mentioned that she had been bigger in broadcasting and the reference to her having an abortion could almost be a reference the end of the first film but if that is the case I’m not sure why she has a different name.  The film also does not really explain the relationship between the child Hideki and Kurahashi, you get the impression that he was their child that disappeared but if that's the case how can the spirit be Aki’s unborn child.

The first film was about women trying to make their place in the workplace (it’s mentioned once) and this film is about the the after affects (psychological and social) of abortion.

Evil Dead trap 2 is a film that feels long and ends in and lot of blood and strangeness.  If you're expecting a slasher like the first film you may be disappointed but it still has plenty of blood you just need to stick with it.

Evil Dead Trap

Title - Evil Dead trap
Language - Japanese
Genre - slasher, Horror

As is often the case this may have a few spoilers

Nami is the host of a late night new T.V. show.  A video tape is delivered to her.  When she watches it she finds that most of the tape is a journey to an abandoned building but then things take a turn for the worst, the end of the tape is the torture and murder of a women followed by a picture of Nami.  Determined to find out whether the murder was real, Nami and her news crew follow the route shown in the part of the tape which leads them to an old industrial building.  The group split into three groups of two two’s and one to go and explore to see if they can find any evidence of the murder on the film.  As the party travels through the building they are picked off one by one by a mysterious figure and the deadly traps he has set.  Will any of the party remain alive long enough to find out why they were lured there.

In many ways ‘Evil Dead Trap’ is a standard 80’s slasher (it was made in 1988) and follows the standard slasher plot of; a group of people visit a  place.  Unknown to them there is murderer/slasher there and they are killed one at a time.  The film also follows many of the standard slasher tropes, for instance the first kill takes places after a couple have sex, which is seen in many western slashers (the ‘friday 13th’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ franchises are a good example of this)but , unlike the other slashers the new crew  are not there to party and fornicate but to investigate a possible murder.  This makes their initial decision to split into three groups a bit odd seeing as they already know that there may be a killer around.

The five main characters who form the film crew the news crew are:

Nami - the main character and film anchor

Lee & Rie - backstage crew

Makio - Photographer

Kondo - the only male on the crew who seems to be the ‘gofer’

With the exception of Nami it’s not really obvious what roles the rest of the crew play with the possible exception of Makio who is always running around photographing everything but the film needs victims or else it wouldn't be a slasher. Kondo seems to have the distinction of being included in the crew so we have a male and female for the  (consensual) sex scene.  Apart from that he seems to spend his time hiding in cupboards and being a bit of an arse, he also has the distinction of being the one kill we don’t see on screen(slight spoiler but if you’ve seen even one other slasher you’ll know he had it coming).

Apart from the news crew there are four other characters who appear at the building, these are:

an unnamed man who is looking for his brother, he seems to know his way around the building including a secret passage.

another unnamed man who likes to rape people and give (cryptic) information about the killer whilst doing so.

Hideki - for most of the film this is just a name we here.  Possibly the first man’s brother

Hideki’s mother is also (kinda but not a Norman Bates Kinda) in the film.

It is a good guess that one of these is the killer and that one lured the crew to the building but the film does do a good job of keeping at least some of it’s secrets until the final confrontation.

Evil Dead Trap is a good little slasher and, even if you guess who is going to be the first to go you don’t guess how and when.  Some of the deaths are gory and there are a couple of good jump moments as well as a couple of fake outs.  Some of the effects are a bit dated but it stands up better than another film with a similar killer  (whose title i will not name because it will be a massive spoiler).  There are a couple of moments of ‘Hostel’ like torture and a couple of ‘Saw’ like traps but the film is definitely more slasher than anything else.

Evil Dead Trap has spawned two sequels, ‘Evil Dead Trap 2’, which I will review in a following entry and ‘The Brutal Insanity of Love’ which i can not find a copy of. If i ever do I will also review it.