Better keep an eye on the kids

Title - Village of the damned (1960)
Language - English
Genre - Horror

Characters:

Alan Bernard - an army man friends of the Zellaby’s

Gordon Zellaby - a professor

Anthea zellaby - Gordon's Wife

David Zellaby - Gordon’s son & leader of the ‘others’

Village of the damned is a film based upon ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ by John Wyndham which has also been the inspiration for Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’.

The main theme of ‘Village of the Damned’ seems to be paranoia.  The film is set in the small English village of Midwich which seems to be out in the middle of the countryside.  The army are nearby practicing maneuvers and it is is hinted a few times in the film  (and more in the book) the the villagers are suspicious of what they are actually doing.  Every living thing passes out in Midwich village an event that some of the villager think was caused by the army testing some kind of new weapon but this is treated as more of an irritation.  The feeling of paranoia really starts when the women of Midwich begin finding out that they are pregnant, to begin with the connection with the pregnancies and the previous event are not noticed and so many of the men start thinking that their wives have been cheating on them and, as Midwich is only a small village there is suspicion around.  Once the link has been found and it is revealed that all the women are pregnant the source of the paranoia is shift to the unborn children and village almost becomes divided by gender, the women are doing their best to keep their families together but we see that the men are reacting with fear towards them.  This is one of the scenes that makes ‘Village of the Damned’ an interesting film because it does not portray the women as weak victims or as eye candy, it shows that they are all different characters who are just trying to cope with the situation they find themselves in.

The mood improves slightly when the children are born and the seem to be normal but the fears soon return when the children s true nature is revealed.  The villagers try to take control of the children  but soon find that even the army is powerless and that other countries have taken very drastic action to solve the problem.

The question that is raised is should the villagers even try to force the children to follow the same rules as them.  They are obviously a different creature to the villagers and most of what they do is to defend themselves, the children know that, for the most part  they are superior to the rest of the villages but they do seem to know that they are making some of the villagers uncomfortable.  In one scene we see that the children are aware that they are making the shop owners nervous and they say that they will arrange someone else.  Apart from the facts that the children over react to the perceived threats they do seem to be trying to keep themselves to themselves and this would mean that the real bad guys are the villagers who are reacting mainly from fear.

The Village of the Damned is a good film, relying more on atmosphere than on scares and jumps and raises a few good questions.

Know your place or the monsters will get you

Title - Society
Language - English
Genre - Horror, monster

Bill - our hero

Milo - Bill’s Friend

David Blancher - Bill’s Friend

Jenny - Bill’s sister

Dr. Cleveland- A Psychiatrist

Shauna - Bill’s girlfriend

Clarissa - A rich girl

This will contain some spoilers

Society is a horror film from 1989 that I've seen a few times and it still creeps me out now.  The Film follows Bill Whitney, a normal kid in his late teens.  He’s popular, is from a rich family in Beverly hills and shouldn't have much to worry about, but Bill has a problem, he doesn't feel like he fits in.  He suspects that there is something strange about his family.  Because of this Bill is seeing Dr. Cleaveland who keeps telling him that is normal for people of his age to feel like that. As the film progresses Bill starts noticing strange things. He sees some people who seem to have twisted themselves into strange positions or people having conversations about a crop of slugs.  Bill is approached by David who is one of his friends and Jenny, Bill’s sister’s ex.  David claims that he knows that Bill is right and that he can prove it.  David gives Bill a tape of Jenny’s ‘Coming out’ party this is a party that 18 year old's go through to recognize that the have become adults.  David had bugged Jenny and recorded the party and, when Bill’s the tape it sound like the part is just an excuse for sex and incense.  Bill takes the tape to Dr Cleveland but, when the tape is played back the next day it’s totally different and before he can get a second copy of the tape David is killed in a car accident.

Society is extremely atmospheric for the first hour of the film Bill is trying to find out what is happening whilst trying to remain sane.  For the most part everyone seems normal but there is always the feeling that something else is going on, there is the odd word here or there such as the references to ‘Shunting’ or strange events like objects appearing in Bill’s car and locker.  The soundtrack helps to set the mood with old classic songs with quite high voices singing.  Unlike a lot of horrors society does not rely on jump scares, the first hour is quite slow paced and the viewer is not sure at the start if there is anything wrong or whether Bill is crazy.  Most of what he sees and hears is explained away or seems to be some kind of a hallucination, even the death of David is brought into question part way through the film.

The last half hour changes the film from the psychological to the horror as Bill finally finds out what is happening and, oddly enough this part of the film has the most humour and this would normally be an odd turn for a film that’s spent so much time setting such a paranoid environment and which is now introducing the true horrors of what is going on. In this case it works though, without the humour the film would turn to dark, there is virtually no sex in the film but the implications of both the feeding and the ‘shunting’ make for dark implications for the true nature of the rich society.

This brings is to the true moral of the film.  Each class of society sees the other classes as different but most classes have one thing in common, to get enough money to live.  The rich don’t have this problem but it seems that they will do whatever they need to to get more.  This can give the impression of the rich being out of touch with the normal people.  Society (the film) takes this to the extreme making the high society a completely different race who feed of humans.

The film is full of interesting characters and the way they interact is interesting. There are always signs that there is something wrong but you can never put your finger on it. The only character that seems to a monster actually comes to Bill help at the end.

The final message rings true, it doesn't matter if you fight the monster or what you uncover, you may get away but nothing changes and in some ways this makes the film a prime candidate for a sequel that it's never got.

Given it’s age Society doesn't come across as being too dated, a couple of the monster effects show their age but, for the most they still stand up.  apart from the fashion the only other thing that could date it is the equipment that David uses to bug bug Jenny.

Over all society is a solid film with a strong story and a disturbing monster that has some great lines and may give you something to think about is well worth at least one watch.

Mirror Mirror (1990)

Title - Mirror Mirror
Language - English
Genre - horror, witchcraft

After her father's death Megan and her mother move to a new town in America.  Megan has trouble fitting in at her new school and is picked on by the popular kids until she realises that she can call up on magic from a mirror that was left in her new house from the previous owners.  Megan begins to use the mirror to get revenge on the bullies and to help her friend win the school election but is she controlling the power or is it controlling her?

Mirror Mirror is a film in the same vain as the ‘Craft’ and ‘Heathers’ and focus’ on the  new girl who is trying to fit in it to the a new environment.  Megan  is obviously new and different because she’s in black Goth/rock clothes and everyone else  in the school is in pastels, Chaleen and her group of popular girls are all in very pale colours and Nikki is in darker pastels.  This point seems to have been taken a bit far as i haven't seen many schools (which don’t enforce a uniform) where all the pupils dress almost identically and even in similar films there are different groups even if the ‘new girl’ is normally steered away from them.

After a short scene from the past the film starts off quite slow.  We are introduced to Megan and her mother and we are shown the politics of the school with the class elections coming up with Nikki as one main candidate and Chaleen as the other.  Chaleen instantly starts mocking Megan which and it’s Nikki who helps her.  Now there was no reason it had to be Nikki who helped but i suppose for narrative purposes it helped.

One of the problems with Mirror Mirror is that it seems to start a couple of plot lines that could have taken the film in totally different directions but then it just seems to leave them.  When Nikki first becomes friends with Megan Ron (Nikky’s boyfriend) says that he doesn't want Megan to become another one of her ‘lost causes’ hinting that Nikki has a habit of trying to help other girls in a  ‘Clueless’ kind of way but we never see or hear of any of Nikkis previous causes, in fact we don’t see any any of Nikkis other friends.  Nikki never tries to change or help Megan fit in, if she did then there may have been a few less deaths.

There is also Nikki’s mother.  she starts out as distant, not noticing that Megan is having problems.  When she is talking to the Psychiatrist on the phone she is too busy talking about her self to answer any of his questions about Megan but then she changes with very little provocation and tries to be nice to Megan.  If they had kept the mother self centred then it would have helped in the build up Megans problems or they could have had her always trying to help but failing making the ending a bit more tragic.

In a way this is what is wrong with the film, none of the characters seem to be pushed far enough. Charleen’s bullying is a bit of name calling and dressing the same as Megan for a joke.  Nikki talks to Megan but doesn’t seem to much to help her fit in.  Megan's mom doesn’t seem to much and the antiques dealer is pretty much useless.  Megan herself seems to go from shy solitary goth to full blown killer witch in on scene, although that could be passed off as the mirror manipulating her.

The Mirror is one of the better characters, through flashbacks and dairy reading we learn enough of it's back story and it has clear motivation. There are a couple of versions of the film with the main difference being how much of the demon you see. The actual daemon doesn't really add much to the plot of the film as it does most of it's work via the mirror but it does add a bit more tension to the end of the film when it is included.

For all of its problems Mirror Mirror is still quite a good film and, if you are a fan of films like the Craft then you will probably enjoy this.

Mirror Mirror has 3 sequels which will be reviewed over the next few weeks.

Quatermass and the Pit

Title - Quatermass and the pit  (five million years to earth)
Language - English
Genre - Horror, Sci-Fi

Quatermass and the pit is the third Quatermass film, the first in colour and the last one by Hammer horror.

The film starts with a team of workers digging to extend the ‘Hobb’s end’ tube station in the London underground when they discover a number of skulls and skeletons.  The site is then handed over to Dr Mathew Roney who believes that the skulls belong to an ancestor of man who roamed the earth five million years ago.  The excavation is halted when the team discover a strange item that is believed to be a bomb of some type.

At the same time Professor Quatermass has been called in to a meeting with Colonel Breen who tells him that his rocket/moon project is now being controlled by the military, Quatermass is not happy about this.  The meeting is interrupted by a message to Colonel Breen asking for him to go to the Hobbs end site with bomb disposal to examine the object they have found.

The object is said to be safe so it is fully uncovered.  The team find an entrance and, once inside they find a room full of what appears to be giant insects.  Breen believes that is an old experimental German V weapon and the creatures are fake, put there to scare British during the war but Quatermass and the archaeological team believe it is something else and that is is tied to all the tales of haunting that have been reported around Hobbs end all through history.

Out of the four films Quatermass and the Pit the most different, the other three concern themselves with an alien threat that has come from beyond the stars and, even though the first two take some influence from horror as well as sci-fi Quatermass and the pit is, at it’s core a horror film with leanings towards Sci-Fi.

There seems to be an anti military message in Quatermass and the pit.  this is first evident when Quatermass finds out that his project is going to be taken over by the military, he is outraged as he sees the colonization of other planets as a way of leaving our old warlike  behind.  The theme is carried on by the way the army is portrayed.  Both  Quatermass & Breen  refuse to believe that any of the supernatural events are connected to the find at hobbs end, in fact both refuse to believe in the supernatural at all, but as the film goes on  Quatermass begins to accept that there is something odd happening and that it is connected to the aliens whereas Breen just becomes more and more stubborn and un-receptive to anything other than his own theory.  There is also a hint of an army with the aliens/ possessed human as they go ahead with the racial cull.

The Aliens in this film seem to be better developed that in the previous two films, they have a better back story and more of a reason to want to conquer us although this does cause a problem with the effects.  This is overcome well though, the scenes on Mars are always seen through grainy footage and the alien corps’ are meant to be degrading so they are not seen for long.

The intertwining of Sci-Fi and horror is also handled well, the way the memories of the aliens have become change over time to become our devils is used well and the explanation that phenomenon such as ghosts and poltergeists are actually caused by latent psychic power inherited from the Martians is interesting.  It is interesting to note that there a similar theories about poltergeists in the real word, minus the aliens of course.

I feel that Quatermass and the pit is best of the four films, it has a strong story and a good mix of horror and Sci-Fi and is definitely well worth a watch.

The Quatermass Xperiment

Title - The Quatermass Xperiment (The creeping unknown )
Language - English
Genre - Horror, Sci-Fi

The Quatermass Xperiment is the first  of four films following the adventures of the British scientist Professor Quatermass.  The film started life as a BBC series but most of the episodes have been lost.  It was later made into a film by Hammer Horror as one of their first films.

The film starts with a rocket crash landing on a farm.  The rocket was part of a government experiment for the first manned flight into space.  The project was headed by Professor Quatermass who is in trouble for launching the rocket early.  The rocket had a crew of three but when it is opened there is only one person aboard, Victor Carroon.  The space suit's of the other astronauts are still intact and the door has not been opened.  As the rocket has been in space there is no where the other astronauts could have gone.

Victor is very ill and is kept at Quatermass' lab.  At the same time Scotland Yard begin an investigator to find out what has happened to the other men, this is led by Inspector Lomax. Quatermass thinks the investigation is a waste of time as no one at Scotland Yard is qualified to investigate anything that happens in space.

Victor is moved to a hospital when it is decided that there is not enough medical equipment in Quatermass' lab.  Victor's wife, Judith tries  to break him out of the hospital but, in the few minuets he is left alone Victor pushes his hand into a cactus and he kills the man who was helping  her.  As Victor goes on a killing spree he slowly changes into something else and Quatermass and Lomax realise they are dealing with an alien invasion.

The Quatermass Xperiment was released in 1955 and, in my opinion it still holds up now. Admittedly  some of the technology is a bit dated but, as Quatermass' lab is mentioned to be quite hi tec it's not that bad.  The film does not rely to heavily on special effects and the creature at the end is not seem much so this does not go against it.  It has a good story and characters.

Quatermass starts wanting to be in control of everything and he finds the involvement of Scotland Yard nothing but an annoyance.  As the film progresses he begins to realise that, even though he has the most knowledge on the rocket and space side he is not equipped to deal with the situation.  He begins to release some control of the situation when he is convinced to let Victor go to a hospital and, once Victor is on the loose he knows that he needs the police to help track him down.  It does seem to annoy Quatermass that he is equipped to deal with everything and this is evident at the end of the film when he takes control of the situation ignoring every done else to stop the creature.

Inspector Lomax is almost the other side of the coin to Quatermass.   He realises from the beginning that he is ill equipped to deal with the situation but he knows that he has a job to do.  There are a couple of scenes at the start of the film where Lomax could have become the comic relief as a bumbling detective who is out of his depth but this is cut short when he goes to Quatermass offering to help him in stead of trying to handle everything himself.

Victor, as the monster is handled well.  As I have said the film is not effects heavy.  For most of the time we see Victor as a normal man although his features are drawn out .  Most of the transformation is kept to his arm which he keeps hidden for a lot of the film.  Victor is portrayed as scared and in pain for most of the film, needing to feed but fighting for his humanity.  This is most apparent in a scene where he meets a little girl by a river.  The scene has a striking similarity’s it to a scene in Frankenstein.  In both tales the monster meets a little girl by a river but in Frankenstein the monster kills the girl by accident and this helps the creature realise what he is and that he does not want to live, making him more human.  In the Quatermass Xperiment Victor does not kill the girl and goes on to become  ore monstrous, loosing his humanity.   In a way the character of Victor is almost a reverse of Frankenstein monster, the monster starts as a none human creation and becomes more human where as Victor starts out human and becomes more monstrous. The similarity are only heighten by the creature in the Quatermass Xperiment bearing the name of the man who d created the monster in Frankenstein.

The monster at the end of the film is not shown much.  When we do see it we get the feeling that it is some kind of plant jellyfish,  it is resting so not moving much which is good because if they had put to much movement into it I think it would have looked dated now.

By the standards of today's films the Quatermass Xperiment is not too scary.  When it was first released in the UK it was given an X rating (an 18 in today's ratings) but modern releases have been dropped to a pig (children can watch with there parents).  There are some creepy parts to the film but it does rely on its story and characters.

Well worth a watch in my opinion but if you don't fancy it in black and white the series was remade in 2002 and this is also worth a watch.

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.

Cursed (2005 American)

Title - Cursed
Language - English
Genre - Horror, werewolf

On their way home Ellie and her brother Jimmy hit an animal in the road causing them to crash in to another car which they knock off the road.  Whilst they are trying to help the other driver they are attacked by the animal.  Ellie and Jimmy get away but, over the next few they begin to realise that they are changing into something else.  The race is on to find out who the werewolf who attacked them is and to kill them to stop the change and the killing.

Cursed is a Werewolf film directed by Wes Craven and it deliberately plays along the lines of a standard werewolf film, for a bit. As with a lot of Wes Craven's films it has a dark sense of humor and a sense that it doesn't take itself totally serious.  The standard setup is the same as a lot of werewolf films, the main character, or in this case two of the main characters get bitten by a werewolf and then they have to deal with the consequences.  The one advantage of having two victims of the wolf attack is that we are shown two ways of dealing with the change.  First up there is Jimmy, the younger of the siblings who is slightly nerdy and often accused of being gay, which he isn’t.  It doesn't help that he is interested in Jenny the school jocks (Bo) girlfriend.  As in other werewolf/vampire films of this type Jimmy has a convenient collection of werewolf comics to help in his research into what is happening to him and, of course no one believes him, even Ellie to begin with.  Jimmy's story line takes a 'Teen Wolf' approach to coping with the wolf curse, pushed by Bo's bullying he ends up at tryouts for the wrestling team where he shows that he is stronger and more athletic than the rest, although unlike Teen Wolf he does not need to turn into the wolf to do so.    

Ellie, on the other hand has trouble believing that they are cursed, to begin with she refused to believe that the original attack was by a werewolf but as time moves on she can’t deny the changes that are happening to her.

There are parts of Cursed that seem to use traditional vampire law instead of the recognised werewolf law for instance silver will hurt a wolf but not necessarily kill it.  To kill the wolf you only need to separate the brain form the body.

To end their curse Ellie and Jimmy find they have to kill the wolf who turned them but who is it.

Cursed is a good film, it does not take itself too seriously and has a good story.  Most werewolf films have a victim coping with the curse and not necessarily trying to end it or have a pack of wolves terrorizing a community/group of people but Cursed we have the victims trying to end the curse without doing too much damage themselves and this works well as there are more there is more than one wolf. 

We also have Christina Ricci gothing up and looking cute so that’s always a bonus.

Cursed (Japanese 2004)

Title - Cursed
Language - Japanese
Genre - Horror, J horror, ghost

Ryoko has been sent, instead of her boss to help the transition of a small convenience store that is joining the ranks a of corporate chain store but almost as soon as she arrives she begins to think that something is wrong.  Nao, the daytime casher seems normal enough but when the store managers appear, accusing her of being late for the appointment Ryoko is confused, she’s convinced that she is there in plenty of time, the appointment is for two O'clock but when she checks it’s 4.30.  In the meeting with Mr & mrs Kitura, Ryoko is concerned by their reaction to the new of her boss’ accident, not only do they know that he has lost his legs but they seem very happy about it.

Whilst Ryoko is taking the shops inventory there are a few strange occurrences.  There is the one customer who stands reading the magazines, his face is totally covered by the hood of his parka jacket.  There are strange sounds coming from different rooms and eyes watching them, and crows flying into the windows as well as the owners strange behavior to contend with.

Outside of the store some of their customers are coming to grizzley ends.  

When the man in the Parka attacks Nao and then does something to Komori, the night shift cashier Ryoko and Nao know that they need to find out what is happening in the store, if they can stay sane and alive for long enough.

Cursed starts off as a good ghost film, it’s not too creepy but there is a bit of gore.  As it goes on it does get creepier, the Parka guy is an interesting character but possibly under used and this seems to be a bit of a recurring problem.  There are a number of deaths in the film and all of them are different, i understand that they are supposed to be the manifestation of the curse and they are supposed to be person/environment specific but each death seems to bring an unrelated character or event in just to kill off the person and then they are forgot.  This would have been ok if the murderers were connected or possessed but they are unconnected, swinging from normal people to ghosts & slashers all of whom  have no explanation.  Cursed should have either stuck to one or two killers (they could have used the Parka guy) or gone down the route of having events not people to do the killing in a similar style to the ‘Final Destination’ series.  Instead Cursed give the impression that it is trying fit too much in, it obviously knows what it is but it seems to want to try to please too many people.

Cursed also seems to be a bit  more ‘western’ that other J horrors I've seen.  It is definitely Japanese but there is definitely something different, the ‘slasher’ kill is more of a western style and when the woman in her apartment is about to be haunted is was expecting her to open the fridge and see a dog shouting ‘Zool’ and we do get a second ‘dimension’ to inside of the fridge before getting a ghost reminiscent of the ‘Ring’.

Over all Cursed is a good if somewhat confused film that tries to do too much and falls a little short of what it should be.  It does have gore and quite a good story line so give it watch.

Doctor Phibes Rises Again

Title - Doctor Phibes Rises Again
Language - English
Genre - Horror, Slasher

















This is the sequel to ‘The abominable doctor Phibes’ which I've reviewed here and this review may contain some spoilers.
The film starts with a with a flashback to the first film and a voice over tells us that Doctor Phibes had joined his wife but that he was only in a death like state, waiting until the right time to carry out the next part of his plan.  Three years after the end of the first film the sun hits Doctor Phibes’ coffin in the right place and the embalming fluid that Phibes had used is replaced with his blood.
Doctor Phibes awakens and summons his companion, Vulnavia and the couple use the organ lift to go back to his house to get a papyrus out of the vault only to find the house has been demolished and the vault is empty.  Doctor Phibes tracks down the papyrus  which is a map to a tomb in Egypt and he steals it back from Beiderbecke, an archeologist who is also trying to find the tomb.
The Egyptian tomb contains the entrance to the river of life which flows once every 2000 years.  Doctor Phibes plans to go there with Vulnavia and his dead wife to resurrect her and grant them all eternal life.  Beiderbecke has been sustaining his life via a mystical elixir and wants to use the river to grant himself eternal life and end his need for the elixir.
Both Phibes and Beiderbecke race against time and each other to unlock the secrets of the tomb and to be the one who gains use of the river.

I think i mentioned in the review for the first film that  Doctor Phibes is an early example of a modern slasher and the second film carries this on.  The sequel delves into the supernatural more than the first, in the abominable Doctor Phibes, Phibes is a living man who, like Michael Myers or Pamela Voohrees is killing a set of people for his own reasons without any supernatural aid  but when we come to the second film we have a more supernatural flavor leading to our slasher becoming unkillable, if he succeeds.  I also mentioned in the first review that some of Doctor Phibes’ traps and kills   could almost have been inspiration for movies such as the saw franchises the kill’s that springs to mind in this film are

1) the one involving the golden scorpion chair, where the victim is placed in a situation where he has to put himself in danger (or wait until someone finds him) to get out of the trap

2) the final trap where Beiderbecke has has to choose between his goal or his wife.

There are a couple of issues with the flow form the first film to the second.  The voice over at the beginning of the second film says that the police uncovered clues to where Doctor Phibes was hiding and that they caught him unprepared which is why he went into the tomb at the end, this is not true Phibes told them where he was so that the doctor could find his son and try to rescue him, the fact that Phibes went into the tomb with his wife was part of is plan all along making it the 10th death and the representation of the curse of darkness.  The second issue is that at the beginning of ‘Doctor Phibes rises again’ Phibes summons Vulnavia who appears, almost ghost like to aid him but at the end of the first film we see her hit and melted by the acid.  From what I have read  I believe that Vulnavia’s odd resurrection is due to the character originally being written as one of the clockwork toys that Phibes has created this was latter written out of the first film but, if it were still the case then this would explain why she appears in the second film un-injured, she is just a different model.  This is also the reason why the character doesn't speak, the clockwork version would not be able to.

Doctor Phibes Rises Again has a good British cast and has the same type of humor as it’s predecessor, the deaths are interesting and, although not as gruesome as you may expect in a modern movie they still make the film a good slasher. There seems to be more story to the second film as Phibes is not just killing for revenge but to get back what has been stolen from him and to keep his presence secret.

If you like imaginative deaths and a few giggles I recommend both of the Doctor Phibes films and think that is a pity that there were no more made.

Attack girls swim team vs. the undead

Title -

Attack girls swim team vs. the undead

Language - Japanese

Genre - Zombie, horror

Contains spoilers

I had high hopes for a film with a title like 'Attack girl swim team vs. the undead' but I have to admit I was left a bit disappointed, the problem is I'm not really sure why.  The film starts three days before a cross school swimming competition.  Everything seems to be going ok for one of the competing schools, they've been training hard, the school has been vaccinating students against the new virus that’s going around and there is a new student who they are going to recruit to replace their sick team mate.  Then things take a turn for the worst, the team's coach is found dead and then shows up alive again and the rest of the school start turning into flesh eating zombies until only the girls swim team and the new girl, Aki are that is left.

I think that, if the films plot stopped there it would have been better, they could even have kept the 'mad scientist' cause of the zombie the same but, the inclusion of Aki's back story seemed to add more complication than was necessary, especially as the main point of the back story was just to get more sex on the screen.

Parts of the flashback scenes didn't seem to make to much sense, how could he talk and play the flute at the same time, I think it was supposed to be Aki remembering things slightly wrong and it was the twin who was speaking if so then this seems to be another example of the film trying to be more intelligent than it was.

Girls swim team also seemed to be lacking a bit in the zombie department, putting most of the focus on the two zombie teachers who were quite entertaining but they failed to get across the same sense of threat that could been produce by giving the horde of other zombies that were lurking a bit more screen time.

With the exception of the first scene with the zombies in the in the classroom the other 'normal' zombies seemed a bit pathetic.  I can live with cure for the virus as it fits in with the good part of the plot but for the most part, when we see any normal zombies they are just pushed out of the way and they don’t even swarm, after the first zombie scene we only see about 4 zombies on screen at one time.  With that said I will admit that the little gore that is in the film is quite good.

The swim team is also a bit to pathetic, whilst it is good to  see a film where the survivor's can't automatable pick up any weapon and know how to use it to its full zombie killing capability some zombie killing would have been good.  Part of the problem in this area may have been the lack of zombies I mentioned earlier.  You can't have your side cast killing off your main monsters but, the action could have been improved with more normal zombies.

Now we come to the main villain, there is not too much I can say about this except when he is revealed it’s like something out of a bad Scooby Doo episode and the ‘twist’ with him at the end is just a bit odd.

In saying all of that I would probable give ‘Attack girls swim team vs. the undead’, maybe knowing what to expect may up the enjoyment a bit more.