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.

Elvira's Haunted Hills

Title - Elvira's Haunted Hills
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy

Elvira’s haunted hills is the second film outing for Cassandra Peterson’s Elvira but it is not a sequel to Elvira mistress of the dark.

Set in 1851 Elvira and her assistant Zou Zou are traveling through the Carpathian Mountains on the way to put on a show in Paris.  Out of money the two have to run form an inn and find themselves stranded on the road.  A coach stops to pick them up after the other passenger, Dr Bradley Bradley recognizes Elvira from her promo posters..

Doctor Bradley is on his way to one of his patients who let Elvira stay the night with the doctor promising to take them away the next morning.  As soon as Elvira enters castle Hellsubus lady Hellsubus sees her and runs screaming and this is the reaction she gets from most of the residents the first time they meet her.

Elvira is told that she is the spitting image of Lord Vladimere Hellsubus’ first wife, Elura who died in mysterious circumstances.  

The members of the Hellsubus family believe that they are cursed never to be able to leave the castle and, it is this that lead to Elura’s death.  The curse also manifests itself in other ways in some of the family members,  Vladimere has sensitive hearing and vision and his niece, Roxanna keeps fainting.

Doctor Bradley is called away to treat the plague in the next village stranding Elvira and Zou Zou in castle Hellsubus and with Vladimere’s insanity growing will any of them get out alive.

Elvira’s Haunted Hills is a spoof of the old ‘Hammer Horror’ films and is even dedicated to Vincent Price.  It has all the trappings of the haunted house style of film  from the creepy castle to the Dracula like Lord Vladimere.  The film is played of laughs and is definitely more of a comedy than Mistress of the Dark which keeps it’s humor dark.  The jokes range from cleavage/boob jokes to Elvira spouting anachronisms which, until you get used to them can throw the flow of the film.

As the film is a parody the acting is over the top with a great performance from Richard O'Brien as Lord Vladimere Hellsubus.  we get lots of sneaky looks to the camera with Elvira even addressing it in one scene.  the character of Adrian the Stable Stud has an English voice over dubbed on to his own in homage of the dubbed foreign films of the past.

Elvira’s Haunted Hills has a few things in common with Mistress of the dark, Elvira is trying to put on a show, she has no money and of course there are plenty of cleavage but it  is a noticeably different film from Mistress of the Dark in tone and story.  It is, however still a fun and enjoyable film so give it a watch after all it’s not every day you see Richard O'Brien's over acting stand out more than Elvira.  

Elvira, Mistress of the dark

Title - Elvira, Mistress of the dark
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy, witchcraft

Elvira, T.V. scream queen and inspiration the Simpsons 'Boobarella' has one dream, to get her show to Las Vegas. 

  Unfortunately she needs to raise $50,000 which is looking impossible after she rejected her bosses’ advances.  So when she receives a telegram telling that her Great Aunt Morgan has died and left her some inheritance Elvira thinks nothing of jumping into her car and travelling to Fallwell Massachusetts for the reading of the will.

Elvira is disappointed when she is left no money, but she is left a house, a dog and the family cookbook.  Deciding to renovate the house to sell to try to raise the money for Vegas Elvira stays in Fallwell but soon finds that she has to deal with a sleazy estate agent who in interested in more that her house, the local busy body Chastity Pariah who is trying to get Elvira kicked out of town and her great uncle Vincent who is desperate to get his hands on the cook book.

After using the book and then finding note from her aunt Elvira realises that she can't let Vincent get his hands on the book but with the whole town against her how can Elvira survive to see her dream of getting to Las Vegas?

Elvira Mistress of the dark is the of two films where scream queen legend Elvira (Cassandra Paterson) takes the lead roll  taking her T.V. persona to the big screen and fleshing out the character.  The film is more of a comedy than a horror although it uses a lot of tropes and references to old horror movies and it makes a change to spells that don’t always come back to the caster, for example the casserole 'love' spell affects everyone at the party but doesn't really have any (magical) consequents for Elvira where as in a lot of modern witch films love/lust spells often have a darker consequences often resulting in the caster being stalked and can turn the flow of the film.

Elvira is a fun character who has a quip for every situation and a charm that reaches beyond her chest.  Elvira has the ability to be sexy without bring the tone of the film down and a sense of humour that keeps the film light when it could easily become a bad horror  

Mistress of the dark is a great film and well worth a watch with a great story and a few laughs along the way.

Razor Blade Smile

Title - Razor blade smile
Language - English
Genre - Vampire, Action

A group of Goths sit in the ‘Transylvania’ night club discussing vampires, mainly would a vampire work and if so what would their perfect job be.  Most of the table laugh when Lilith Silver suggests that they would make a good hit man.  What the rest of the table don’t know is that Lilith is speaking from experience as she is both a vampire and a hit man know as the angel of death.

Lilith starts of the film by explaining that, just like normal humans Vampires get bored and so they have to find ways of   keeping themselves entertained.  To this end Lilith has become a hit man, a job that not only necessities working in the dark but also helps find victims to feed off.  Lilith’s current assignments are all members of a secretive cult and, as part of the hit she must also collect the ring that they all wear but, due to unexpected security she ends up leaving it behind on her first hit of the film.

Unknown to Lilith the head of the cult, Sethane Blake, is the man who turned Lilith into a vampire in the first place.  Sethane knows that there is a hit man targeting his organisation and so he sends Detective inspector Price to investigate, Price being a member of Sethane’s organisation. As Price investigates the hits he begins to suspect that a vampire is involved but, of course no one believes him.

Lilith begins to look into the cult but things come to a head when her client kidnaps her handler, Platinum because he is not happy that she missed the ring on one of the hits.  Lilith is then in a race to save Platinum life whilst avoiding Inspector Price.

I found Razor blade Smile a bit disappointed.  The story has potential but the dialogue is  is not that good at times it’s trying to be too gritty and just results in way too much swearing. As the film progresses Lilith goes from spouting really naff puns to telling us the rules of being a vampire. It seems slightly unnecessary to have Lilith tell us the rules as they are normally being played out on screen at the same time.  A lot of the dialogue also seem slightly forced.

There seems to be an attempt in the first half of the film to include as much sex as possible without turning it into porn.  Some of it is an attempt of character building between Lilith & Platinum but it seems to distract more than build as they are trying to show that Lilith cares for him.  Other sex scenes are meant to show the relationship between the vampire feeding and pleasure; we even have Lilith giving a voice over to tell us this.  I have nothing against sex in movies and it is used in other vampire movies to better effect but in razor blade smile it does just seem to be an excuse for a bit of titillation.

As the film progresses the story does start to fill out but only starts to deliver on its promise on the last few scenes with the relationship between Lilith & Sethane being one of the best plot devices.

At times there is a feeling that Razor blade smile is trying to be a bit of an art film with the flashbacks to Liliths past being shot in black and white with splashes of colour.

I’m not sure if i would recommend razor blade smile as good vampire film, i remember enjoying it more when i was younger but now it just seems full of distractions from the story      

Not of this earth

Title - Not of this earth
Language - English
Genre - Sci-Fi, Vampire

We start with a spaceship flying through space (as a spaceship does).  Then we cut to earth and a couple who are getting intimate in a car.  Something explodes or crashes off screen which interrupts the couple just long enough for the woman to ask ‘what was that’ and then they get back to it.  A man in sunglasses who is carrying a silver suit case walks from the direction of the explosion up to the car he kills the couple by looking at them and then attaches a device to the woman which drains the blood from her.

Then we cut to the opening credits (Do films still have these, if they do they don’t have the same impact) whilst the credits are on we get scenes of various monsters and aliens attacking humans, mainly females.

The film starts properly.  Our man in the sun glasses goes into a hospital for a blood transfusion but won't submit to a blood test to see what type he is.  After the doctor refuses to give him his test he finally allows it but hypnotizes the doctor  into not telling anyone about the results.

Whilst at the hospital the man (Mr Johnson) convinces Nadine, one of the nurses to work for him, as he will need regular transfusions.  Nadine moves in with Mr Johnson and his other helper, Jeremy but it’s not long until she realises that there is something not quite right with her new employer.

Not of this earth is bad, in a good B movie way.  Mr Johnson is a cold emotionless Vulcan like alien vampire who doesn't quite get some of the things that humans do and who occasion goes into dramatic, over the top acting that is reminiscent of a bad Dracula.

Jeremy, the man Mr Johnson has hired as his assistant starts out as a sleazy, likable rogue who is always perving over Nadine but, somewhere along the way we start to like him as he teams up with Nadine to find out Mr Johnsons secrets.

Nadine comes across as likeable most of the time but, when she is with Jeremy she turns really annoying and sarcastic.

There are some parts of ‘Not of this earth’ that puzzle me. Both Mr Johnson’s confusion with some of his interactions with humans & Dr Rochelle’s actions when asked about Mr Johnson seem to be an attempt to bring more humour into the film but I’m not entirely sure  if it is intentional, Dr Rochelle comes across in an almost farcical way that does not fit in with the rest of the film and in some scenes even seems to break the flow of the story (the scene in the restaurant is prominent in my mind) where as Mr Johnson's confusion just seems a bit stilted and weird.

There also seems to be an attempt to get as many topples women on screen as possible.  now i have no problem with breast, in fact I’m quite a fan but you would think that there would be at least a few women who visit Mr Johnson or who live in the area who walk around in clothes that don’t just come open  as soon as they meet an alien vampire.  I mean he doesn't even have to use his hypnosis to get these people to strip.

If you are a fan of ok acting, stilted dialogue and Boobs then give ‘not of this earth’ a watch hey at least it has an attempt at a plot.