Plaguers (2008) (USA)

aka Space of the Living Dead/Zombie Hatebreed/Space Hazard/Virus Diabolico 

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

On its way home to Earth, a transport vessel is hijacked by space pirates. Unfortunately, the ship is carrying the virus-like “Thanatos” power source and once unleashed, it has the nasty habit of transforming its host into mutated and ravenous monsters. It’s a glowing green gas in a crystal ball… I wouldn’t have let it on the ship at all but I’m not from the future or an astronaut, so I don’t know anything. Captain Holloway is having enough trouble dealing with a crew that doesn’t exactly see her as a leader, a new position for her following the death of the ship’s original captain. They respond to a distress signal from a small carrier craft where they find the sexy female pirates (playing it like damsels-in-nurse-skirts-and-knee-high-boots-in-distress) and bring them aboard. That night, they make their move and take control of the ship. Thanatos spreads and all hell breaks loose. Pirates and crew have to begrudgingly band together to save their own asses, not to mention the Earth, which the virus-infected ship is rapidly approaching. Also, oxygen is running low because of course it is. It’s revealed that Thanatos made its way onto the ship because the now dead captain figured they’d make an assload if money off of it. I really would have paid attention to the fact that the planet it came from was completely dead… come on guys and gals. You’re better than this. This is what greed brings… a space demon virus. A lesson for all of us to take to heart. Digital effects, bare bones settings and junkyard set decorations bring the spaceship to life and I’m all for utilizing your budget any way ya can. I imagine a chunk of change went to Steve Ralisback, who gets an unexpected amount of time on screen as a science officer (maybe?) android and is always worth the extra money to get in your smaller budgeted flick. Paige La Pierre is trashy wonderfulness as a sociopathic pirate with a stabbing obsession and steals every scene she graces with her scene-chewing greatness. There’s some wet violence and fun makeup to bring it all home. Ya could do a lot worse than Demons in space, even if it comes off as just a wee bit lazy.

Swamp Zombies !!! (2005) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

Low-budget horror from Pennsylvania attempts to stuff its runtime with a shit-ton of plot but thanks to limited funds and a general lack of skills it somewhat charms as it fumbles but also bores as it plods along like a southern drunk on their way to confession. The chief physician of a local hospital has been funded by some shadowy government organization to experiment with the resurrection of the dead. In cahoots with the hospital operations manager, they attempt to keep their illegal studies a secret from a visiting federal inspector. This leads to them hiring a duo of lazy thugs to dispose of most of their test subjects. An approaching storm and a lack of damns to be given leads to the duo of doofuses (or is it doofi?) dumping the dead into the nearby swamp. Guess what happens. That’s right! The serum works and soon the swampland is crawling with aggressive zombies. This is bad news for a small biology class in the area collecting samples. If that’s not enough for ya there’s also a bikini babe trying to survive after her friend is eaten by the living dead, a hoss of a swamp hermit with a tragic past, a few police officers who take no shit and an ass-kicking forest ranger with a long ponytail and a never-say-die attitude. There’s also government goons creeping around the hospital and a boatload of cheaply made-up zombies. What could have been a fun backyard horror film puts a little too much on the plate and doesn’t really know what to do with it. There’s plenty of exposition, rough editing, directions given in real time and paper-thin characters who I’ll be damned if I can remember their names. The soundtrack is an LP of all kinds of butt and some of the songs are hilariously awful. Former porn star Jasmin St. Claire is extremely likable as the evil hospital operations manager and has a gratuitous shower scene, plus Dan “The Beast” Severn shows up to (slowly) kick some zombie keister and collect a paycheck. It has its moments but never justifies its 103 minute runtime

The Toll (2020) (Canada)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Exhausted Cami orders a ride-share to take her to her father’s country home. She’s just looking for a quiet drive but her driver, Spencer, is awkward and talkative. He makes a wrong turn and the duo end up stalled on a remote road, bathed in darkness. But as uncomfortable as Cami may be with her off-putting driver, things are about to get downright terrifying thanks to something unknown stalking around the two and becoming more and more aggressive. Nope. It ain’t Bigfoot, although I really wish it were… but don’t let that deter you, I say that about everything. An emergency break thanks to some phantom figure standing in the middle of the road is what stalls the two on the secluded stretch of road and when the car dies completely, Cami decides to walk off and look for help. Instead she finds the road closed (which doesn’t make any sense) and some disturbing graffiti on a traffic sign challenging her to keep moving forward and warning that someone is watching her. She runs back to the discomfort of Spencer’s company. Although, back at the car, Spencer has found a disturbing message of his own telling him to pay the toll man. So yeah, all sorts of spooky. Cami gets back but is somehow approaching from the wrong direction. This may be the second worst ride-share occurrence I have ever encountered. More weird shit goes down including a disquieting conversation with a pedestrian who knows what’s going on and the duo begin to realize they are in some uncharted waters… waters that belong to some entity called The Toll Man. It’s a tight thriller with two likable leads anchoring things as stuff gets a little silly while head games are played and the unflattering past is revealed. It ain’t bad but it still feels like someone fell into a shit-ton of money while a sophomore in film school and decided to make a movie… I think that came off meaner than I intended. Let’s see… thanks to the handling of some of the more dramatic elements that sneak in, it carries the vibe of a student film but, like, a really good student film… one that actually lands a satisfying but still predictable ending… a real rarity when it comes to student films.

Zeder (1983) (Italy)

aka Revenge of the Dead/Zeder: Voices from Beyond 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fascinating flick from Pupi Avati, whose The House with Laughing Windows remains one of the finest genre flicks from Italy. A writer is gifted a secondhand electric typewriter by his lovely wife as an anniversary gift. When he goes in to repair the ribbon, he discovers a strange text already written on there. The writer constructs together an interesting story about a scientist, Paolo Zeder, who was experimenting with something called K-Zones. Apparently there are parts of the world where the earth has some curious properties and the rules of death no longer apply to anything buried there. This inspires the writer for his next story and he begins researching one such area. Murders follow as a top secret team of scientists are also experimenting with Zeder’s theories and there’s a vast conspiracy involving a shocking amount of people. Soon the writer is running around attempting to unravel the mystery and protect him and his wife from being shut up for good. A surprisingly (for the region and time, not for the filmmaker) mature take on the ever-popular zombie cinema which gained an incredibly splatterific reputation from the Italians. Atmospheric and consistently interesting, Zeder is a gem.

The Blackwell Ghost 8 (2024) (USA)

⭐️⭐️1/2

Ugh! Don’t you just hate it when innocent ghost hunting leads to mental chess games with a serial killer? I know I do and I’m sure our guy, Turner Clay, is feeling that frustration. A year on from our last outing and Mr. Clay is doing a sit down interview to explain what has been going on with the brilliant sociopath he’s come up against thanks to the shitstorm that brewed from the watching of a convincing ghost video on YouTube. Crazy how far we’ve come. There’s cassette tapes from the lunatic because there’s always ramblings and manifestos from these wackos and Ramey reached out to Turner for more investigative help because the Florida police are terrible at doing things themselves. Put them private citizens to work! Clues are discovered and Turner plays the games of a dangerous psychopath because this is what the series has turned into. Turner finally gets fed up with the police and their lack of… well, I guess doing their jobs and figures it’s time to catch himself a killer. It’s amazing that the real world threat portion of this series is harder to believe than the ghost encounters that made up the early going. At least he admits his choice of trapping an active serial killer is dumb as fuck. We get some paranormal activity as the movie hits its climax and wraps up a major story beat in a less than fulfilling way.

The Blackwell Ghost 7

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The last time we joined Turner he was communicating with his dead wife via keyboard (I think, my memory ain’t all it’s cracked up to be) and was now the owner of that Lightfoot house that offered up so much evidence of the paranormal while still raising a handful of questions. Now, Turner Clay confesses that the Florida house has almost completely gone silent with supernatural activity. He’ll still hear the keyboard playing sometimes at his family home but it’s a disheartening turn of events. Officer Ramey gets ahold of him and tells him he needs to see him immediately. A local girl has gone missing, and left behind at the possible crime scene was a note with a photo of Ruth Blackwell above the words “want to play”. This definitely connects our hero to things especially because the same note was sent to him a year ago by someone, someone who Turner is now beginning to think is a mentally unwell stalker. Even if he’s hopeful there will be no connection and he can just move on with his life… yeah, sure. A couple days later he gets a package containing a piece of cloth covered in blood with a note that says “A gift for my new friend”. Uh oh. He gets dragged in further as the law officers need his help because he’s the only one this weirdo seems to be willing to communicate with after he gets an email invite to a private chat. He has grandma grab the kids and gets to work, begrudgingly communicating with a probable psychopath. Cryptic statements follow as one would expect when joining a chatroom with a lunatic stalker that has probably killed a young woman. The creep sends Turner a photo of himself from a few months ago attempting to follow the map he has. So Turner heads back to Florida to keep tracking that Lightfoot map. Sure as shit, he finds something this time around. A DIY trail cam and a note that leads him to an old-ass mailbox in the middle of the woods. What’s in that old-ass mailbox in the middle of the woods? Why, it’s another fucking clue of course! A piece of paper in a glass bottle with another riddle (don’t worry, Turner breaks it all down for us) and then a look at the trail cam’s SD card features video of a masked man that would probably disturb anyone more than any phantom knocks ever could. Soon after, masked creep calls Turner to let him know that he’s watching him. Since Turner is alone at the Lightfoot location, that’s something that would induce the crapping of one’s pants. More clues come through and Turner attempts to help where he can and play the weirdo’s games for the sake of the missing girl and unfound victims of Lightfoot. The modified Speak & Spell warns of danger as Turner gets in over his head thanks to some really irresponsible police work. Dropping the supernatural angle for the most part gives this one a different vibe as it throws the true crime angle to the front of everything and it’s alright but the whole pitting Turner Clay against a criminal mastermind is pretty silly and, of course, the film closes with the game still afoot.

Lycan (2017) (USA)

aka Talbot County 

⭐️⭐️

A class project finds a small group of college kids in the middle of the Georgia woods “rediscovering a moment in history”. Said moment turns out to be a bit of local folklore involving the grave of Emily Burt, also known as the Talbot (nice) County werewolf. As these things go, it turns out there may be a little more to the legend. Some well composed shots can’t make up for the unearned pretension throughout the runtime. The music is hilariously intrusive and the acting ranges from adequate to bat-shit over the top. There’s a few likable things sprinkled throughout (Dania Ramirez being a scene-chewing vision of animalistic eroticism is the standout) but everything else feels empty and melodramatic.