1/2
It’s an alien because it came here in a meteor. It’s a swamp beast because that meteor crashed into a swamp and it takes over the corpse of a dead derp, transforming him into a very distant cousin of From Hell it Came’s Tabanga. Now that all the confusion is sorted, we can get to the film proper and I can ask myself why with only so much time on this earth in a slowly deteriorating vessel I spent an hour with this thing. A dimwitted young man is excited to get out and find that space rock, the old people he lives with tell him to finish his chores before looking for it. A man wakes up and we spend an ass-numbing amount of time watching him amble about his home. Dramatic music plays as he makes coffee, chooses a mug and drinks coffee. He also feeds his dog and pours himself a glass of booze. After that excruciating bit of needlessness we join the meteor-hunting dimwit as he awkwardly talks to a girl waiting for a bus and somehow convinces her to join him in hunting for the space rock. Back to the middle-aged drinking man doing a whole bunch of nothing. He gets called and is forced to cut his sad vacation short because of reasons. His dog watches the TV and a news report comes on about a bank robbery… well get more breaking news updates because why show when you can tell? The glowing green meteor is found, the bank robbers have to leave their car because it runs out of gas and are forced to cut through the swamp, the sad guy is an FBI agent and he’s after the bank robbers (of course it’s personal), he and the female agent running the case do not get along, various locals annoy with their bullshit and that titular monster (who is some cheapjack loveliness) takes fucking forever to show up. Audio issues persist throughout and can’t all be blamed on the wind, lines are flubbed, reshoots are ignored and the visual aspect looks like it was filmed by a camera made from the shattered hopes of dead orphans. It’s an ugly, ugly time. The fun monster and pink-haired bank robber with an eyepatch (What?! I have a type) save it from the oblivion of a zero rating. It’s supposed to be funny, I didn’t laugh once so I guess the joke’s on me.
⭐️⭐️
A young nurse has a regretful night of drunken fun and is begged by her coworker to pick up a job for their agency instead of nursing her hangover and regretting her actions. Sam is offered triple time to take the supposedly easy job somewhere out in the English countryside… or maybe English suburbs. I don’t know, there was a lot of driving but also it looks like a lot of neighbors. Anyways, that’s not important. Sam’s patient has been comatose for three years so if all goes well there shouldn’t be too many annoyances for the young lady and it seems all she has to worry about are the rules left for her… some of them are a little odd. Like not talking to the guy. She finds a cellphone under a couch and judging by the background screen, it’s the woman we saw attacked by something in the pre-credits. We’ll see more scenes of her and her boyfriend (maybe the guy in a coma?) while Sam hears noises (thumps and someone whispering her name) in the supposedly empty house (except for the coma guy, that is) and discovers some disturbing things. She also finds out that the patient isn’t supposed to have a female carer but her coworker manages to convince her to stay. Night comes around and spookiness comes with it… and fog, a bunch of fog. Sam investigates everything and gets into the attic where she discovers an old cardboard box with plenty of exposition stored within. Thank you very much dusty laptop with three videos on it pointing at an experimental treatment program for possession that went very wrong. And thank you very much coma man’s diary with a bunch of exposition. This is very bad news for Sam… and for the viewers who don’t want to watch footage of coma man not in a coma while diary text runs across the screen. So, bad news all around but for very different reasons. Sam also watches videos on the phone of the girl who was dating coma guy and revealing the creepy shit that was going on with him leading up to his vegetative state. Even with all this conveniently available information, it’s not gonna end well for our hero. Linda Louise Duan sure is easy on the eyes and gives a memorably awkward performance as our young hero which makes her incredibly easy to root for. Well done, Linda. You won me over. Micro-budget spookiness charms as well and I’m in love with effort and pieced together storytelling behind the architecture of the film. The surprisingly decent specter is barely featured for some reason but at least they tried.
aka Setan Alas!
⭐️⭐️⭐️
College friends shack up in a secluded old villa belonging to one of the group’s parents for a weekend of fun but that never works out no matter what part of the world you call home. One of their number is spooked and warns that ghosts are attracted to the kind of place they’re in but he’s dismissed by his more modern-thinking friends. A lack of network connection has them extra secluded and a dead generator adds to the horror flick conventions already rattling around the back of everyone’s minds. Add a locked room, an abandoned well and a nearby Dutch cemetery to cement the gloom. Ani begins to see the ghost of her dead sister, Ani’s delightful caretaker uncle creeps around and the group banter back and forth with each other while getting slightly spooked. The next morning the group wakes up to find Ani’s boyfriend murdered and Ani unable to give any explanation as to how. She’s not saying much just that the bedroom window was opened sometime during the night. They soon find Uncle Dadang hanging from the ceiling in his shack. The remaining four decide to leave but can’t flee as fast as they’d like to thanks to someone slicing the car’s tires. Their slow getaway is halted completely when they discover a cliff where no cliff was before completely cutting them off from any form of escape. They go back to the villa, unsettlingly closer than it should be, waiting outside and trying to come up with an answer as to what the hell is happening. Well, we get the answer pretty quick and it’s pretty damn fun. An atmospheric setting that feels well lived in adds to the novel idea running through the bones of the film. It’s been done before but not often enough to be expected and even necessitates familiarity when it comes to the horrific threats coming after the heroes and giving an excuse for the inevitable silliness. Drama is purposefully fumbled, humor actually works and low-rent gore is in the cards. Admittedly, the whole thing could definitely use a shot of adrenaline which has it coming off as awkwardly paced which is a shame but it’s still worth a watch.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The legend behind the haunting of a farmhouse and the surrounding area draws the attention of a small film crew looking to make a paranormal documentary. Lighthearted vibes turn to terror when it seems evidence the team catches points to the entity being more than a ghost story. What we’re watching is recovered footage pieced together from damaged hard drives, discarded tapes and police evidence. So, obviously whatever malicious attention the small group of filmmakers caught ended up being fatal. It’s been edited together by the only member of the crew that didn’t make the trip to the location. This means we get an excuse for editing and mockumentary true crime aesthetics… which I will always appreciate. The boogeyman has supposedly claimed the area as its stomping grounds but the key focus is on a small house where it seemingly festers. The abandoned house holds a past involving vanished children and full-body apparitions. Sounds like a good spot to catch some spooky evidence to allow you to actually sell your micro-budget production. Surprise bewbs (plenty of nudity, unexpectedly), a host that ain’t all that good at talking (she’s still incredibly likable), a director out of his depth (he’s also kind of a sleaze), background hauntings, a cool and simple entity that likes showing up on camera (no Blair Witch leave it to the imagination here), a local weirdo (he’s seen Bigfoot!), every found footage haunting shenanigan you can think of and a short dive into casting couch stupidity that feels out of left field and completely needless… even if it pays off in a jumpscare and the striking visual of a nude woman out in the wild all caught in night vision green. It may lack atmosphere as the haunted house isn’t all that notable and we’ve seen everything it offers up a couple dozen times but the cast is solid (annoying qualities exist but are not in the forefront like a lot of these ghost hunting dopes) and the threat ain’t camera shy which makes it just fun enough to have me nodding in approval.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Lunacy and wealth are an already dangerous mix but if you add deviance to the equation, you’re just asking for trouble. A group of well-off weirdos pick up the kind of folks who won’t be missed and bring them back to their fenced-off villa. Initially the random-ass houseguests (a prostitute, a gypsy, a drunk and two hippie hitchhikers) are treated well by the odd brother and sister duo and the sister’s somehow weirder husband who is mighty keen on sporting ridiculous neckerchiefs made to look like ridiculous bow ties. Along with his interesting fashion choices, the husband is an inventor/scientist who specializes in robots and something that has to do with bloodwork. He’s all too happy to collect a sample from the young hippie girl when she pricks herself on something in the guest room couch. He lets her know that he has researched the evolution of plant and animal and has concluded that nature is flawed and it’s on the human race to modify and repair themselves. Of course, the only way to do this is to bring together man and machine. I’d be concerned if I was spending the night in this man’s home. On the first night after the hippies light some incense, smoke their Devil’s lettuce and start getting frisky, the drunk interrupts and takes the hippie dude on a little tour. It ends with him showing the stoned man the gypsy girl, tied up with a rope, buck naked in her room. The creepy brother tells them she’s family and she has epilepsy so it’s for her own safety. The drunk protests but is dismissed for being… well, a drunk. I think if the homeowners got rid of the viewing windows they have on the room doors, this could be avoided but then I guess the creepy sister couldn’t spy on them. A narcotics agent is on the trail as an unsettling amount of missing people have been reported. After discovering wine bottles being shipped out filled with blood, he knows there’s some sinister shit afoot. Let’s just hope he can follow the trail and make it on time to at least rescue one of the slowly vanishing houseguests. An outdoor oven contains a skull, attractive people get naked, a “perfect man” is created, there’s a champagne infused naked dance party in a room of mirrors, sexual hang ups, a whole lotta wine, bickering spouses, a hilarious janky-ass blood drinking robot (fuckin’ thing has a cape) that’s about as threatening as something a bored child would piece together in their stepdad’s garage, a basement secret that we’ve all seen coming from about ten minutes in and a last act reveal that’s somehow disturbing and hilarious in unison. It is one strange flick that despite its giallo title is nowhere near that particular area of film. Stretches of boredom hit more than once but the main thrust of the story is so unexpected and off-kilter that it’s worth waiting around for.
aka Caught on Camera! Death on Security Cameras
⭐️
⭐️⭐️
On the heels of her husband’s tragic death, Liz and her daughter move to a small town looking for a fresh start. The teenage girl has a bit of a justified attitude to go along with the uprooting but the angst turns to terror when some spooky spookiness starts spooking. Mom is already plagued with nightmares about her dead spouse and has replaced her faith with a bit of the booze. Shit changes when her husband’s spirit shows up and tells her to “Help them.” after a creepy nun appears on her front lawn being all creepy. Solid leads (most of the time) successfully pull off the grieving mother and daughter portrayal (no easy task) and Bill Oberst Jr is there as the local pastor. A giant janitor stalks around, there’s a secret at the daughter’s new school and ghosts act like ghosts. Perhaps the power of faith can wrap everything up in a neat little package? Most likely. BOJ tells a great ghost story (dude has always been a scene stealer) and Angela DiMarco is really good as the mother with a plate full of shit on her table. Sadly, the movie kind of lets her down. It’s not as creepy as it should have been but Angela DiMarco and BOJ make it worth a cursory glance.
