Books of Blood (2020)

So this one is a big deal because not too many Clive Barker works end up actually making it to the big/small screen. And this one has been made into a movie before, about 10 years ago, and that version always left the fans going, ‘ah, no, that didn’t really do it for me.’ But see, the people usually saying these things are the ones who have read the original work, Clive’s book. And it seems like they’re saying the same sort of thing with this new adaptation. But then there’s me, who not only hasn’t read the book, but I haven’t seen that earlier movie version, either, so I honestly don’t even have any idea what I’m getting into. I’m a huge fan of the first couple Hellraiser movies and have seen Midnight Meat Train and Nightbreed numerous times, so I know that Clive generally takes on some heavy duty concepts and likes to tell his stories via some disturbing, nightmare worlds. 

But I just finished watching it, and I’m not sure what the point was for this one. One of the characters says some line about ‘freedom through annihilation.’ That certainly seems like one of the themes that Clive likes to explore. But this one didn’t have the grotesque artfulness of some of Clive’s others. This one is an anthology in three sections. Well, more like two and a half, as they don’t spend too much time on the last one.

I don’t feel like giving any backstory or the scenarios of any of the three stories. I’ll just say, is it worth your time to watch it? I’d say no. The message is muddled. The acting is good and the technical stuff about it is good. The middle story has some bite to it, but otherwise, it just didn’t grab my face with some fishhooks and make my head explode like I hoped that it would.

The Empty Man (2020)

Remember The Ring? Good flick. The Empty Man is the same sorta setup, kinda.

In The Ring, you watch this VHS tape with a weird, disturbing montage of video clips, and then seven days later, Samara would emerge from the well, pop through the tv and shuffle off your mortal coil to the afterlife in terrifying manner.

Same deal with this, except in this one, there’s a folk legend among the teenagers in small town Missouri about blowing into an empty bottle while on a bridge, and three days later the Empty Man would similarly escort you to the netherworld. A group of high schoolers (of mixed ethnicities, non-rednecks, fashionable, like they’re straight outta the CW) put that legend to the test, and bad things start happening. An ex-cop and friend of the mother of one of the high schoolers, tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

But after the first act, the movie shifts from being a life-threatening supernatural entity flick to a doomsday cult investigation flick, and there’s a whole lotta investigating going on and not much else happening. It looks kinda like the filmmakers are taking aim at the Scientologists or the Mormons or any of those type of religious cults. What we end up with is a really long movie (2+ hours, way too long for this sort of subject matter) with some occasionally creepy stuff, but mostly just following around this one guy who sorta has some leads and is sorta putting the pieces together and hopes to find his friend’s teenaged daughter alive.

And then there’s some weird, crazy mumbo jumbo at the end with the ex-cop’s dead wife and son, and the funeral for the missing teenager’s father, and the new leader of this doomsday cult. I think it’s supposed to make sense, but it doesn’t.

And what’s the deal with the main guy making a big deal, multiple times, towards the end of the movie that he’s from San Francisco? What does San Francisco have to do with anything? Ugh. Never mind.

Possessor (2020)

Directorial debut from David Cronenberg’s son Brandon. Should we expect that he’ll have the same penchant toward gross-out body horror as his father? The trailer shows that we might get some of that, but also that it looks to be a super brainy, high concept thing, maybe like a Christopher Nolan type mindfuck.

So Jennifer Jason Leigh (who starred in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ in the 90s) is a scientist and also runs a murder-for-hire operation. Thing is, those two things aren’t separate entities. As a scientist, she’s figured out a way for one person to control the mind, and therefore the physical movements, of another person. So, she takes on clients who want somebody killed, and then has her co-conspirator, a 30-ish year old woman named Vos, take control of the mind and body of a third person who is the one who actually pulls the trigger, and who ends up dead in the transaction, thus leaving JJL and Vos not only unscathed, but not even at the scene of the crime or known to anybody personally involved with the person who was killed.

But these continued missions take quite a toll on Vos, both mentally and physically. And then one of these missions doesn’t exactly go according to plan. Things get complicated and really weird. And really disturbing, too. Have you seen Beyond the Black Rainbow? Same sorta vibe as that one. But with more blood and more graphic violence.

I love the pacing. Camerawork and lighting are top notch. Everything about it is super pro. It can be difficult to watch, content-wise. And no, it doesn’t have anything like David Cronenberg’s trademark body horror, or anything like his oft-visited themes of forced physical evolution of one person’s state of being to another state of being, much like the caterpillar to butterfly transformation. It is definitely a heavy duty sci-fi / horror crossover which was his father’s main game, and the one specific Cronenberg-esque trait that it does have is the use of weird, sci-fi apparatuses, in this case the helmet thing that Vos wears while controlling the third person.

It’s like if Christopher Nolan wrote a story/screenplay and 1970s Dario Argento directed the movie.

Dune Drifter (2020)

How ’bout some straight up sci-fi?

None of us really need to rely on our imaginations to picture how bad some low budget movies are, right? Well, can you imagine making a low budget sci-fi flick with spaceships and alien planets? Well, that’s what this one is, and it’s really damn impressive.

Because at its core, this is a movie about survival. Survival when faced with extreme adversity and life-threatening situation after life-threatening situation.

After a vicious dogfight where a battle crew was essentially sent on a suicide mission, one of the female fighter pilots crash lands on a nearby planet. The planet is uninhabited and inhospitable to human life. Her only hope is to repair her damaged spaceship. Luckily, another spaceship crash landed not too far from her location, from which she hopes to salvage the parts she needs. Unluckily, the planet is now crawling with the same enemy aliens that killed the rest of her crew in the skies above the planet in the previous days.

Minus points for too much shaky cam during shootouts and fights. Plus points for just about everything else. 

Castle Freak (2020)

The problem with a movie like this is that it’s impossible to take at face value. Our brains will always, either consciously or subconsciously, compare it to the 1995 original. While that film isn’t perfect, it’s still a great one, directed by Stuart Gordon, starring Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs. Barbara Crampton was involved in this new version, not on screen, though; she was a co-producer this time around. In any event, let’s see how this one goes. And I’ll try to view it on its own merits, but as I say, it’ll be impossible without making some kinds of compare and contrast or an A/B evaluation with the original.

This one takes forever to get entertaining. A whole lotta talking, a whole lotta characterization, a whole lotta setting up all the circumstances. But ya, the last bit is pretty good. This version draws much more direct actuation from H.P.Lovercraft. The 1995 original was just sorta ‘inspired by the work of’. This one breaks out the Necronomicon, and The Old Ones make an appearance…

The best parts about this one- this one is much more of an ensemble cast than the original, so there’s much more opportunity for people to be killed. Also, at least some filmmakers are finally getting the message and taking to heart that CGI is not the way to go, because this one is 99.999999% practical effects, which look very good. All shot on location in Albania, looks great.

One thing that’s missing from this one is the interpersonal conflict of the original. This new one has some of that, albeit a whole lot more lightweight than the original, and so this new one comes off as just another movie about a monster in the hidden corridors of a big, old, ancient castle, with a totally confusing ending, especially if you’re not super familiar with H.P.L. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not entertaining. I’d say if you’re a fan of the original, you’ll probably like this one, and especially if you’re an H.P.L. / cosmic horror fan.

Ill: Final Contagium (2020)

What better time than now to watch a contagion / outbreak / biohazard / virus movie? I’m already paranoid enough about catching Covid. I don’t think a movie like this will be healthy for my mental state. But alas, let’s dive in.

It starts of in Santiago, Chile, where the virus first escapes into the wild. We go to Rome where some guy gets it. We see some glimpses on the tv news that officials have found it in other parts of the country or the world, but aren’t sure quite what to do at this point. But the guy in Rome keeps getting worse and worse. And we definitely have some Cronenberg type shit going on. In fact, there are a couple clear references to The Fly. And this one should definitely appeal to fans of that movie, because there’s some straight up body-melt type gore in this one.

Then we head over to Kosovo, where we meet a transexual who is getting some sort of back alley collagen / botox treatment in her/his apartment. And as we know, tainted needles are bad news, no matter what the circumstances. And ya, this one goes south quickly.

So this one is simply some people who wanted to make a movie using all the juicy, icky gore effects that they had at their disposal. And they did a great job as far as the gross out factor goes. There isn’t much of a plot or story to this one, but that’s completely secondary to the stomach churning effects which really are expertly done. It’s sort of an anthology film, in that the four sections are directed by four different people, but all with the same element of this virus. Definitely recommended for gore hounds.

The Dark and the Wicked (2020)

We all have our favorite sub-genres within horror, right? I have a few, and Satanism is one of ’em. The Devil’s Rain, The Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Brotherhood of Satan, etc.

And I’ll just go ahead and say it here at the outset- wow! This one is fantastic.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call this one a slow burn. But it is still terrifying, and that slow pace, that patience, very much works to its advantage. Plus, the music is perfect. Slow, somber, ominous pieces with some occasional tribal drums.

There is nothing in this movie that isn’t scary. Goosebumps for an hour and a half straight.

Although I do have one major criticism, and that’s the ending. It’s one of those non-endings that doesn’t explain anything, doesn’t tie up any of the loose ends, doesn’t give any closure at all. So did the brother hallucinate the whole thing? Or did the sister? Or did they both? Or is it some actual supernatural, otherworldly evil/Satan thing? Or is it just another one of those ‘mental illness runs in the family’ movies?

I have a feeling it’s one of those things where the director and/or writer were doing the ‘you’ll have to interpret it for yourself’ type shit. Ya know what? FUCK THAT SHIT. Give us an ending! Bummer. This was about to be one of those movies that I would stash in my hard drive and watch again every once in a while in the coming years. But instead, I’ll just write up this review and send it straight to the trash can, like I do with all the others. Bummer.

And then there are the goats. Obviously, they’re supposed to be symbolic of something. But symbolic of what, I dunno. I don’t do very well with symbolism. My brain just doesn’t catch on. My brain is like one of those lightbulbs you have at home with the dimmer thing, and you set it to about 50%. That’s my brain. Don’t give me symbols. Just show me exactly what you mean on screen and what it means to the story.

Intersect (2020)

OK, so what we have here are some young (early/mid 20s), hot, astro-physicist type scientists (is there any other kind?) who are working on some sort of inter-dimensional time-travel portal thing, and it turns out that it works, and there was much rejoicing and talk of Pulitzer Prizes. Thing is, once you start messing with inter-dimensional time-travel portal type things, you’re gonna piss off H.P.Lovecraft. And really, all of us should by now that you never want to piss off H.P.Lovecraft.

I think it’s kind of automatic to assume that when a movie is called Lovecraftian, to expect it to be a horror film. But really, this one is not a horror movie. So what we get with this one is a whole lotta talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. The script for his movie must have been 250 pages.

We get some brief glimpses of some scary alien creature at a couple points, always seen by the main character, either as a grown man or in the scenes when he’s a teenager, and I thought it was odd that he never seemed frightened or startled by it, at least at first. It’s some sort of grotesque, spindle-y, gurgling creature, and he reacted to it no differently than if his pet cat walked in the room.

Most of the movie is just following around these three teenagers in their day-to-day lives, and these monster things are occasionally lurking in dark corners or creeping out from behind alleyway trash cans. Are the monsters real? Or is it just another one of those movies where the monsters are supposed to be some representation, some embodiment, some symbol of some deep-seated fear or regret.

And then there’s a scene towards the end of the end of the movie where the main character, still in the teenager scenes, meets, for the first time, the guy who has been his mentor and a good teacher friend of his for the entire movie. So is this supposed to be one of those Christopher Nolan things where the movie is edited in reverse, like Memento? But there are other parts of the movie that definitely aren’t edited in reverse, so how the hell are we supposed to know? And then we see clocks ticking in reverse. And they did after all, as adults, build a time machine portal, so what does that have to do with things later in the movie seemingly happening in reverse? Bah, my brain hurts.

Monster CGI is very well done. All other CGI is so-so. Nice to hear some bass clarinet.

#Alive (2020)

Zombie outbreak in Seoul. Our main character, a young man, early 20s maybe, and very tech savvy, is safe, but isolated in his locked apartment, many stories from ground level, in a giant apartment building which is teeming with zombies. He’s worried about his parents and sister, who left the house for errands shortly before all hell broke loose. And he grows increasingly worried about how much longer he can survive on the dwindling food supply in the apartment. Things get desperate, and he reaches his breaking point.

Sound familiar? Ya, it sounds like the same zombie movie you’ve seen a million times already, right? Well, it pretty much is. But it is well done. The middle act drags, but there is always some tension, some dramatic curiosity that keeps you engaged. And it does take some twists and turns, which is nice. Not totally unexpected, but not totally cliché, either.

So ya, good one. Not gonna be one of those lifetime keepers that I put on a hard drive and revisit someday. But it’s worth an hour and a half.

Amulet (2020)

Pretty good one. Most of the film leans toward a slow, artsy, Euro style, but it’s not boring. Things, of course, ramp up towards the end, and unexpectedly, it goes into a little bit of a Lovecraftian direction. The subtleties of the story would probably make a bit more sense to me if I watched it again.