(HORROR) The Bell Witch Haunting - 2013 *

Can you take a film seriously if it's got a poster that looks like this? Why would anything based on true events look like a cartoon doll from
Probably not, and even less so if the story is so bad. Which it is. Disregarding certain discrepancies (it being February and people wandering about in their bikinis) the film does one of those styles of starting at the end, then jumping backwards and forwards like a tiddlywink.
It seems that the Bell Witch, America's most famous entity, is back slaughtering young and stupid teenagers. And the whole thing is being filmed as though we are sitting on a boat that's about to capsize. It's very badly made and very badly acted.

(HORROR) Mr Jones - 2013 **

Mr Jones is one of those films you would probably have to watch a number of times for it to make sense. But most people wouldn't want to watch it more than once, because it's a bloody nightmare (literally!).
A couple go to a cabin in the woods to work on a documentary and become embroiled in a strange battle with an mysterious figure, known only as Mr Jones. It turns into a massive acid trip in a strange alternate universe and I became less and less enamoured with it as time went by. Just a mess, and the result of a director thinking too much and trying too hard to be 'different' and 'clever'.

Night School - 1981 ***

Rather cheesy eighties slasher about a maniac who targets girls at night school in a series of terrifying ways. The cop assigned to it isn't really too pleased to see heads of women in strange locations, and is even more disgusted when he finds a head in the basin in the local café.
Delving deeper he finds out that the professor at the College is a bit of a ladies man, with affairs and pregnancies abundant and begins to get a funny feeling about him.
Not to be taken too seriously, this is an 80s horror to watch.

(HORROR) Delivery: The Beast Within - 2013 ***

Firstly, the poster doesn't relate to the film at all. The film doesn't involve any sort of  'ghost girl' or a creepy old room with a baby cot. But apart from that, the film is pretty creepy. It revolves around a young couple who agree to document their first pregnancy for the purposes of a reality TV show.
It starts off well, and the baby appears healthy, but then things go wrong, the couple fight and things get very tense and heated. Things start going downhill, fast.
Not a bad effort, and I liked how it was all set up.

(HORROR) Road Train - 2010 *

A group of friends become involved in a car crash whilst camping in the outback. In going for help they are inadvertently put into more danger as they become overpowered by a strange force. There isn't much to say about this film. It's awful and whoever directed it should be shot.

(HORROR) Fear Lives Here - 2012 **

What more excitement could one viewer have that watching a whole film about a group of idiots who get stranded in a remote area whilst hiking and end up spending most of the evening in their car. Oh, and they do encounter a strange ghostly boy who appears and disappears every now and again. It's awfully predictable and turns into something even worse. The characters in these films are always so thick that it doesn't surprise me that they die in such stupid/hilarious ways. This is no exception.

 

(HORROR) Jug Face - 2013 ***

Obviously with a title like 'Jug Face' it's hard to take the film seriously, and actually it did make me snigger throughout for its ludicrously stupid storyline, but overall it's not too bad. The premise is bizarre - a young teenager Ada, is pregnant with her brother's baby and lives in a disturbing backwoods community, where the local celebrity is a man who carves faces out of jugs which symbolise the people who are to be routinely sacrificed into a large pit in exchange for the community's health and longevity. No one knows from day to day who will be the next to be sacrificed, and when Ada finds her face on the next jug, she becomes scared (understandably) and hides it. This leads to others being sacrificed in her place.
It's a novel idea for a horror film, and I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.
Strange overall.

(HORROR) 247f - 2011 ****

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. It was well done, atmospheric, and COULD happen (if you were extremely unlucky). The only thing I didn't like was how infuriating the lead female was (but then the leads always are). Four friends go to their mate's cabin for the weekend to relax in his new and snazzy sauna. Things seem to be going well, and both couples are pairing up. But when the guy gets stoned and shuts his friends into the sauna without a way out, they start to panic big time.
It's quite a simple concept, but has to be drawn out for a full feature length, and it is. Typical American teenager stupidity however at doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.

(HORROR) The Mooring - 2012 *

Another pathetic excuse for genuine horror, this movie takes awful actors and clumps them into an even worse setting where they have to be weaned off their addiction to technology (surely there are worse addictions you could have?!) and in doing so, mean a scary girl with yellow teeth who's boyfriend is a total nut job. The acting is so bad it makes you want to throw yourself out of a window. It's definitely one of the weakest storylines in a horror as well.

(HORROR) Roadside Massacre - 2012 *

Ranking as one of the very worst horror movies I have seen. In the last week. (Because let's face it, I see dire horror movies every week) A group of five friends take a detour on the way to their spring break destination, and on the way get sucked into the cannibalistic goings on that occur at the local BBQ joint. Hilarious scenes of eating other people in BBQ form, hysterical sex scenes in barns and terrifying eyebrows are just some of the delights that you will encounter. It's a yawnfest, and the characters are so stupid that it beggars belief that they can function at all, let alone drive a car.

(HORROR) Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones - 2014 **

 

The weakest of the Paranormal Activity franchise, this movie isn't good. It's disjointed and the story rolls backwards and forwards, all over the place. A young boy begins to experience strange things after the peculiar death of his neighbour, and after a while finds out that he has been 'marked' by demonic entities as the next to go. It sounds like a fascinating premise but actually it's deeply unscary, with out of proportion jumps and bad acting. Keep to the four main films and give this one a miss.

(HORROR) Mischief Night - 2014 **

What the actual hell did I just watch??! *spoilers* Expecting to see a run of the mill intruder movie that would give me a few jumps, I was surprised that I appeared to be watching a film about a sadomasochistic teenager who falls in love with the maniac that breaks into the house she is babysitting. I did for a short time thing it was a clever spoof of the 'typical masked intruder' set up and the teenager was going to be very clever and outsmart him as a sort of parody, but then I realised she was just bonkers. There was a ridiculously long, drawn out scene where the pair drone on and on about their 'feelings' after he's attempted to kill her, resulting in them rushing up to bed and the maniac stabbing the teenager as they have sex because 'she wants it to hurt.' That is the sort of strange, surreal head trip that you should expect.
I have really never understood people who enjoy pain, when it's our body's way of telling us that something isn't right. Why anyone would go looking for pain is beyond me.
It's not what you are expecting at all and I guess it's sort of original, but not enough to be good.

(HORROR) The Perfect House - 2013 *

Absolutely appalling movie that tries so hard to be exciting and new, but just ends up being as bad as all the other horrors out there.
A young couple (the woman is wearing white stilettos..) go to view what they think is going to be their dream house and are met by a disturbingly slutty looking estate agent with her cleavage out who rolls around on the bed and whips her hair back and forth. (Just a tad odd). This seems to convince the man however that he wants the house immediately, regardless of the fact he hasn't really seen any of the house itself. As she explains to them about the basement, we are shown a flashback of three horrendous stories, each involving crazy lunatics who massacred people down there. They really are very bad, and the first flashback is hilariously shown in black and white (because apparently the 1970s, 80s or 90s didn't have colour). The acting is beyond appalling, and my friend and I actually joked at the beginning that it was the sort of script you would get in a porn film, before realising that it was disturbingly similar to one.
This was just dire.

(HORROR) Reel Evil - 2012 *

It's a shame that so many found footage movies have to be so awful and so very tedious. This is no exception, and though it looks highly ridiculous from the poster I had decided to give it a chance anyway. But I shouldn't have bothered. It was the same awful rubbish as I have seen countless times.
People have to film a documentary in an old building and become terrified by unseen ghosts and ghouls etc. Except we do see the 'ghost' and she's enough to give me a tremendous fit of the giggles. I should try and stop watching these types of movies because I am always disappointed, but somehow I can't quite press the stop button.

(HORROR) The Dyatlov Pass Incident - 2013 **

For anyone actually interested in finding out about the real Dyatlov incident it's pointless to bother with this film. It doesn't explain anything, except *spoiler* that people disappear into a disjointed wormhole where past and present are mixed up in the most ludicrous, deranged fashion (like an drug addled episode of Dr Who). Also, I noticed that one of the actresses from Hollyoaks graced the film with her presence, so obviously her career has gone down the toilet to say the least. She says many memorable things throughout the film, such as how cold it is and how she doesn't want to be there because it's cold, as well as it being hard to film because... it's cold. How she ever got a part in anything is beyond me.
The acting was horrendous and utterly weird. A no-no.

(HORROR) The Quiet Ones - 2014 **

 

For a movie that appeared to have so much advertising and excitement about it on it's release, it's mind blowing to think how awful and badly acted this film actually is.

Set in 1970s Oxford (it couldn't look LESS like 1970s Oxford if it tried) the film follows a professor who tries to dispel a myth of possession on tape and invites a handful of people to help him prove that it's all in the mind. They use a woman named Jane as their 'subject' and the film consists of them all experimenting on her and running around screaming in a country house.

I really think that this was a poor film, and it had no redeeming qualities to it at all, and I think that if they were planning on setting it somewhere as obvious as Oxford, that they could've tried a bit harder to make it look realistic.

 

(HORROR) The Den - 2013 ****

A young woman studying social sciences tries to get a grant to study the habits of the people on an online chat room. At first she is disappointed because there doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile in her findings, that is until she uncovers what she believes to be a horrendous murder taking place before her very eyes that someone has posted. Desperate to find out more, she ends up putting herself and others in mortal danger.
I was surprised at this, and liked the way it built itself up to a horrific crescendo.
For a 'found footage' movie, it was pretty good, quite unique, and kept me interested the whole time.

(HORROR) The Appearing - 2014 *

Oh dear. Not a good film. An abandoned building that a family decide is the perfect place to be (when will these people learn??), a scary Patrick Swayze clone who can't act, a load of 'scary' pop up moments that make you chuck water over yourself (by mistake, not because they are any good). It's a poor excuse for a film. It's really not worth watching. I saw this right after 'The Quiet Ones' thinking it couldn't be any worse, but actually...

(HORROR) Oculus - 2013 ***

"Oculus' tries to be original, tries to be quirky and tries to be unique. On some levels its pretty good, and I haven't seen anything like it before. On the other hand its too much of an arty mishmash to be anything other than a mess of director s and writers trying to be too clever. The idea of a haunted/cursed mirror has been done before, but even so its never been done in this manner, and certain parts are genuinely frightening. Overall though, the two main characters are ridiculous. The girl comes across as though she's taken a hearty suck on a bong and hasn't quite come down, and the bloke doesn't fare much better. The film combines the past lives of the brother and sister with the present, as all the awful things that happened when they were younger centred around/next to the star of the show; the mirror. The mirror makes normal people do horrible things, and turn into vicious psychopaths, and will take said people 'into the parallel universe. It's all a bit complicated. Worth a watch I guess.

(HORROR) Dark Feed - 2013 **

Oh what an ingenious idea to make a film about a group of film makers making a film, how utterly unique. Except no, it's not, and I'm amazed that the same people who wrote 'The Ward' actually had a hand in this. 

The group of 'filmmakers' are a bit of a motley crew, and decide to save a bit on their budget by filming in an abandoned hospital which gradually sends them all insane. For some reason there is also a vague attempt at humour, but it fails miserably, in fact making the whole thing a lot more disturbing and there are the typical close ups of large chests and dumb blonde bimbos for the gormless male audience.