A blog exploring the sexy, shocking, surreal, and silly side of horror films.

September 29, 2011

"The App Killer" -- Help fund a new horror film

What are the odds that I'd write two entries this week about movies where killers use apps to find their victims?

If the idea appeals to you, you can help make a filmmaker's dream a reality. Director Pau Masó is raising funds on IndieGoGo for his new project, The App Killer, which he describes as Saw meets Hostel meets Scream.

By contributing to his project,  you can claim some nice perks. Check out what's in store for you by donating to The App Killer.




September 28, 2011

X Marks the Spot (Short Film Review)

Review: X Marks the Spot (2011)
[Short film]

Director : Travis Legge

Looking to murder some vulnerable young women? There's an app for that!

In X Marks the Spot, the twisted short film from Twisted Central Productions, Abigail is a young woman addicted to the Friend Tracker app on her Blackberry. She won't get off the damn thing. She should have listened to the privacy warnings from her friend Chloe, however. Friend Tracker soon becomes a Fiend Attractor when a creepy dude name Patrick starts following Abigail's every move using the app: a stalker's mobile wet dream.

I love the premise of horror movies in which our own disregard for modern digital privacy comes back to bite us in the ass, but X Marks the Spot doesn't do much with its premise. The coming of the killer is telegraphed from the very start and plays out fairly predictably without much tension. As a low budget short, X Marks the Spot also suffers from rough sound quality and unfortunate day-for-night shots. Interestingly, X Marks the Spot doesn't attempt to stylize, dwell on, or glamorize its violence, but then again there's nothing particularly graphic about it to show. The whole short seems geared toward a visual gag at the end that, while darkly funny, doesn't seem to justify the short's entire running time.

A good idea, but X Marks the Spot mostly misses its target.

September 12, 2011

Fiend Without a Face (Review)

Fiend Without a Face (1958) 

Director: Arthur Crabtree

British science fiction films only flourished for a brief period of time, and British sci-fi / horror was on the scene for even less. As a result, a classic like Fiend Without a Face shines even brighter in the back catalog of genre cinema. Sincere, unexpected, and unprecedentedly grisly, Fiend Without a Face is the best of the evil brain films, and appropriately enshrined in the Criterion Collection.

SYNOPSIS 

A joint American / Canadian military operation is experimenting with atomic radiation to create an enhanced radar system for detecting missile attacks and keeping tabs on the Soviets. It's 1958, and the world is in the grips of the Cold War. Fear is in the air; even the town's people are distrustful of the military and blame problems with their cattle on the secret experiments going on behind closed doors and 30000-50000 feet in the air. But soon people start to die and their autopsies reveal that their brains and spinal cords are completely missing. Is this the horrible side effect of negligent military experiments?

I told you that cellphones cause tumors!
No, it's much worse. The killers are invisible brain-like creatures that feed on nuclear radiation and suck out the brains of their victims. Yet, they're not the military's fault. They are the horrible product of experiments by the reclusive Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves) who has been striving to turn thought into reality. Using nuclear energy siphoned off from the military's experiments, Walgate manages to manifest his thoughts in the form of one of these fiends. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a mental vampire that escapes Walgate's control. Feeding on the radiation, reproducing, and growing stronger and more cunning, these fiends only become visible after causing the military's nuclear plant to go critical. By then, it may be too late for Major Cummings (Marshall Thompson) to stop them.

Rating: 4 / 5 Mental Vampires



IS IT SHOCKING?


Although Fiend Without a Face hails from that era of the 1950s B-movie, and it has all the hallmarks of the era that we satirize, Fiend Without a Face is serious and unpretentious. As a result, the grotesque nature of the fiends is not glossed over. Sure, the human deaths aren't very gory (especially since the creatures are invisible at first and the actors are pantomiming being strangled), but most of the horror is left to your imagination and accentuated by the superbly stomach-churning sucking/throbbing noise that signifies the presence of the fiends.

This is your fiend. This is your fiend on drugs.
The film doesn't get truly shocking until the final climax when the fiends attack and our heroes open fire. Whenever the fiends are shot or bludgeoned, they erupt in a squelching, sputtering explosion of chunky gore. They even melt into noxious, greasy puddles. It's incredibly graphic by 1958 standards, and still disgusting by today's.

Its only moment of silliness occurs when a partial-victim of the fiends resurfaces with brain damage and making the most ridiculously mentally-challenged noises.

Huurrrr. Derp derp derp.
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After all these years, Fiend Without a Face still manages to offer some shocking ideas and disturbing  visuals, but it's also a well-acted, solidly-produced, and well-conceived film. The stop-motion creature effects are rough at times, but for the era they are excellent. Sometimes, they almost reach the levels of fluidity and immersion seen in the work of Ray Harryhausen. All together, Fiend Without a Face is a solid fusion of science-fiction, horror, and social subtext. It's not the power of the atom or alien invaders we need to fear but, instead, the evil things that come from within our own minds.

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