December 5th.
Nightmare Man (2006)
Cheap as chips, low budget, slasher film starring the always lovely Tiffany Shepis. For a digitally filmed piece the director, Rolfe Kanesky has managed to create a film with quite a nice atmosphere, enhanced by a lovely creepy score. The film concerns a woman who claims she is being attacked by the Nightmare Man, a creature which may or may not have come from an African fertility mask. After one such attack she seeks help from a group of young people at a cottage in the forest. From here on things get worse for the group as the Nightmare Man comes calling.
Although the story sounds simple, it has some neat twists and turns where everything is not quite as it seems. The film is reasonably well acted and characters on the whole, believable. Whilst having some nice gore effects the film relies more on atmosphere for its scares especially during the first half. The films final denouenment i actually found quite tough going. A little like the tree attack in Evil Dead but more graphic.
The Tournament (2009)
Top notch action thriller set in Middlesbrough of all places. Every seven years in an unsuspecting city somewhere in the world the top thirty assasins in the world gather for a tournament to see who survives and claims the $10m first prize in a battle to the death in the streets. Robert Carlyle, Ving Rhames and Kelly Hu head the cast of this highly enjoyable kill fest. Limbs fly bullets richochet and the bodycount explodes. We have running battles in the streets, not to mention strip clubs. Some of the action set pieces are very creative and allow the movie to stand out from the crowd.
Fans of Shoot em' Up, and maybe Death Race should get off on this one.
Without spoiling this for people i will say this is very highly recommended and one of the best straight to video films i've seen in a long time
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