PATHOLOGY – New doc on the block tries hard to show he can cut it with his cohort of medical psychopaths in this slightly undistinguished but lean horror thriller. Because it's set in a pathology lab, expect plenty of mangled cadavers – this may or may not satiate the gorehound in you, as most of the grue is fairly static and non-dramatic, and anyway grossness isn't really 'Pathology's raison d'etre. As a slick and slightly twisty thriller it delivers, for the most part. In the end though it becomes ludicrous – nothing mind blowing or bizarre, just the kind of ham fisted, ill fitting ludicrousness which makes you look back on the last ninety or so minutes and wonder whether they were actually lamer than they seemed. That aside, entertaining enough.
DEAD SILENCE – From James Wan, director of the fabled 'Saw' and a few others. 'Dead Silence' doesn't have a very good reputation because it came out on the back of a film that was hugely popular but still divisive, the fickle masses being what they are, and critics even worse. I didn't see a problem with it, perhaps mainly because I'm a fan of mannequin and doll weirdness. Even so, my personal kinks notwithstanding, I thought it was a well made, smooth piece of mainstream horror. It's about a guy who runs into difficulties when his girlfriend turns up dead with a crazily deformed mouth after a ventriloquist's dummy is delivered to his apartment. He goes back to his home town to sort it all out and becomes embroiled in some local mythology about a doll maker and her sinister powers. I thought it was quite fun and aesthetically nice to look at, slightly 'Burtonesque' for want of a better term.
THE HAND – Cartoonist Michael Caine is a bit pissed off when he loses a hand in an accident. Not only is his livelihood on the line, but his relationship is in jeopardy... and, in a less foreseeable development to anyone but a horror fan, his long lost hand finds it has life of its own and sets about ruining MC's life in a more murder-oriented kind of way. Is something supernatural happening? Is it all a metaphor for Michael's repressed rage? Who knows. What I do know is, 'The Hand' is a moderately involving horror movie which chalks up a few more hits than it does misses. First off, there's Caine himself, who doesn't turn in his most distinguished performance, but still that kind of simmering menace he sometimes projects is here in abundance. The relationship-paranoia aspect is handled well, the film takes itself seriously but still dares to be absurd and, most importantly for me, the sequences featuring the severed hand crawling along are eerily effective and surreal, even if they don't go anywhere graphic. On the downside... it's a bit too long, there's not (beyond MC) enough of the things that make it good, and it could've been attacked more viciously by Oliver Stone, who, in some parallel world, might've gone all Cronenberg on this one's ass (but obviously wouldn't in anything approaching 'the real world', being a very different auteur... one whose fame garnering social conscience was still a few miles away from the silver screen by the time he made 'The Hand'). Although personally I prefer the unembarrassed no-brow trash of 'Demonoid' when it comes to hand movies, 'The Hand' is certainly worth a look, and, if you also fancy checking out Wes Craven's gonzoid eighties robot killer teen romance 'Deadly Friend' along with Carpenter's 'Someone's Watching Me' and vaguely sleazy slasher 'Eyes of a Stranger', they're all on a good picture quality four disc set that can be purchased from the world's premier internet shopping service for a measly seven or eight quid.
SUPERSTITION – Always have slightly high hopes when I sit down with this supernatural slasher from the early eighties – memory reports it as being fast, no nonsense and quite nasty with some nicely haunting back lit visuals involving its witchy killer. Reality, on fourth or fifth viewing since I first set eyes on it ten years ago, reveals it to be fairly dull, badly acted, a bit gory in parts (but most of this is confined to the first half hour) and disappointingly free of the monstrous being my mind conjured to fill in for the murderer. Oh well. Another film I'm always really drawn to, 'The Slayer', actually delivers, whereas this one leaves me feeling short changed. Still, another two or three years and I'll be digging it out again, hoping for the best. Hope instead that I read this review before I watch it again.
IN THEIR SKIN – This is a pretty good home invasion flick which shows a middle class American family being terrorised by their slightly down at heel counterparts. There's stuff going on under the surface about social status and loss and latter day US insecurity which is all quite interesting but a bit superficially rendered – it just seems too easy to use this kind of set up, specifically home invasion, as a vehicle for exploring those kind of tensions. On the other hand, the narrative here is compelling and the atmosphere is taut (and strangely melancholic), despite not all that much happening – that to me is the mark of a good film, making not much seem like a lot, or making a lot seem like not much but in the kind of way that leaves you with a gradually dawning sense of, “yes, this is quite a lot when I thought it to be not much”. Wow, this is the least sensible review I've ever written. The film is much better however, so you should check it out.
ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST – One of those good ol' boys who'll never let you down – or will he? How many of these movies live in our memories as venerable monarchs of the 'nasty' era , only to be revealed, years later, as snivelling shits in the cold light of the massive hi def TV? I have to ask, after my experience with 'Superstition' (see above). Happily for me, 'Zombie Holocaust' remains the bone headed delight it always was. It took me a while to get into it after I sat down with the 88 version the other day, but the strange magic of those zombies appearing from the depths of the jungle still hit home, as did Donald O'Brien's megalomaniacal turn as Dr Butcher MD – so quotable, so effortlessly casual in his cartoon sadism. Great. And the whole film, as nearly all of you will know, is just a barrage of trash film idiocy, violence and nudity, a testament to the power of senselessness. I like it way more than Fulci's boring 'Zombie Flesh Eaters', put it that way.
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