October 26th
 

The Exorcist III The Legion Cut. (1990)

What the hell did i watch here?

I really like the theatrical cut of The Exorcist III. Over the years i've often preferred it to the original film. However prior to seeing this version i hadn't actually watched the film in several years. Meaning although i knew the ins and outs of the story it wasn't in any clear detail.

Why the hell was the second half of the film all practically vhs quality? Shit vhs quality at that. Many of those scenes are in the theatrical cut in i imagine pristine condition so why did they look like shit here? Were two different films made or something?

Anyway, i need to go back and watch the original version then follow it up with the Legion Cut and then watch it with Mark Kermode and Kim Newman's commentary and then i'll get back to you. Because quite honestly this version watched on it's own is a mess.

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters. 2013.

The siblings who faced a witch in their childhood now bounty hunters, are called upon when children from a small village have been taken and may find answers as to why they were abandoned by their parents.

Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the sibling who aren't really scared of taken a beating, Famke Janssen plays the Grand High Witch who likes to show her true face and Peter Stormare as the town Sheriff who likes to turn people against each other. This is great entertainment for the horror/fantasy genre with some laughs that go along the way and yeah the blood splatter at parts is CGI but actually works well in this film. If you are fan of Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow then you will enjoy this.

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Up next His House

I watched the Legion Cut once to see what it was like and referted back to the Theatrical Cut.

30 Days Of Unseen Horror

Day 27

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An Egyptian high priest must travel to America to reclaim the body of the Princess Ananka and her protector the mummy Kharis. The retrieval of the bodies hits a stumbling block when the Priest discovers the spirit of the Princess has been reincarnated into the body of another woman who is the spitting image of the Princess.

This isn't a bad film but it's nothing great either. The mummy at first glance looks cool but then the more you see him the more you notice that's wrong with him like the strange 1950s slicked back hairstyle under all the mud he is covered in. There wasn't any convincing anyone that the person commiting the murders was an actual Mummy usually the cops say something like we only deal in facts and not superstitions or the likes but straight away they agree yes it's a mummy on the rampage. I did really like the ending but the rest of the film was not very memorable the main problem with these films is the run time is so short that they always try cram everything into the final few minutes and then bang it's over and this is the case here unfortunately.

Decent but nothing I'd watch again.

October 26th
 

Night of the Demons 2 (1994)

Brian Trenchard-Smith's film is more of the same really. College kids go to eerie mansion for their Halloween party and find it's the lair of Angela and her demonic minions. Superior to the first because the group of teens are better.

Recently bought on Blu-ray. Seeing as it's something i tend to watch once a year might as well have it in the best available version.

His House. 2020.

A couple flee from war torn Sudan to the U.K. and are given asylum, when they are given a house and try to settle they believe their house is haunted.

This was a strange one, it deals with refugee, asylum seekers and part racism but also dark superstition from a different culture. Sope Dirisu and Wumi Mosaku play the parts of the couple decently with Matt Smith in a small role as the council housing member for them but never really given a big role. It is more psychological drama rather than horror, it does have one or two jump scares and a different version of a witch but not sure if one i'd return to watch again.

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Up next Blood Red Sky

And because of Morbid Angel :D

God damn! I've been thinking of Morbid Angel all sodding day and mentioning them in my review, then when it came to it i forgot.

F*cking eejit!

Morbid Angel- Covenant - A classic slice of Death Metal

On the plus side i've got an Astral Fortress arriving on the morrow. Can't wait to give that a listen in full.

Blood Red Sky. 2021.

A plane heading from Germany to London is hijacked in mid flight, a woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action to save the passengers and her son who is board.

I went into this on a blind watch and had no idea what to expect, I thought it be a daft remake or another take on the film Flight Of The Living Dead...but I was wrong. I'm not going to reveal anything incase no one has seen it but it is dubbed in some areas, very bloody and enjoyable. The make up effects are done well and partly seen before.

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BEYOND THE LIMITS – ‘Beyond The Limits’ comes from Olaf Ittenbach, a name familiar to anyone with an interest in underground German splatter. Here, he perhaps steps away from his earlier stuff to embrace a slightly more erm ‘upmarket’ vision? But you can’t exactly imagine it playing The Southbank. Anyway, BTL fills its inflated run time with two tales, both connected by a mythic sacred heart variant. The first segment is a chamber piece that breaks down into a dinner party massacre after the arrival of a Martin Lewis lookalike with a tribal tattoo and leather strides. His assistant looks like they should be in a middle aged ‘Duran Duran’ tribute pub act. Or maybe ‘Flock Of Seagulls’. There’s a few squibs and a bit of ankle-hacking, but the main draw of this slice, besides Lewis et al, has to be its general ineptitude. Everyone looks and sounds like they’re on steroids, constantly gurning as they deliver lines that die in their mouths – all that stuff pushes it into a fuzzy zone between tedium and hilarity, somewhere I quite like to visit whenever I get the chance. The second part surprises with a swift relocation to medieval times. There’s stuff about corrupt inquisitorial types and a general ‘Mark Of The Devil’ kind of nastiness, although the tone is too flat and too silly for Ittenbach’s grim ambitions to wash. He can’t resist sticking in one of his trademark visions of hell at the finish, a nice treat that ends the film on a weirdly visionary note, not that he’s suddenly morphed into Ken Russell or anything. Considering he’s the sort of director who has a track record for pushing the depiction of graphic violence outside mainstream norms, ‘Beyond The Limits’ does NOT go beyond the limits. You could justifiably call it Ittenbach-lite. Going back to what I said at the beginning, it trades the excesses of ‘Burning Moon’ and ‘Premutos’, in terms of both gore and lo-fi, for a more palatable approach – the production values, cinematography etc are all OK looking, if pedestrain, although you do get a bit of nice atmosphere in the medieval section. And there is still quite a lot of splatter, just not a landslide of steaming entrails. I enjoyed it for its goofiness more than anything. I imagine if you’re into this kind of stuff you’ll have seen it already