Schmollywood Babylon

Faust 2.0 (various, 2014)

I generally stay away from reviewing movies people I know have made, with a few exceptions of course. Why? Because sometimes you’ve just watched a movie you hate and now you feel obliged to both be honest to the audience and still be kind to your friends. So it’s a double edge and most of the times I just watch the movie and then ignore to write a review of it, because sometimes it’s better to be quiet. Faust 2.0, or Killer App as it once was called, involves a lot of people I know - so it took a couple of months for me to actually watch it, because I knew I had to write a review of it anyway. A typical First World problem ;)

The Devil (voiced by legendary Swedish actor Per Ragnar) have come up with a good way to infect our souls with his evilness and that’s through apps. And this is the story of five of those apps, and the poor people who took the fateful decision to download them.

First out is Robert Selin’s Bad News. A young woman, the daughter of a famous journalist, have scored one of her first jobs - as a journalist. She’s gonna work the night shift and this during a time when a nasty serial killer is roaming the streets of Stockholm. But her boss gives her an app that will help her in her research. It uses amalgamated technology and she can see stuff that no one else can see, but what is really going on? Will the things she see lead her to the killer, or is there something more sinister going on? Bad News isn’t bad at all, no pun intended, it’s a stylish and maybe a bit too abstract in it’s storytelling and the acting is very, very stiff. But I like it and it triggers that famous imagination in my mind, I wanted to see more, I want to know more.

The next story is Johannes Pinter’s InspirAPPtion and it tells the story of a horror writer with a writer’s block. His agent (or what the hell it is) gives him an advice, write or he’s fucked. And boy, in that moment an ad pops up on his phone, an app for creative people. It will help him to construct a story just by adding a couple of key words to the system. He does that and seconds later a woman runs up to his house and asks for help, and then shit hits the fan! It’s a great idea, but it’s an underwhelming episode. It also feels a bit sloppy and not especially thought-through. It never dares to go all the way, and in the end you just wonder how the fuck that app could inspired anyone to anything?!

The man behind this anthology project is Nicolas Debot, who’s also a well-known distributor here in Sweden. In his story, See Alice, we meet a man sitting in an hotel room - feeling a bit horny, so he uses an app to connect with a young and hot woman who shows up at his door faster than he could expect. She brings him to a club, The Hellfire Club, and then things starts to go wrong. I know Debot’s fascination for nudity and this one is packed with flesh, and the obligatory dick-shot, and I like it. Not just the dick-shot, but the atmosphere of the story. The twist isn’t that strong or far out, but the story works. But hey, that guy playing the lead is not especially good. Which is what drags it down a bit.

Moral Call is an interesting episode, directed by Allan Gustafsson. It’s set in the corporate world of a weapon manufacturer. When the news hit that the company have sold weapons to countries who uses it to deliberately kill innocent citizens an app shows up, starting to affect those using it, bringing the victims into their own lives. This is the best part, and with some really fine acting by Katharina Bothén and Per Burell. It feels big and serious and uses Stockholm in a great way. The ending is abrupt and it takes a few moments to realize what happened, but I think Gustafsson handled it very well. A surprisingly political episode...which leads us to the next...

In The Discreet Charm of the Internet Troll, Micke Engström creates an uneven but still quite effective showdown with the internet trolls of Sweden. A woman starts seeing things when connecting to an app, a demon or some kind starts telling her, inspiring her to do stuff, write stuff and at the same time she’s mourning her husband who dumped her. But things starts to get out of hand and it doesn’t end well. I’m not totally sure, but I think what we have here is a wonderfully brutal diss of Sverigedemokraterna, the Swedish neo-nazi party (neo-liberals refuse to call them that, but even if you put makeup on a pig it’s still pig). So even if it’s a bit all over the place, it dares to spark some controversy. Me like.

Faust 2.0 was good. It’s not the best anthology movie I’ve seen, but it’s far more ambitious than some of the other reviews I’ve read claims it to be. It’s quite far from the comic book style the American anthologies often brings up. And for you who’s curious of Sweden it’s a pretty good way to at least see how Stockholm looks during the night ;)

Faust 2.0 is out on DVD and blu-ray here in Sweden, with English subs and a reversible cover in the same language.

Hi-8: Horror Independent 8 (various directors, 2013)

One thing I envy with the United States is the wild, crazy and totally independent movie scene then have over there. I don’t think any other country can rival when it comes to indie horror, from zero budget to a couple of millions. Not all of them are good of course, but at least people are shooting movies and learning all the time. The best school of filmmaking in my humble opinion. Here in Sweden we have a bunch of pretentious assholes pretending to be superstars. You can imagine how boring it is to check out the work of Swedish independent filmmakers who desperately trying to be as boring as possible.

I’ve been waiting or Hi-8: Horror Independent 8 for quite some time now, and finally it’s out on DVD in the US and I, of course, ordered it directly. Why? Well, I’ve always had a soft spot for director Brad Sykes. He’s a typical director of micro budget movies, shot on video, and release on small labels. But some of his movies have also been released outside the US, and hopefully this project is one of them.

It starts off like a really, really cheap slasher movie - probably a nod to Brad Sykes own Camp Blood trilogy. It turns out to be three 20 something kids shooting their own horror movie in and around an abandoned zoo. This turns out to be the wraparound story, titled “No Budget Films Presents...” directed by Sykes himself. We get to meet these characters between every part of the anthology, and their fight to shoot a really cheap horror movie even if the odds are against them.

The first episode out is Tim Ritter’s “Switchblade Insane”, which starts of in a disappointing way - a typical serial killer slashing away young chicks, until it toys with this idea and twists the concept to something quite fun and sick. Good acting and a nice pace makes this one a good start after all. Oh, and for you who enjoy boobs and sleaze: it delivers a bit of both!

But it’s Markus Koch’s “A Very Bad Situation” that really sets the the first bar. It begins with a suspenseful montage of meteorites hitting the earth. There’s something inside them, as we see from a fragment of a newscast. We meet a bunch of people who have barricaded themselves inside a garage, from what’s outside there. The question is of course if they’re safe in there… or are they really alone? Good gore, cool creature effects and overall a nice little episode.

Third man out is Tony Masiello with “The Tape”, a tribute to SOV filmmakers out there and the story itself reminds me of the excellent The Hills Run Red. This time a video store employee finds a never seen SOV horror movie and he decides (together with his not so interested girlfriend) to find the people behind his unknown classic: Bloodgasm! Of course nothing turns out as planned.

The fourth episode is "Gang Them Style", directed by Ron Bonk. And it might be the most commercial part of the this anthology movie. Wes Reid (he could be something, remember I told you first!) is RJ “Mongoose” MacReady, a self-made zombie-killer who have one mission: to get his mother at the hospital. Well and all her very, very slow friends. Some big laughs here and everything is very well directed and acted. Probably the best-looking episode also. My favorite of the bunch.

"Genre Bending", directed by Chris Seaver, is the title of the fifth episode. Initially I was skeptical, it looks cheap and sloppy...but after a while it felt like this was the meaning, because the comedy is charming and vulgar, the actors totally out there but genuinely funny. It’s a black comedy about stalking, but with a few twists. Liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

Todd Sheets gives us "The Request", a film that starts when a radio host gets strange calls, from someone claiming - he believes - to be his ex-girlfriend. The problem is of course the killed her one year ago… is someone out for revenge or is there something even more sinister going on? Good stuff, but I could have seen it a bit longer actually! I wanted more, which by itself is a pretty good rating I guess.

Legendary micro budget filmmaker Donald Famer of Cannibal Hookers fame gives us "Thicker Than Water", which begins like a normal shark movie (probably shot at the same time as his upcoming Shark Exorcist), and continues as a black comedy about a very jealous girlfriend! I fucking love the acting in this, especially from the woman - can’t figure if it’s Alaine Huntington or not - who’s insanely good. Good stuff!

Last but not least is Brad Sykes "The Scout", which actually is - according to me - one of the best works I’ve seen from Sykes. The location, the desert, is perfect for the small and horrific drama between a director and an actress, both out location scouting… and then everything gets twisted and really fucked-up! Good shit!

Hi-8: Horror Independent 8 is a great - and very cheap - little anthology film with a surprisingly amount of black comedy! I like that and so should you!

The Strange World of Coffin Joe (José Mojica Marins, 1968)

It’s really fucking time to dive in the wild world of José Mojica Marins again, after quite a lot of years away from him! I will try to watch all his classics, but I’ll start with The Strange World of Coffin Joe, a movie I’ve never seen before - which is weird, because I love Marins and I love anthology horrors! It wasn’t until me and Jason, when we recorded the last episode of The Human Centipod, I fully understood it was an anthology - but in the end we didn’t watch it, so I guess it’s time now. Marins is a true visionary, talented director who seamlessly mixes arthouse with exploitation - a difficult art if you ask me, and this gritty, but elegant, anthology is a good example of his talents.

First out is THE DOLLMAKER, a simple, but very effective story about a four robbers who finds out an old dollmaker stores all his money in his home...where he also have four beautiful daughters. The robbers decides to have some fun with the girls, but finds out the really gruesome way how the dollmaker can create such realistic creations… in OBSESSION we follow the adventures of a poor and very out-of-luck balloon seller when he finally meets the dead girl of his dreams and makes sweet love with her body. In THEORY a certain doctor Oãxiac Odéz (which, of course is Zé do Caixão backwards, aka Coffin Joe - or as he’s named in the Swedish translation, doctor Eoj Niffoc, not as catchy…) wants to prove that basic instincts such as hunger easily can beat that silly thing called love.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe is easily one of the more nihilistic pieces of cinema I’ve seen, on the surface a silly anthology film - but far more gritty and dark than most in the genre (I would say Jeff Burr’s From a Whisper to a Scream is another good example). The thing is that expect the first story, The Dollmaker, there’s no real twists. This is instead quite twisted morality tales which tells us there’s not hope for humanity, people are animals. The middle story for example is more of a dark, sad fairy tale about the lonely balloon seller finding some kind of love in death. The last one, probably the best, most Coffin Joe-esque story, is downright sadistic with an incredible downbeat ending.

What seems odd at first is the ending, where the bible is quoted - among other things - which kinda takes away the film its power, but this is - I learned a few hours ago - something Marins had to add to the film to fool the deeply religious censors in Brazil. It’s not the only film he had to do it with, but he kinda took revenge with his recent masterpiece Embodiment of Evil, where he once again claims back evil to where it belong: in the world, without any religious fool being able to do anything about it.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe is a fucked-up movie, but also a minor masterpiece. Sometimes corny, a black and white comic book in the vein of EC Comics, but often with a serious, deeply philosophical and cynic message of the human nature. The budget is often so low it borders to annoying, but if you - like me - can look beyond wobbly sets and fast camera set-ups, you’ll find real movie magic in this collection of gory, gruesome tales.

Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)

I’ve seen Kwaidan for the first time ever and it was a life-changing experience. Produced by Toho and directed with a sensitive hand by Masaki Kobayashi, based on the American writer Lafcadio Hearn’s 1904 collection of Japanese folktales; Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. It’s interesting how I often, while researching Kwaidan, came in touch with the shame of calling it a horror film. Many, many people out there seems to have problems calling it what it really is, probably because it’s such a huge classic, a perfect example of true cinema - and they just can’t accept its a horror film (or several smaller, because it’s an anthology). I pity them, of course, because Kwaidan is true horror - very subtle horror - but horror. I mean, no one ever doubted James Whale’s Frankenstein films to not be horror, or maybe Dracula with Bela Lugosi. Horror is all around us and it comes in different shapes. Sometimes with a chainsaw and sometimes with a cup of tea.

In the first story, The Black Hair, tells the tale of a man divorcing his wife and leaving town, finding a new wife - but later regret this and many years later goes back to his first wife - a very nice and loving woman, only to find himself trapped in something way more scary. The second story is The Woman of the Snow, where a young woodcutter gets stuck in a snowstorm together with his older colleague and sees him get killed by a female ghost. Later the young man sees a woman with a similar face, falls in love with her and builds a family together. But he has forgotten a very important detail… the third story is Hoichi the Earless, a blind musician with a speciality to sing a certain saga of songs. But his friends are worried he’s playing music for ghosts and tries to protect him. The fourth story is In a Cup of Tea, where an unfinished story about a man seeing faces in the liquids he drinks somehow makes the author of the story cursed himself.

Kwaidan is close to three hours long but feels like a breeze This is SO good. It’s beautiful, very well-told. It has one of those scripts which uses the only necessary to tell the story and that makes it feel so sharp and focused. I collegue of mine would use the word “crisp”, and I think it’s a perfect word. There’s nothing you don’t need here. I would even say it’s a bit scary. A couple of times the hairs on my arms stood up and the stories captivated me like few other ghost stories. Kwaidan literally means Ghost Stories, which is a very fitting title. I find it very interesting how later films in Japan, such a Ringu, Ju-On, One Missed Call etc - belonging to the J-Horror genre - is part of such a long and fine tradition. Some people might think these films are new and trendy, but they’re all a part of the legacy of ghost stories. In Kwaidan you will see many similarities with modern Japanese horror, from female ghosts with long black hair, hair that comes to life and attack people, lots of revenge-theme of course - and interestingly enough, In a Cup of Tea, reminded me a lot of Ringu, but instead of a TV and a videotape there’s a kettle of water or a cup of tea.

Kwaidan is one of the best movies I ever seen. It’s a stellar horror classic, maybe one of the best ghost movies ever made. As an anthology film it dares to be a bit abstract, more beautiful than maybe logical sometimes. But it always keeps its shit together, something you don’t experience every day. If there’s one single movie you should watch in your life or bring to a deserted island or what ever (maybe a bit scary with a movie like this on a place like that!), Kwaidan is THE film.

Body Bags (John Carpenter & Tobe Hooper, 1993)

Body Bags is one of the finer anthology movies out there, believe it or not. I first saw it on some kind of movie channel in Sweden, recorded it and that was my only source of viewing for many years. Since I dumped all my tapes deep down in the basement I haven't seen it, even if I've been on the hunt for it ever since. The German DVD is said to look good and be uncut, but is not English-friendly - and the old US DVD is the rated version. So Imagine my joy when Shout Factory announced they would release it in 2013! I've heard some negative opinions about it recently, the closer we got the release date, but after watching it again I think it's better than ever!

The wrap-around story is told through the eyes of John Carpenter as a very weird and sick-looking morgue assistant, who's using the bodies in there to tell the stories. He's a fun host, one of the best ever, up there with The Crypt Creeper - and just for his sake it's a damn pity this never became a TV-show. Anyway... The first episode is The Gas Station, set outside Haddonfield. It's a very classic slasher story, a brilliant little thriller about a young woman and her first night working at a gas station. But there's a serial killer creeping around the hood and soon she's in grave danger!

The second story is Hair. Stacy Keach, in a very funny part, plays a man who just can't accept he's losing his hair. After trying out some ridicolous methods he's buying the services of a sinister Doctor Lock (David Warner) who gives him a long, sexy mane of hair... but slowly he realizes something is very wrong with his newfound hair!

Third story out is Eye, where Mark Hamill plays a successful baseball player who loses his eye in a nasty car accident. After discussing the matter with his wife, Twiggy by the way, who's also deeply religious, he decides to try out an experimental surgery which gives him a new eye... the eye of a sexual sadist and serial killer! Soon he starts to see things... very disturbing things!

Body Bags is - and I'm using a very over-used word - underrated. It's not getting the respect it deserves, until now at least. The production values is just awesome, especially The Gas Station which is classic Carpenter, one of the best things he directed during the nineties. It's a simple story, but it fits  Carpenter's visual style Also watch out for some fun cameos, for example Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and George "Buck" Flowers. Hair is a lot more light-hearted, more of a black comedy, but the performance by Stacy Keach makes it a wonderful episode. He really knows how to have fun with a part and he also used his own experience with losing hair (he's been using a wig for the most of his career, which was news to me! His mother bought him his first, so he could get more work as an actor). I've always had a soft spot for Mark Hamill, he's way more edgy and talented than people gave him credit for before, and he makes one of his best parts in Body Bags. He completely transform himself from the "Good Old American Boy" to a sadistic killer without any problem at all. A damn fine episode.

Body Bags looks gorgeous on blu-ray and is a must purchase for fans of anthologies, John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper (who directed Eye - which also have cameos from John Agar and Roger Corman!). I love it this film, so should you!

Chillerama (various, 2011)

I've been wanting to see Chillerama for a number of years, even if most of the reviews out there have been mixed to negative. But you know, an anthology movie with one of the episodes named Wadzilla... I just can't resist that! I was almost expecting Lloyd Kaufman to do a cameo somewhere, because Chillerama in many ways feels like a movie from legendary production house Troma. It's not that far from the truth actually, considering Ron Jeremy has two cameos - one as the childrens TV-host Captain Fatso (you see, he's someone who can poke fun at his own look - I could never do that!) and also on a couple of photos in the porn mag Playbear, which is very funny.

So what the hell do we have here? First out is Adam Rifkin's Wadzilla, which also is the most ambitious and fun of them all. A man producers less and less sperms and those he produce is enormous! One day he just need to wack off, it's an emergency, and after a wild fight with the critter he think it's over because he flushes it down the toilet... but it only makes it more angry and grows bigger and bigger for every minute, until it's big enough to attack New York!

Wadzilla reminded me of the monsterboob episode in Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask, except Wadzilla is a lot more gross and graphic in every way possible. The title - and poster within the movie - spoofs Gojira, of course, but the movie itself feels more something so strange as an American monster movie from the fifties - and colour! So it sure have an intersting look.There's a couple of very funny scenes here and the monster is well-made. Eric Roberts and Ray Wise makes cameos and there's enough sperm for the whole family!

I Was a Teenage Werebear have a fun concept, but because of the lack of money it looks very cheap and never captures that beach party feeling. It stars real-life gay porn star Sean Paul Lockhart as a young man who's confused over his sexuality - and when he's bitten by the leather tough guy Talon he gets infected by the bear-curse,  yes, when he gets horny he turns into a hairy, big man! A bear. I really think Sean Paul Lockhart makes his part work, he's a good actor and seems into the joke. In 2012 he starred in a movie called Buttfucked, sounds like a must. The atmosphere, even if its jokey of course, feels a bit harsh towards gay people. But because it spoofs a sixties beach movie/fifties teenage movie, it would be odd if they made the werebears too positive rolemodels. But the main problem is the style of the movie. It just doesn't feel to be made with enough passion... or money.

Adam Green's The Diary of Anne Frankenstein had a fun set-up, and looks very good, but this episode about Hitler himself discovering Anne Frankenstein's secret diary where she explains how make the dead live again fails on so may other levels. Mostly the comedy, which is the most important part in it. I saw this one yesterday and I honest can't remember that much. Yeah, there's one very fun joke where they use  an afro-american stuntman in one shot, which could be a very discreet reference to KISS meets the Phantom of the Park.

The wrap-around story, Zom-B-Movie, is set on the last drive-in theatre in the US, where they're having a final all night marathon of trashy movies - the above mentioned films. It's the second best part of the movie, with some decent acting, it looks great and cheap and fun gore. It's directed by Joe Lynch who also gave us the fun Wrong Turn 2. Time to watch that one again I think...

Chillerama is a mixed bag. If you expect something like Troma, but more coherent, this might be the movie for you. I could in all honest only have seen Wadzilla and been happy with that. But of course, then I wouldn't had the chance to see a constant half-naked Sean Paul Lockhart ;)

The Dungeonmaster (various, 1984)

The Dungeonmaster is like the perfect TV-evening, compressed into 80 minutes of cheesy insanity. Directed by seven directors into one single story, not really an anthology - but still divided into segments. The talents behind the camera is David Allen, Charles Band, John Carl Buechler, Steven Ford, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou and Rosemarie Turko. Buechler is also the man behind the practical effects and David Allen does the stop-motion - and Mac Ahlberg is the man who shot it all. Very impressive bunch of filmmakers! But to explain the story is more difficult... 

Jeffrey Byron is Paul Bradford, a genius computer programmer who accidentally gets chosen by the demon Mestema (the always cool Richard Moll) to fight him in a series of missions, often consiting of monsters and other otherworldy beings (and dwarves of course, always dwarves!). But the biggest problem is that Paul's girlfriend Gwen (Leslie Wing) also is sucked into the game and now he needs to save her over and over again... and it's everyhing from stone statues, serial killers, post-apocalyptic warriors, frozen werewolves... and dwarves. Just not let us forget the dwarves. 

What is it about dwarves? Whenever you needed a supernatural being in an 80's movie you just hired one or two dwarves. Or small people, sorry. The Dungeonmaster is basically an excuse to make a kind of rip-off on Tron, but maybe more riding on the wave of fantasy movies - without scaring away the horror audience. It's not horror, not much anyway, but still attracts that audience with monsters, devils, serial killers and stuff like that. It's a fun, creative and restless movie, almost hyperactive in it's storytelling. Jeffrey Byron is a great and likable hero while Leslie Wing is more or less pushed aside as the helpless woman in need of rescue all the time. This is far from the strong female characters in last review's Cellar Dweller. 

The bad thing, if there's such a thing in a deliberately silly movie like this, is how it goes from one cool story to another, trying to squeeze in as much as possible in a very short running time, which makes the movie quite shallow. I for one would have loved a bit more complex storylines, more typical anthology short movies. Now it feels very rushed - our hero and his girlfriend needs to get in and out from different missions quicker than quick. I'm not sure why they had to be so fast, but I would have loved to see more of David Allen's stone statue, a twist or two in the serial killer story or just some more aggressive zombie warriors in the beginning. Just to spice things up a little bit. 

One thing's for sure, movies like this is not made anymore. Not sure they would find an audience, but as a child growing up in the 80's (I was born in '77 and my childhood memories is from later) I feel very attracted to the colours, music, ideas - and not in the ironic way as today's generation sees it with retro-culture everywhere. This was my time as a child. For real. 

The Dungeonmaster is silly fun. Never boring, never really bad. It's a movie made with a lot of heart. The way I want it. 

Night Train to Terror (John Carr, Phillip Marshak etc, 1985)

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Those butterflies filling up the bell, the beat beating faster when you know you’re gonna meet the love of your life. I’ve experienced it a couple of times, so I can’t complain – and the last time it happen was yesterday, when I saw Night Train to Terror for the first time! Recently released by Vinegar Syndrome on Blu-ray, this movie shines like few other movies. It’s hardly a perfect movie, far from actually. Most people would say it’s a bad movie, but according to me the only bad movies are the boring ones… and this one is so far from boring it can get. And I’ve always had a soft spot for anthology movies…

In HARRY we meet Harry, played by John Phillip Law (who looks like a less depressed Chris Mitchum), a man hired by a morgue/hospital/thingy to deliver fresh bodies to their very special business. But he’s starting to change his mind, somehow – for no reason really – and the whole shit hits the fan. Kinda. This was edited together from an unfinished movie, Scream Your Head Off. This is visible because this is the most confusing and fast-moving story ever in this anthology!

The second story is GRETTA, edited from Death Wish Club (aka The Dark Side to Love) and… I have a hard time understanding how this could have been a whole movie from the beginning. It’s a (again) confusing tale of a young woman who wants to be a star, becomes a porn star, is saved by a young hunk and then involved – in a very advanced revenge story – in bizarre forms of Russian roulette together with the hunk, her ex-husband (who got her into porn) and a gang of super-rich, bored people who wants to do something “fun” with their lives.

Last out is CLAIRE, based on the movie Cataclysm – which is one cool mother**ker of a movie. It begins with an old Jewish man discovering his old enemy, a nazi, is still alive and hasn’t aged at all. Then the story glides over to tough cop Cameron Mitchell trying to investigate the whole thing… but soon the story is about a powerful atheist who’s written a book with the theme “god is dead”… until his wife takes over the leading part instead! Confusing, spectacular and extremely fun!

I’m not kidding you when I say that this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time watching a movie. The three stories is also connected together with some very bizarre song- and dance-routines on a train where god and Satan sits and tries to decides who’s souls gonna go where, to heaven or hell! I mean, I never seen anything like this. The short stories go super-fast and they’ve obviously just used the fun stuff from each one, which means gore (they use that really RED blood, and with silly but quite effective physical effects), cheap and spectacular special effects, nudity (especially in Harry) and outrageous scenes of extreme silliness. Everything is narrated by someone who sounds like Criswell in the films of Ed Wood, which just adds to the insanity.

What’s even cooler is that they’ve used stop-motion in two of the episodes, far from realistic, but with cool concepts (mostly insects and demons) and fitting into the rest of this colorful mess of a movie. I seriously doubt the longer version of the movies is better; this is the essence of them, which probably is the best way to see ‘em.

The Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome looks excellent, with the normal amount of wear and tear. Theirs is some good bonus material also (including the full-length version of Gretta), but I haven’t had time to check it yet. I’m happy I can own and pet this disc every day now, one of those movies I always will turn to when life is dark and happiness is far away.

Takut: Faces of Fear (various, 2008)

I've been talking about Macabre for several years now, one of the finest and most brutal modern horror films - and from Indonesia. One of the directors (they're brothers) Timo Tjahjanto also wrote the best part of V/H/S 2, Safe Haven! So we're dealing with talented people here. Brian Yuzna, a producer/director I have have a love-hate relationship with ended up in Indonesia in his hunt for production money and Takut: Faces of Fear was the first, the fun monster movie Amphibious 3D the second - and now I understand he's in the UK, one country after another. I like the guy. As a producer he have a wonderful sense for new and fresh talent. I hope Tarot will be good. Anyway, Takut is an anthology movie - six short stories without any real connection, they're just short horror films. 

First out is Show Unit. A man accidentally kills his new girlfriends daughter... and then everything gets fucked up when he tries to solve the problem. For me this seems more like a black comedy/satire, in the same vein as the Hong Kong masterpiece Dream Home. It looks quite cheap, and the ending is a bit too ambigious to make complete sense. But it's not bad.

Incarnation of Naya is a way more edgy and controversial story about a city girl, Naya, who travels together with her mother to some kind of spiritual cleansing ceremony at the countryside. She sees a strange strange child on the way, but forgets it fast when she meets her male cousin for the first time in many years - and she wants him. Badly. I sense a morality story here, modern values vs old ones. It's a good story with lots of atmosphere. But I'm not sure I agree on the morality behind what happens.

More traditional is Peeper, starring Epy Kusnandar (who also appears in V/H/S 2 as the sect leader in Safe Haven) as a peeping tom. One day he gets a ticket to a dance show and the janitor tells him that the lead dancer likes to be watched... quite traditional and with a twist you can see a long way, but effective and very well acted. Not bad at all.

I understand The List is written by Yuzna, and it's a typical horror-comedy... kinda. It begins with a young couple watching Bride of the Re-Animator on TV. The woman is asleep and she won't wake up. In the meantime the man is terrorized by insects of different kinds! It's a jealous ex who put a curse on them both, but maybe she tries it a bit too much! It looks good and the actors are alright, but somehow the script never works. It could have been funnier, but except a few gross scenes it never comes together properly in the end. A pity.

The point with The Rescue is the monologue told over the episode. This might be the first zombie movie from Indonesia, at least in a classical, modern way, and it looks extremely good. Very classy production with some violence and some intense acting. I wasn't sure I liked it the first time, but after rewatching it I liked it more... and even got goosebumps. But still, not the powerful ending it should have.

Dara is the last film and it's clearly visible that this is the star of the anthology. Not only does it star Shareefa Daanish, one of the coolest Indonesian actresses ever (she's just fantastic!), it's a pitch-black, violently funny and macabre (it also spawned a full-length feature, Macabre) story about cannibalism. It looks stunningly good, violent and just plain awesome. A winner and a perfect ending to Takut: Faces of Fear.

Not perfect, but a good and almost poetic collection of short films. I liked it. A lot.  

V/H/S/2 (various, 2013)

Alright, sorry for this. I rarely review new mainstream productions, but my fascination for fake footage is something that's stronger than keeping the cred up for the blog. So sorry, once again. I kinda liked the first V/H/S, even if it was terribly uneven and nowadays I can't hardly remember the stories! Which is a bad thing. V/H/S 2, first titled S-V/H/S - a superiour and wittier title, but I guess edit changed because the marketing people at Magnet Releasing just don't think we, the audience, can't understand something like that.

It's all about the money. As usual. 

Anyway, I'm gonna stop whining. At least the sequel gives the production a more even feeling. None of the stories are terrible bad (like the awful Tuesday the 17th in the first movie) and there's a sense that they've at least put the shorts in an order that will make it work better - I mean, it starts with a decent one, then brings on the bad one and the finishes things off with two great ones (not counting the wrap-around story). In Tape 49 a private investigator and his assistant discovers a house filled with TV-monitors... and tapes. Of course. They start to watch the tapes and... well, we're introduced to the first story: Phase I Clinical Trials. A guy gets an artificial eye after a terrible accident, the problem is that he's starting to see nasty, nasty dead people - and they obviously wants to attack him over and over again. A typical, standard story. Nothing special but still quite effective.

Next up is A Ride in the Park, which comes out as a disappointment considering the excellent Eduardo Sánchez is one of the directors. The idea is fun - a (cute) cyclist with a gopro on his helmet runs into a bunch of zombies, gets infected himself and then we follow his zombie-life when he eats his way through an idyllic park area. It's very light-weight and the gore feels quite cheap. I wasn't bored, but I expected more! WAY better is Safe Haven, directerd by the super-talented duo of directors Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre) and Gareth Evans (Merantau & The Raid). A documentary crew goes shoot a movie about a sect and gets stuck in the middle of the... well, you can maybe guess. It gets very gory, insane and intensive. THE best one ever in the so far short-lived VHS-franchise!

Last, not but not least, is Slumber Party Alien Abduction! Shot from the point-of-view of a gang of boys having a blast making fun of one of the boy's sisters and her boyfriend during a slumber party.Everything is fun and games until there's god damn aliens attacking! Creepy fuckers to! A huge part of this episode is also shot with a gopro camera attached to the family's small one-kick dog!

V/H/S 2 sure leads up to two fine stories, but the wrap-around stuff doesn't hold up. Nice acting, but like the first one it comes of as quite pointless. I wish they invested a bit more time on the story there. 

Not the best one I've seen, but I still love the mix of anthology movie and fake footage. It's a fun idea and I'm sure it will end up in yet another sequel. Or two. Watch it for the two last episodes. Intensive, crazy stuff - no zombies, no ghosts - just the way I want it nowadays.