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My Bloody Banjo (2015)
Fatalism in all its horrific glory
Peltzer is a defeated man. That's his lot in life and it guides his every decision. Many a good horror movie has a weak-link character whose role is to make the irrational decisions necessary to forward the plot: Harry Cooper in Return of the Living Dead, Miguel Ferrer in Deep Star Six. Now imagine the lead character in a story being such a man.
That's the strong point of this movie. It leaves the viewer squirming in their seat, helpless as we ever could be. There's no use shouting at the screen, no point cursing the character; he's going to do what he has to do and you can only enjoy the train wreck.
As typical per a Troma-style movie, you have unrelenting bullies who utterly humiliate the most vulnerable characters. People you want to die the most horrible deaths imaginable, but I don't want to spoil that.
Cool points go to the writer for dropping Henenlotter's name on one of the facilities.
The Barn: The Video Game (2016)
super cool retro game
Great creepy atmosphere from the very beginning. After a brief cutscene intro your character is ready to battle with the forces of evil. The monsters start out simple and progressively get not so much tougher as they get scarier. From backgrounds to character animation, the pixel art is beautiful. The leaves, cornfields and hay bales give it the feeling of a nice Autumn night. Perhaps a little wind sound and maybe some occasional blue tint would have added a cooler feeling, but it's effective nonetheless. The 8-bit music is nicely composed and has a heart-pounding pulse to keep you on edge. The sound effects are creepy, especially with those later monsters. The game is not too difficult, as I think the designers wanted you to enjoy the full story experience more than curse at your controllers, which you might do on occasion, especially with Windows, which wigs out when too many keys are mashed too quickly, leaving you dying and forgetting which key does what in a panic. The boss battles are easy, again I think to allow for the game experience that ties in with the upcoming movie. I should say that as an '80s gamer and fan of 8-bit and everything else retro, I am extremely biased toward this game. The team did a superb job.
Laid to Rest (2009)
A chrome head and shoulders above the rest
If you ignore the first few minutes which look like trendy music video editing, this film really shines as true horror. It's not your typical slasher. A previous review said the characters are unreal... I beg to differ. That's what makes this a great horror flick. You DON'T want the characters to die. You're rooting for them to kill or escape Chromeskull.
The only character that's somewhat hard to deal with is our heroine, because she has amnesia and talks like she's had a stroke. Considering what she's been through it works, though it's annoying, but that too is addressed.
Seriously though, the characters are GREAT. None of them are expendable extras or stereotypes like in a traditional slasher, regardless of their survival rate.
The gore is extremely graphic and the effects are amazing--a bit over the top for my tastes, especially considering that these are people you want to live. Psychologically speaking, it's not good to show those you root for being mutilated. Only once did they make the right but it doesn't earn any stars at that point.
There's a bit of nudity, which was unnecessary but I suppose it goes with the territory. There's no sex romps and the shower scene is brief thankfully--I guess the guy just likes some of his victims naked.
Check it out if you're not squeamish and want some extreme edge of your seat horror. This is the kind of film where you'll practically be yelling at the actors on screen--it's that good.
Never Feed the Troll (2010)
A tasty treat for indie film lovers
If you're familiar with Jet Eller's last film, Night Feeders, you might be expecting a horror flick. Though this movie is more of a suspense/thriller, don't let that fool you into thinking it's something so easily tamable.
The story centers around a pastor's wife (Linda, played by Libby Seymour), who is home alone while her husband heads to a minister's conference. Linda has been assigned the job of making the church bulletins but is fairly new to computers and the internet. Before jumping headlong into her task, she decides (like most of us do) to do a little web-surfing and check her email. After opening a scam email, she "feeds the troll" by responding to the sender that she is not dumb enough to fall for his tricks.
From that point on we're strapped in and the ride starts. There are plenty of twists and turns regarding the identity of the "troll," what his intentions are, and what he really knows about Linda and her past. The troll electronically torments Linda, slowly breaking her down from content pastor's wife to complete paranoid.
She spirals downward emotionally, not knowing who to ask for help or who she can truly trust. She occasionally seeks comfort through phone calls to traveling husband Doug (played by Patrick G. Keenan), but only finds real solace, momentarily as it may be, in long-time friend Gail (played by Sharrin Edwards), who tries unsuccessfully to steer Linda away from the growing temptation to respond to the troll and the assumptions she is making about him.
Without giving too much away, Linda finally comes face to face with the man she suspects is her troll, played with genuine creepiness by Michael Ruff (Doug from the film Night Feeders).
After finding out all the ugly truths of the story, you'll want to watch it again to see how all the clues fall into place--the true mark of a good thriller.