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The Abberdine County Conjuror (2006)
Although it would benefit from a lot of trimming, it's still very entertaining.
With a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, Abberdine County Conjuror is quite an endurance test. I didn't make it all the way through in one go the first time I watched it and was prepared to write it off. But, when I gave it another chance, I actually quite enjoyed it.
At first, Abberdine County Conjuror seems to be a very linear zombie story made by a bunch of amateurs with no idea about pacing or how to tell a story. If you have the patience to stay with it through all the bad acting, poor effects, and confusing character introductions, it does get better and everything is revealed. It's possible to even care about some of the characters by the end.
The sound is pretty dreadful in places because the built-in microphone on the camcorder was used rather than a separate boom mic. It's a shame since the budget should have covered such an essential item. For those of us who don't mind adjusting the volume on our TVs several times, it's not too much of a problem though.
Unfortunately, the sound is the least of the movie's problems because a firmer hand was needed with the editing. As the first project by Jeff Cooper and his friends, I can understand why they wanted to keep every piece of footage in even though it slows the narrative down to a crawl. Notable excesses include too much time following Meg (Teresa Deasey) around in the dark while she's being pursued by zombies, and it really does feel like several days worth of watching Molly (Liz Goddard) wandering through the woods drinking a 2 litre bottle of Coke. In fairness, I didn't particularly mind because both actresses are beautiful, but such things will be a chore for most people. There are a couple of very nice shots of deer for those who are more interested in Texas wildlife.
The night shots are hard to see in some cases especially as the zombies are dressed like monks and blend into the background too much. I'm not entirely sure why the Conjuror needs all the zombies anyway since her sadistic minions, Raven (Natalie Geneva) and Edda (Ellen Keefer), do the real work, but nevermind. The fact that their victims are being drained of blood almost puts Abberdine County Conjuror in the vampire subgenre so I suppose the zombies pull things back into the voodoo/witchcraft mode lest we forget the title of the movie.
There aren't really any superfluous or underused characters apart from the first victim, Bev (Charlemagne Domiana), who provides little more than a tease of things to come with her nudity. If you are expecting lots of skin and hardcore gore then Abberdine County Conjuror isn't the movie for you. You have to wait a very long time to see any more.
Possibly because they were improvising, none of the actors provide much depth or consistency to their characters. Again, it's their first film so you have to judge them accordingly. They aren't the products of a Shakespearean drama school or anything.
The intention of the film seems to be about establishing Jeff Cooper as an iconic Australian zombie hunter named Sean Steel. I'm sure it's a bit of an ego trip in some ways since Jeff Cooper has multiple credits for doing just about everything on the movie. Abberdine County Conjuror is Jeff Cooper's baby for sure, but he's not too bad in his acting role. His very "steampunk" leather outfit and medieval weapons are neat, but I don't know enough about Jeff Cooper to tell if he was merely putting on an accent (since he sounds British occasionally too) or if that's his natural speaking voice. If he's actually an American, I have to give him credit for that aspect because he fooled me. As far as believing in him as a zombie hunter, I've seen worse.
Winter Wytchwood really stood out as Jessie the fortune teller. She's very nice to look at and even sings at one point. It's hard to watch her being bullied by the evil Raven and Edda because she looks so vulnerable. Unfortunately for Jessie, even worse traumas are to come. One suggested piece of sexual abuse with a baseball bat is rather vile, but this is a horror movie after all.
Other highlights include a voodoo doll with bones for arms and legs being used to inflict injuries on Meg. The scene cuts nicely back and forth between the doll and Meg's agony. There's a little bit of editing talent shown here and in other places even though they are few and far between.
The most memorable moment is when Molly gets drunk on one of Jessie's potions, spews a load of expletives at hallucinations and shows her boobs. It's a fun scene and provides almost as much comic relief as earlier when Molly finds a box which one of the zombies has been wheeling around. It contains the aforementioned bottle of Coke and the potion plus a blanket and one shoe. Why was the zombie wheeling that around? I have no idea. Molly is definitely a good character, and I'm tempted to seek out Jeff Cooper's follow up movies just to see more of Liz Goddard.
There isn't much gore in Abberdine County Conjuror, no scares, or suspense apart from waiting to find out how Molly ended up in the woods, but there are some uncomfortable moments which make you feel bad for the victims especially when they are being tortured or bled. Most of the real violence is shown off screen, and the choreography of one fight in particular is ridiculous. Realism is simply not this movie's strong point.
In spite of all the flaws, I still got quite engrossed in Abberdine County Conjuror and found the fantasy backwoods world to be cleverly realised. By the end, I wanted to see even more.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
10 reasons why Inglourious Basterds sucks
A lot of people are raving about Quentin Tarantino's latest movie and I'm sure you'll all end up watching it eventually whether you really want to or not. I watched it just to find out what all the fuss is about and I wish I now had those 2 and a half precious hours of my life back. It sucked! Here are my ten reasons why. 1. They can't even spell the name of the film correctly. It should be "Inglorious Bastards". Even with the differences between British and American English neither word in the title is spelled properly. Not that I expect much more from the land of "Dunkin' Donuts", "Kwik Fill" and "Toys'R'Us" anyway. 2. Apart from the first 30 minutes or so, the rest of the movie is just a load of talky nonsense with no action at all. If people aren't being scalped, beaten to death with baseball bats or shot then I have no interest in watching a movie like this anyway. I couldn't care less about the second World War. 3. Yes, it's a war film. I have no interest in war films whatsoever. It's not even a good or realistic war film such as "Saving Private Ryan", "Das Boot" or even "The Great Escape". It's also far too much like "The Dirty Dozen" and so it sucks on all levels that pertain to originality or historical accuracy. 4. Did I mention that it's 153 minutes long? That's actually over 2 and a half hours (by three minutes). WTF? Who has the patience to watch anything that long unless it's porn? Not me. And how are you expected to watch something like this in a movie theatre with a Coke the size of a bucket without needing the toilet at least 8 times? I probably missed any good bits (if there were any good bits) after the first bit of brutality because I was too busy draining my little Quentin in the bathroom. 5. There just weren't enough subtitles. I don't need them for the French and German but I do for anything Brad Pitt says in any of his movies. How the hell did he become a Hollywood star when he can't even speak properly? I can't even blame it on his fake teeth this time like I did when he was slurring his way through "Interview with the Vampire". Having also just watched "Benjamin Button" with the subtitles on all the way through (because I couldn't understand anybody in it), I think it's down to his ludicrous attempt at a hillbilly accent. I think it's time for him to get some elocution lessons and then use his own voice in future. Some acting lessons wouldn't hurt either. 6. I've got nothing against Eli Roth as a director except that all his horror movies suck but now he thinks that he's an actor. Based on his whiny performance in "Inglourious Basterds", he can think again. Oh yeah, and he looks fat too. 7. I've never seen a single Quentin Tarantino movie that I liked. This was a chance for him to redeem himself but yet again he failed. Too much dialogue, too little action, and it looked as if it was knocked together in a week. Finding out later that Quentin Tarantino spent ten years on the story doesn't do much to help his case. Ten years to come up with this crap? I've written better blogs than his screenplays and they only take me about 5 minutes. If he'd come clean and admitted that it took him all of an hour then I'd have more respect for him. But then again, maybe not. 8. The only thing that would have made "Inglourious Basterds" memorable would have been if the characters played by Diane Kruger and Melanie Laurent had got nakedly gang-banged in all directions several times throughout or whenever the story lagged. Actually if it had just been 2 hours of Diane Kruger and Melanie Laurent naked then it would have been worth $10 of anybody's money even if they just stood there and did absolutely nothing at all. As it was, both actresses were wasted and this dismal failure of a movie has raped their careers no matter what the box office returns are. 9. There are no characters to care about in "Inglourious Basterds" because all they do is yap meaningless drivel rather than give any insights into themselves for the audience to empathise with. You actually get more characterisation in 3 minutes of a Bugs Bunny cartoon than in the whole of the this movie. So anyone who tells you how brilliant Tarantino is at creating caricatures is just insulting real artists (even animators) the whole world over. Even a blank piece of paper has more emotional depth than a Quentin Tarantino script. 10. Everything you want to know about this movie is shown in the trailer. How long is the trailer? About 3 minutes. That means that the rest of "Inglourious Basterds" is entirely padding. 2 and a half hours of padding!!! My verdict: 0 out of 10. If you have $10 and a bored afternoon then I do NOT suggest that you watch this movie at all. Just buy a can of paint, find a room in need of decoration, get out your brush and do a wall. Yeah, watching paint dry will be far more beneficial.
Trasharella (2009)
I love Rena Riffel!
When I first saw the name of this movie, I feared the worst. "Trasharella" initially sounded like the kind of low-budget dreck that a studio like Troma would release as a bad parody version of "Cinderella" but with even less chance at cult status than any of the other "-ellas" already out there. But, when I saw that Rena Riffel was not just the star of this but also the first time director and producer, I was intrigued enough to give it a chance. I'm glad I did too.
The movie begins in black and white with occasional added digital effects including some faux film scratches and a grainy look to make everything look more "grindhouse". It's not done perfectly but you can see what was intended and it isn't too distracting. Some useful "Zombie Walk" extras show off their make-up briefly just to make sure that everyone knows that this is going to be a horror fairy tale.
It's during these scenes that we learn the origin of a vampire curse on Hollywood starlets which began 75 years ago during one of Helena's past lives in France. Everything turns into a silent movie for a while and it's a clever idea. My only real criticism of this section, taking into account the low-budget, is that technically it needed to be a bit blurrier and darker to make it look more like old footage. Rena looks great though as an aspiring silent movie actress and hams it up nicely.
Then we're back to the present day and things switch to colour. Everything still stays grainy though and saturation levels are changed from time to time to slightly posterise the look of what now turns into a live-action comicbook adventure.
In spite of the presence of a stereotypically Jewish vampire Count, there's nothing too horrific in any of this apart from a lot of the obviously improvised dialogue. Some aspects of this work better than others and there are some good lines but they are few and far between. What set this out of the ordinary though was when Rena suddenly burst into song. I really wasn't expecting that at all.
The songs in "Trasharella" wouldn't be out of place in a bigger budget Hollywood musical though they are equally camp enough for fans of Rocky Horror too. Rena Riffel has a beautiful voice which sent shudders down my spine during the very catchy "Perfectly Imperfect". There's another catchy yet not quite so memorable song by Count Smokula in the middle but the final number, which I think is called "Beauty is Pain", performed again by Rena Riffel, reminded me a lot of Blondie. Yes, the musical numbers really are that good!
While not being entirely a "girl power" movie, there's a definite female empowerment message at the heart of "Trasharella" and some not too thinly veiled satire/social commentary about Hollywood in general. Count Smokula comes across as representing male oppression through the ages while the starlets themselves are forced to become sleazier and trashier to succeed. It's not giving too much away to say that, when Helena transforms into Trasharella with the aid of a Betty Page wig, magic lipstick, and magic pumps to conquer the vampire's curse, it's not without severe consequences to her own psyche. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, as it is supposed to be a comedy, but the whole film could be considered a warning that if a girl wants to succeed in showbusiness then the necessity of becoming trashy will be detrimental to her mental health.
Tom Challice has the most memorable comic performance for me as Helena's psychiatrist, Dr. Simon Fieldsgoodman, when he turns himself into a Red Injun brave while taking notes of her problems. I know I should find Count Smokula more amusing than I do but I also found him to be a bit too sinister to carry the comedy off.
Other notable things about "Trasharella" include some fine naked boobage on display from Mary Carey (as Lucy Les Rue) and Rena herself. An amusing laundry room tease had me thinking that Rena was going to keep her goodies covered up for the whole film but thankfully she didn't. There's some almost erotic lesbian sexual tension between Helena and Lucy but it doesn't really come to anything. A tiny girl to girl kiss much later (involving sharing the magic lipstick with Jade Paris as Becky Bardot) is also over far too quickly. There are no sex scenes as such though because, quite simply, they wouldn't add anything to the plot one way or another.
I also have to mention the TV Batman-style fight scenes with on screen "Kapows". I wish that they had gone on longer mainly because I could watch catfights like this all day especially if they involve Jade Paris.
With all its flaws, "Trasharella" is firmly entrenched in the "so bad it's good" genre and only falls short slightly from having a guaranteed cult status. If you are into Ed Wood then you'll love "Trasharella". Comparisons to the British "Razor Blade Smile" (from 1998) can also be drawn as Trasharella is an equally iconic character to Eileen Daly's Lilith Silver but without the vampiric elements. Perhaps if Trasharella had become a leather-clad vampire rather than a trashbag-wearing vampire slayer then she would have been even sexier.
Apart from her physical charms, Rena shows that she has a considerable amount of talent. In truth, she's a Jill-of-all-trades and most of her creativity is yet to be tapped but "Trasharella" is very much a step in the right direction.
"Trasharella" is simply the most refreshing low-budget, independent movie that I've seen for a long time. It's not a horror movie and is certainly not going to win any mainstream awards but you won't be disappointed if you like bad movies which are intentionally made to be that way.
Never Play with the Dead (2002)
Eastenders does horror!
Even though this starts off with a group of four little kids who sound Australian, this is in fact an English horror film from 2001. It still isn't out on DVD except in Australia for some reason which I have yet to figure out. I think those little kids probably were Australian after all.
Here's the official blurb: "Craig is a college student with a business plan. He and six friends have broken into a derelict asylum to stage the party of the year - and get rich in the process. With DJ Lux on the decks, Lee's spectacular light show and sexy Victoria pouring the drinks, how can they fail? But as the team set up, things start to go horribly wrong. Sarah becomes convinced that they are not alone, and as the panic rises the asylum begins to take on a life of its own. Walls disappear, they reappear and the group are forced further and further into the mysterious depths of the building
where something ancient and sinister is waiting for them. The quest for fun is about to become a race to stay alive." It is absolutely full of UK soap actors including Dawn (Kara Tointon), Gus (Mohammed George) and Tony (Mark Horner) from "Eastenders" and three more whose names I don't know (but whose faces I recognised from "The Bill" and "Holby City"). You could tagline this film with "Eastenders does horror!" and it wouldn't be far from the truth.
It is all filmed extremely well and looks a lot like that other Eastenders filled horror "Long Time Dead"... but it's much better than that and doesn't have the horrid Joe Absolom in it. It has a good atmosphere in spite of the low budget and, because it contains real actors, it appears far more professional than the usual independent horrors.
Anyway, as the blurb says, this is about a group of "teenagers" who break into what used to be an asylum to use the building for an illegal rave. A lot of the film is spent building up the characters, showing them setting things up, pranking each other and exploring the building but there are a few genuinely spooky events along the way. Things build up bit by bit and there is a twist in the last scene.
I really liked this a lot. The acting is much the same as an "Eastenders" episode and so is very good, gritty and realistic. The incidental music used for the scary bits is typical TV movie stuff but works well too. The ending is a bit of a cop out but it doesn't spoil anything.
I've rated this as 6 out of 10 but I'd rate it higher if I could actually buy it. Hopefully Lionsgate will pick this up and distribute it as they seem to doing with everything else. We can only hope.
Disturbia (2007)
Anotther adventure in Stupidland
I had to think about "Disturbia" for quite a long time before writing this review. It's yet another one where I was fooled into liking it for its duration but, looking back on it now, it wasn't really all that satisfying.
I remember thinking half an hour into it that it wasn't very good. The opening fishing trip bored me rigid, then the accident was as contrived as possible, and then I sat perplexed as to what happened to Shia LaBoeuf's facial scarring which should have resulted from that accident. He's not the handsomest of young actors anyway so I suppose if he'd had the massive cheek scar that his character sustained earlier on, it would have made him even less appealing to look at. I also didn't care about his Spanish class, his lack of acting ability when he went "berserk" and punched the teacher, and I certainly didn't care about his house arrest or his lack of domestic skills. 30 minutes of all this characterisation was making me ready to switch the film off in disgust.
Then things started to pick up. No, I'm not talking just about the presence of Sarah Roemer who was probably the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. All of a sudden, I just got sucked into this rip-off of "Rear Window" and started to play along. I'm not sure if I was enjoying it or whether I was being duped by the director into thinking that I was watching something cleverer than it was. I started seeing parallels between this and "Brainscan" and then I started to wonder if Shia LeBoeuf would look like Russell Crowe when he was older... and that was it, I was well and truly being sucked into caring about the characters and whether they would manage to foil David Morse's evil plans to insulate his cavity walls with red-headed girls.
Amidst more product placement for Red Bull and Ipods than I've ever seen before, the plot wasn't too bad at all. It couldn't be, it's been done to death a million times before. Once all the finger pointing started, all of a sudden I was thinking of "Fright Night" and then images of Max with Sam's mother in "The Lost Boys" started to fill my mind. Could this film be any more derivative? Could it be any less original? The teenager who nobody believes who has a killer next door is a story as old as the hills.
David Morse was probably the least credible person to play the bad guy. I suppose that was why he cast because he just doesn't look as if he has it in him to do anybody any harm. I just didn't find his trying to be menacing very convincing.
I also still don't believe that Shia LeBoeuf would ever get a girl who looked like Sarah Roemer in real life nor did I totally understand what he did to the video camera to make it transmit a fuzzy signal back to his computer. I'll try breaking some of my expensive electronics later to see if I can replicate it. Maybe not. There were just too many things that didn't add up for me to shake this feeling that I was being fooled into believing what all reason was telling me to reject.
And so when the ever so exciting yet totally predictable finale occurred complete with music pumping away to stimulate what little grey matter was still active in my brain, I could no longer struggle against it any more and actually started to care if Carrie-Anne Moss got rescued or not.
Yup, it got me hook, line and sinker... a bit like the fish at the start of this 105 minute adventure into Stupidland. I'm not giving it more than 3 out of 10. In fact, I'm giving it 3 out of 10 just for Sarah Roemer. I might have given it 8 out of 10 if I hadn't thought about it. That makes me feel dirty inside.
Black Sheep (2006)
If ewe don't enjoy this, there's something baaad in you!
This was the most amusing animal based horror-comedy that I've seen since "Revenge of Billy the Kid" (1991).
It was silly when it needed to be silly and gory where it needed to be gory. It wasn't laugh out loud funny at any point nor was it even the slightest bit scary but it was filmed beautifully and acted perfectly. Even the orchestral background music worked. It's a very classy product which pretends to be just another B movie.
I don't usually even like horror-comedies but, since the humour in this was so gentle, it wasn't ruined by the over-the-top comedy excesses of something like the awful "Shaun of the Dead".
Everyone will undoubtedly compare "Black Sheep" to Simon Pegg's efforts though it is really better to see this as in the same vein as old school Peter Jackson. I suppose that is no big surprise since not only is it a New Zealand film but the effects were created by Peter Jackson's Weta workshop.
Anyway, the story was just as ridiculous as you would imagine any film about zombie sheep to be. There were even a few mutating were-sheep thrown in as well due to the nature of the DNA altering serum which was caused all the trouble to begin with. I'm sure there was supposed to be some comment there about genetic research and New Zealand sheep farming but this was hardly hardcore political satire. Every possible sheep joke was used anyway even the baaaad ones.
The action sequences were all really well done and the gore was nice and visceral with lots of blood and guts everywhere. The sound of stampeding sheep in the distance created a nice bit of atmosphere from time to time although there wasn't really any tension or suspense to speak of.
I couldn't really find any other fault with it except that sometimes the sheep looked a bit too fake so I'm giving it 8 out of 10. It did exactly what it set out to do and I found it all very entertaining.
Untraceable (2008)
Unremarkable
Horribly predictable and clichéd but still enjoyable if you try not to think too hard... and by "too hard", I mean "at all".
I'm very surprised that this was "R" rated. It has very little gore and the methods the psycho uses to kill his victims are more akin to something out of a "Batman" movie than "Saw".
To say that "Untraceable" is derivative is an understatement. There is nothing here that you haven't already seen done in another film and done a lot better too. Even the laughable techno-babble of "Hackers" is included. I'm just surprised that they didn't have big glowing screens with the words projected on the faces of the computer users as well.
Without giving too much away, there were some huge plot holes in this which unintentionally made it more of a comedy to me than a thriller. Why, for instance, didn't the police just shut the power down to the city for a few hours? That would certainly have screwed-up the evil genius' death machines and his internet connection especially if he was using a laptop. There's no way his battery life would have lasted longer than 30 minutes with all that nonsense hooked up to it.
Another thing was how come the clever FBI internet woman didn't have a firewall and virus checker on her home computer? More to the point, what the hell was she doing letting her 8 year old play games on it in the first place? It totally ruined the credibility of the character just to put in a pointless filler scene in of the psycho stalking the little girl with a webcam. Does nobody think these things through when they make a film? Obviously not.
Anyway, I really didn't see this as a real horror film at all. It reminded me a lot of "Copycat" for some reason especially as it uses one or two set pieces that all the other "cop v. serial killer" films have. As a thriller, I suppose it's entertaining but it's just not original enough to be memorable.
The Eye (2008)
I see boring people
The biggest problem with "The Eye" is not that it is a remake of one of the most insipid and dull Hong Kong supernatural thrillers ever made, "Gin Gwai", but that it isn't any improvement over the original either.
The consensus appears to be that this film is just boring. Boring isn't a strong enough word to describe it though. It's tedious, dragged out, and makes you want to stab yourself with a fork to stay awake for the 97 minutes running time just in case anything happens at all.
I watched the original a few years ago and didn't really like it so I was hoping that there was going to be some new angle to this. Unfortunately, apart from changing the locations, the names of the characters and a few subtle plot differences, it was actually worse.
I can't blame the actors for this one. Jessica Alba is alright to look at and there is no doubt that she can act and look worried really well. The story here was just so thin and the dialogue was so bad that nobody could have made any more of it. Alessando Nivola however plays such an unconvincing doctor that I would actually dread to have someone like him involved in any post-surgical recovery process in real life. Shouting at your patients and telling them that they are wrong a couple of days after they've had cornea transplants is not a good bedside manner! There were a couple of moments where I thought that things would pick up. A jump scare involving an oven fell flat though and the others disintegrated into horrible messes of CGI. There was no tension, no suspense, just no atmosphere whatsoever. It could have been a daytime TV show about boiled eggs for all the emotional impact it had.
The ending was just like a deleted scene from "Final Destination". The whole movie is supposed to build up to this final act as an explanation of why Sydney Wells is seeing things in the first place but it just felt tagged on and was very rushed. It didn't really make any difference though because I'd already written this whole film off after the first ten minutes anyway.
I'm not sure if anyone would like this film. It's not going to appeal to fans of the original and for older horror fans it's just like a very bad version of "Eye" from "John Carpenter's Body Bags" (1993). It's very dated and that's a terrible thing for a new film to be.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Worst musical ever!
Probably the most embarrassing thing, I've ever seen. There were no similarities to the "real" story of Sweeney Todd whatsoever other than the names and locations. This is the crappy Stephen Sondheim reworking of the urban legend with love stories and a revenge motif mixed in.
It had awful singing, terrible "music", very poor acting (when there was any acting), and it all looked horrible.
I hate musicals anyway but this had the kind of music that wouldn't be out of place in the improv singing section of "Whose Line is it Anyway?". It was that bad. It was extremely amateur and seemed like it was knocked together in about 30 seconds. There were no memorable songs and the lines might as well have been spoken.
The dodgy "cockney" accents made a lot of the words of the songs unintelligible especially when the notes were drawn out. It's a film that definitely needs subtitles.
As for the gore, well I've seen better in a low budget independent horror film than in this fiasco.
Pink Eye (2008)
I still don't know why it's called Pink Eye...
I was sent a screener of "Pink Eye" last week and really looked forward to seeing Melissa Bacelar in all her glory. I wasn't disappointed either. Not only does she have a wonderfully toned (and tanned) body to look at but she is quite a charismatic presence on screen too.
Unfortunately, the little girls in the film steal every scene they are in and actually do a much more credible job than the seasoned pros here. It's obvious that, in spite of the ultra low budget, "Pink Eye" actually contains some decent actors but the overly slow pace does tend to spoil their performances from time to time.
Melissa's legs also tend to be a major distraction. I'm not entirely sure what her relationship is exactly to the children (or to the hero for that matter) but her skimpy shorts are probably inappropriate attire for babysitting. I just found myself gazing at her legs more than paying attention to the dialogue but then that's probably always going to the case when it comes to Melissa Bacelar.
The story itself is somewhat confusing. Things really aren't explained too well and there are a few red herrings along the way which really do more to hinder the plot rather than help it. The whole thing reminded me of the huge annoying pause you get on quiz shows like "Millionaire" where you end up shouting, "Just get on with it!" In particular, the scene with the Russian woman telling the story of how Brandon had "Pink Eye" when he was younger just felt like padding.
The special effects, on the other hand, are quite well done. Most effects appear to be the practical kind although there are also a couple of dodgy camera effects which are overused. Whereas I thought that the various eyeball gouging and belly cutting effects were good, I really didn't like the scenes which looked like a double exposure.
I absolutely hated the use of music throughout the film though. Not only did most of it outstay its welcome by overlapping from one scene to the next but it was often inappropriate. No background music at all would perhaps have been a better option although strangely enough there were a couple of scenes near the end where it actually worked.
The real star of this show though was Joshua James who plays the Poe quoting lunatic "Edgar". Big plot holes mean that I'm not sure why he was so special as a patient but he certainly has a very eerie voice somewhat reminiscent of James Earl Jones mixed with Vincent Price if that makes any sense. He certainly managed to convey an air of menace.
I was disappointed by the scene in which Melissa removes Edgar's mask mainly because I wanted to see the total extent of his deformities. Alas, either the budget didn't run to it or someone thought it would be best left to the imagination but in a film so previously full of gore it was odd.
Overall it was quite entertaining but very flawed. There were some nice boobs once or twice (sadly not Melissa's) and enough blood to satisfy most independent horror film fans. It's not really any worse than "Beyond Re-animator", which it reminds me a lot of, but it's equally not at all scary either.
I'll give it 3 out 10. I wish I could give it more but it needs some more editing in places before it would be totally pleasing. I also wish that Melissa hadn't disappeared for three-quarters of the film as, from the order of the credits, I really thought she was going to carry the whole thing.