Blood Freaks and Spanked Cheeks: Evils of The Night (1985)

Evils of The Night (1985)

Rating: **

Starring: Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise

A group of space aliens resembling voluptuous women in short skirts (and old John Carradine in a silver jogging suit) arrive on Earth to harvest and experiment on the youthful blood of horny teenagers for a way to keep themselves alive, only to encounter dilemmas when it turns out that the nearby town is short on victims due to most of the teens driving off for Spring break, and those they were able to capture often end up dead thanks to the murderous tendencies of their two hired hillbilly goons. (Played by Neville Brand and Aldo Ray)

If this sounds like the plot of one of those drive-in cheapo flicks, or dime store movies often shown in public domain, that ought to show what to expect from this mess of a film, honestly. Evils of The Night (1985) is a cauldron concoction of a cheese-fest combining low brow scifi plotting of very human-looking aliens in skimpy dresses and big hair yakking up technical space jargon and extraterrestrial quips to pass up what this movie considers as an intergalactic threat (of the small scale), with that of a very exploitative swing on your typical backwoods teen slasher, showcasing very spicy sex scenes that lingers long on screen and a victim group consisting of airer-than-airhead teens punctuated with outrageously cheesy dialogue and overly expressive acting. 

It's bad. Like, amazingly bad. So much so that I, frankly, sort of enjoyed this junk of a movie! The unapologetic cheesiness of its direction and production, down to its cheap laser effects and unabashed sleaze just works with the mad science craziness of space doctors with questionable morals roping in a pair of killer gas station hicks to kidnap sex-crazed teenagers for research. They justified this juxtapose with the aliens needing someone dumb enough to be bribed with gold coins to help out with their blood-draining science project, regardless of how uncontrollably brutal they can be, which is the kind of demented writing I could always go for whenever I'm in the mood for an entertainingly dumb movie.

That said, it is still a dumb movie. One with audio work and editing that are patchy, and, too, a lack of any real sympathetic characters as practically all of them are one-note stereotypes of screaming girls and their eye-candy boyfriends. The group of villains flair a tad better as low-rent 'space aliens' and violent townies, hamming up their scenes to ludicrous fancy whenever they appear, something to consider since the story is as thin as a single sheet of paper. Heck, you can honestly tell with the way the story kinda just ends with the operation halting due to the aliens having a deadline for these blood experiments and somehow this includes one more laser death. And speaking of, for a slasher, there really isn't much gore to speak of until the last thirty minutes, so those expecting a slaughterfest may need to test their patience.

It's not going to be everyone's ham and cheese treat. In fact, even if you are hungering for a really feisty cheddar and smoky meat-to-meat minute, Evils of The Night (1985) is still the odd one out for how unconventional it is as both a slasher and a sci-fright flick. But if you don't mind a bit of an obscurity, then is one title you could try seeking out. 

Bodycount:

1 male garroted

1 female dies during an operation

1 male shot dead with a laser

1 male repeatedly beaten with a wooden beam, later dies during an operation

1 male brained with a tire iron

1 female mentioned drowned

1 female beaten to death with a blanket filled with glass containers

1 female disemboweled with a power drill

1 male crushed by an automotive hoist

1 female hacked apart with an axe

1 male shot with a laser, bled to death

Total: 11

Double The Booking. Double The Hooking: Bone Lake (2024)

Bone Lake (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Alex Roe, Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi

When the first scene you see in a movie is a naked couple being chased through the woods by a shadowy figure brandishing a crossbow, hitting one victim through the balls in an unapologetic gratuitous shot, I think it'll be more than understandable to expect nothing but trashy horror in Bone Lake (2024). And, yes, the movie does lean on the sleazy side, but it's also playing a different kind of game. One that's going to test our character's will to commit, to trust, and to survive one night in the damn woods in one piece.

Former teacher and aspiring writer Diego (Marco Pigossi) is hoping to spend a (clothing optional) weekend in a rented lake house with his girlfriend, Sage (Maddie Hasson). Not long after just settling in (and doing each other on a bearskin rug), another more spirited couple, Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up ready to have their own happy weekend at the same cabin, but are a tad confused to find the house already occupied. It seems a booking screw-up have both couples scheduled to enjoy the forest-bound vacation home and with neither pair wanting to leave, they mutually agreed to spend the weekend together as new friends.

And as friends, the two couples share experiences, little secrets and tips for a spicy relationship, as well as engage in other fun times like sharing scary stories behind the lake's name, 'Bone Lake', which has less to do with the fact that it's a popular sex spot for lovers, and more on the fact that it's a dumping site for victims killed by a serial killer back at the 1950s. There are also the three suspicious rooms the house owner keep locked tickling the couples' curiosity, which they drunkenly proceed to open two, revealing a sex dungeon and a macabre room dedicated to the lake's dark history. What of the third room, though? Well...

As morning comes, trouble starts brewing; Will steals a wedding ring Diego was planning on proposing to Sage with and uses it to propose to Cin. It turns out the girl cheated on Will some time before and, out of desperation, he made the proposal as a way to keep her by his side. Diego, though outraged at first, somewhat understood Will's predicament as Sage also cheated on him early into their relationship, thus forgiving his new buddy so long as he does bring him back the ring before the weekend's end. 

This, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, does little to help with Diego's self-esteem as he fears he's not sexually satisfying enough after catching Sage pleasuring herself in a bathtub the day before, but it appears temptation is rearing its horny head for him as it looks like Cin's up to her old cheating tricks again, this time seducing Diego. To further complicate matters, Will is suddenly taking his shots on Sage, too, while driving to town together for groceries, promising her a good time that nobody else would ever know. 

Will the two take the bait? 

As you can tell by now, Bone Lake (2024) sets itself as a twisty erotic thriller highlighting the flaws of our main casts as both relatable figures and lovers, played with a B-grade tongue firmly pressed in a cheek and fair amount of steamy sex scenes. Yet, the film still finds the time to slow down and properly give our hapless pairs the time to grow as they share their vulnerabilities and insecurities behind their partners' backs, only to eventually face them when shit hits the fan and, by that, I mean the movie delivers a decent twist to what's really happening here, making way for a very backwoods slasher-inspired third act; chainsaws, crossbows, wise-cracking maniacs and all! Without a doubt, it takes a real long while before we do get to the splattery action, but by then insane motives and backstories were monologued, giving us a real demented and icky pair of psychos to terrorize our screens, and the movie does reward our patience with surprisingly decent stalk-and-stab sequences, visually enriched with awesome practical gore and some of the most satisfying kills to grace a forest-bound horror thriller.

Bone Lake (2024) may have the sweet and tangy coating of an inviting eye-candy exploitation and, in a lot of aspects, it is, the movie thankfully remembers to be fun with its horror thriller elements, playing us a genuinely intriguing situation of seductive temptations and moral reproach, then escalating the dangers from emotional and psychological to downright horrific and viscerally messy for our inner gorehounds! Its writing also fascinates the brooding situation without being overly titillating and prude, balancing the sexism and mystery along its well-rounded set of characters to both root for and be wary of, which is something I openly welcome if it means a real fun watch in-between all of the sleaze and slaughter. 

Delirious and debauched, Bone Lake (2024) promises outlandishly bunkum and a savage finale, just a good snatch to catch if you ever see yourself looking for something wilder and more bodacious from your typical horror thriller fix! 

Bodycount:

1 male repeatedly shot with a crossbow

1 female lands gut-first on a dead branch, killed offscreen with a crossbow

1 victim seen murdered, body being dragged and dumped into a lake (flashback)

1 victim mentioned murdered

1 male hacked on the head with an axe, lands face first on a chainsaw

1 female had her jaw whacked off with an axe and her hair caught on a boat propeller, dismembered

Total: 6

Stranger Things Are Abound: Marshmallow (2025)

Marshmallow (2025)

Rating: ***

Starring: Giorgia Whigham, Corbin Bernsen, Pierson Fode

Bullied by neighborhood kids. Suffering from a reoccurring nightmare wherein he's gushing out water from a gut wound like Ole' Faithful. Not to mention witnessing his beloved grandfather croak from a heart attack during a family dinner. Is it any surprise at all that young Morgan is a little too down for a kid his age? 

Hoping to get him out of the doom and gloom, his parents have him packing up for a one-of-a-kind summer adventure at Camp Almar where he, unfortunately, suffers from further bullying not just from a couple of troublesome kids, but also from the more aggressive counselors. As a silver lining, though, he did befriend a small group of nerdy chumps who, in more than one occasion, stood by him. But will this newfound friendship be enough to keep Morgan safe from what's coming to the woods one night?

Camp Almar happens to have its own boogeyman, you see; legend says that a figure known as The Doctor used to bring his wife and kids around these parts to supposedly relax in the cabins, but the fella had a suspicious habit of skulking around the basement at night. His wife soon grew curious about this and followed him down there once, only to horrifically discover that her husband has been sewing people together, creating monstrous freaks. (Here's hoping nothing like The Human Centipede (2009)). To keep his secret hidden, as well as continue doing the mad doctor's deeds, he trapped his own wife and children down the very same basement and sew their limbs together so they can never leave.

Now, it appears this Doctor is roaming the woods once more and Morgan even spots the sickened science man emerging from one of the cabins. His terrified claims, however, are dismissed as nothing more than nightmares, with one friendly counselor even admitting that the story was made up to keep children from sneaking off after lights out. It's not too long, of course, before these doubters are proven wrong when The Doctor, sporting a surgeon's garb and a head lamp, armed with a powerful electric taser, starts an onslaught of attacks at the doomed camp.

Calling Marshmallow (2025) a slasher can be a real stretch; yes, we do have the staple of horny teen counselors boinking their brains out here and there, as well as the obligatory campfire tale featuring a humanoid hulk who would later turn up in the flesh to siege the camp with violence, but there's more of a coming-of-age story here as the plot focuses strongly on the troubles of one forlorn kid and how he deals with them. For a decent while, we navigate through Morgan's day to day at Camp Almar as he tries to survive the anxieties of being harassed by arseholes and the awkward socializing pressure within peers, only occasionally dipping into horror territory via unnerving nightmares. It isn't until we get to the expected twist that The Doctor, or at least someone dressed up like him, is operating inside one of the cabins that the slasher lunacies take effect, sending the kids (and the entire movie) into chaos as the madman finally goes on a spree, targeting anyone on sight. 

Interestingly, Marshmallow (2025) opted to keep the exploitative elements of its slasher attacks to an almost non-existent minimal, with The Doctor, instead of hacking and slashing everyone into sloppy pieces, just shocks their victims unconscious with their taser. The reason for this is where the movie's plot twist comes in and, without spoiling much, it does dive into the fantastical and amazing, which strays the film further away from being a genuine bodycounter, and heads a tad more towards a very emotional and intense feature-length episode of Goosebumps. This, admittedly, may divide those expecting the usual affair of lopped off limbs and flayed faces, the norms of a good slasher movie, but the way the plot took the elements of a backwoods stalk 'n slash and make it their own is admirable in its creativity and imagination. Even more so when its somberness, oddness and even warmth is made effective thanks to the likeable and relatable performances of its young talents.

 

Not the strictest slasher in terms of paint-by-number storytelling and expectations, nor is it the splashiest and kill count heavy, but there is still value to be found here in Marshmallow (2025) with its lush camera work and expressive editing. A real quality work that pushes the boundaries of your typical slasher story, I say try it out! 

Bodycount:

1 elderly male suffers a heart seizure

1 boy drowned (flashback)

1 female seen floating on a lake slaughtered

1 male killed with a knife

Total: 4

The Beast of Meteorite Acres: Splatter-Saurus (2023 Novella)

Splatter-Saurus

Author: Judith Sonnet

Publication Year: 2023

Chapters: 14

Rating: ***

A dinosaur-centered Youtube channel once covered this book and described it as 'dinosaur splatterpunk'. Seeing this is written by Judith Sonnet, whose stories often dip into Extreme horror, I'm not too surprised. What did tickle my curiosity, however, was upon further looking into it, some people also consider this a 'backwoods slasher'. And that, ladies and gents, is how I ended up owning this rather gruesome, exploitative novella about a random dinosaur on a feeding frenzy deep in some woods. 

The story does resemble a typical backwoods slasher plot of young adults visiting a cabin at Meteorite Acres for some rest and relaxation; drinks were drank, drugs were suggested, some hanky-panky time was considered despite some characters wondering how their partners would react if they finally decided to come out of the closet, but what these lads and ladies didn't come to account for is the orange-scaled dinosaur that's rampaging all over the nearby forest and pond! Devouring already the small family who owned the cabins and a few very horrible rednecks, this bipedal monster is now dead set on gorily sinking its teeth down on some nubile college kids...

In the afterword of the book, Sonnet wrote that Splatter-Saurus is a homage to cheesy dinosaur flicks one would typically catch on channels like SyFy or streaming sites like Tubi and, frankly, she is mostly on point; the book reads like the most hardcore creature feature exploitation piece involving a prehistoric theropod, one that the likes of the Carnosaur movies would have been if they delivered a bit more bad taste into their plots, such as overly-detailed traumatic deaths and a pinch of hicksploitation grindcore with a pair of redneck brothers who are into very disturbing and upsetting ideas of fun, examples of which apparently involve torturing lady hitchhikers and swiping babies away from mothers. 

This being a short horror piece, the story is straight-to-the-point and a quick read, barely diving away from the shallow plotting of a dinosaur brutally hunting and eating side dish cannon fodders before moving in to the main course chilling inside a cabin. Wordplay is descriptive enough to really really paint the gross gruesomeness of these attacks, as well as attempt a bit of layer and humor during the story's few lulling moments, making this a promisingly intense and intriguing B-grade horror read. The only qualm for me here is that the last twist and the resulting ending feels like it pushed the silliness a tad too far, making the conclusion overly random for the sake of cheese and shock, maybe a bit rushed as well. In all sincerity, it could work as the author did say she wanted this book to be stupid yet fun, but I personally think it could have been articulated and written better so it wouldn't be so janky.

Still, Splatter-Saurus done enough tooth-and-nail bodycounting to make it a good read, given that is you got the iron stomach for some extreme horror literature because it can get real nasty! This novelette is ridiculously wrong and splattery, but if you love a bad dinosaur creature feature, even more so a slasher with a generous offering of blood and body parts, then give this backwoods slaughter-fest with a prehistoric twist a go!

Bodycount: 13

Notable Kills: "...The bulky brute's body lifted Angus up and sent him spinning like an organic frisbee. Angus's scream warbled comedically before his body struck a nearby tree.

Paul watched in shock as his brother wrapped around the sturdy shaft of the tree."

Mountaintop Cryptid Massacre: The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot (2021 Novel)

The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot

Author: David Irons

Publication Year: 2021

Chapters: 56

Rating: ****

Frequent visitors of this here little personal corner of the web would probably know how much I love my Bigfoot slashers! I love the splattery hamminess of Night of The Demon (1980). I love the Southern fried creepiness of The Wildman of The Navidad (2008). I love the found footage stylings of Exist (2014). I love the backwoods bachelor bash gone Bigfoot of Cherokee Creek (2018). I love this slasher/monster hybrid niche that much, I have now expanded my need to consume media where the big hairy fella slaughters teenagers one by one from movies to novels!

And here's where David Iron's The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot comes in! 

Taking place mostly in April 2nd, 1981, the novel follows the small cast and crew of an independent movie production as they drive to a rented construction site somewhere at the Oregonian mountains to finish filming the last few key scenes of their slasher flick, Mountaintop Madman Massacre. For the first half of the book, the story does a good job building itself around the filming as we get to know more about the bunch working in it; heading this production is director and writer Rob Lieberman, who technically conned his own father into funding this circus in hopes of making a quick and easy buck by cashing in to the cult success of slasher movies at that time; cinematographer Danny McLaughlin shares with his bestfriend and soundman Billy Zito his desires to do more than just commercials and low budget horror movies, thus accumulating a bit of jealousy towards the team's special effects wiz Tommy Bottin, who has doors of opportunities opening up for him after being featured in magazines like Fangoria and Cinemafantasque; Tommy, in turn, is considered a creep by some of the crew for crushing hard on the movie's leading actress, Adrianne Heather Curtis, who went from being household name famous to infamous after more than one unsavory articles written about her private life, resulting to a lack of work. 

The rest of the gang are Larry Lerner, Ben Tramer, Connie Conners and Laura Sommers, actors and actresses who all just wanted to get this last day of filming done so they can chill out, make the beast with two backs, or move on to the next acting gig. All the while Arnold Lebowitz, who's playing the titular Mountaintop Madman, is there to bring jokey vibes and be committed to his work as a lardy cannibal killer. And then there's Tony Reynolds. Stunt coordinator. In charge of the explosives to be used for the movie's explosive finale. Running a tad behind schedule and acting really sketchy and ominous by the time he finally shows up. Adrianne's lover.

In the midst of this movie-making misadventure, at a cave nearby the site, lives a family of three mythological beasts, the last of their kind; the adults know of the danger humans pose over them so they do their best to be left unseen and alone, but the youngest of them all have grown curious of the bells and whistles these interlopers brought along, luring it close to their set. Unbeknownst to the little one, as well as most of the crew, something wasn't right. Something was done to an FX shot that not only ends up with a charred body, but also the death of the male beast's loved ones.

And then, as the book said: 'All hell broke loose'.

From that point on, The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot goes full gear on the creature feature-cum-slasher flick thrills and spills as the now vengeful Bigfoot unleashes a torrent of pain and suffering towards the film crew, brawling with some, massacring the others. Intriguingly, this gruesome fiasco also brings out the worst from our doomed gang as Rob and Danny loses their marbles at the fact that Bigfoot exists and decided together that raw footage of a cryptid attack is better than no footage at all, thus paying it all in blood, while a few of the actors start to fight and betray one another reasons both sinister and petty. So the tension is written astonishingly high around this act, both from the brutality of the monster's attacks and, too, the uncertainty of who among the thespians are trustworthy or not; A LOT of the murders here have so much vivid gory details on them, my inner gorehound was more than just satisfied. It was quenched! Like, for real, it's like reading kills from any one of Adam Greene's Hatchet movies! And devolution of a once chummy film production down to a horrifying battle for survival simply spells a captivating read as the it does beg you to question where all of this is going now that almost every man and woman are out for themselves, with each chapter paced for a speedy read and ending on good hooks before jumping to the next one.  

My only qualms here is that a few twist reveals feel a tad unnecessary, especially one example which does fall into spoiler territories but I will at least say that it added nothing to the overall direction, just more excuse to pen down a gory demise. The cynical mean-spiritedness of it all may not sit too kindly for some readers as well, but, for me, there is something quite astonishing from fact that almost all of the characters were made into unlikeable douches at the end and the only one you get to feel for in some way is the killer Bigfoot as you do get to understand why he's this pissed off towards these humans. This stunt does cheapen a lot of the formerly fleshed out characters into meat bags deserving of being torn in half, yes, but when the payoff is a great read of mayhem and disturbing fates, I does help not to take this book too seriously and just enjoy The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot as the hammy, bloody horror novel that it is.

The story ends on an admittedly disturbing note, one that punches the right cards for shock and shlock, fitting right well with the absurd craziness of this Bigfoot attack /backwoods slasher story. That being said, The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot is a fun neat read if you love a bad creature feature and the bloodiest of bodycounter flicks, one that's packed with feisty fromage and a bitter streak on the side. Should you ever find yourself with some time to kill and read B-grade cryptid horror, why not give this page-turner a try? 

Bodycount: 15

Notable Kill: Honestly, it's hard to pick just one. But if I do have to pick one, it has to be that one guy who fought Bigfoot, only to be humbled by the creature not once, but TWICE! I wouldn't say much what happened, but all I could say is that after bearing so much of that guy's cockiness, I am just glad we got the hairy fella recreating a kill from Madman (1981), only with a few more muscles and organs strewn around~

My Bloody Reunions: To Become One (2002)

To Become One (Australia, 2002)

Rating: **

Starring: David Vallon, Emma Grasso, Jamie Giddens

Hey, dear readers! Ever wondered what would The Human Centipede (2009) would be like if it was a slasher? No? Well, good for you! You're completely sane and I don't have to worry about you! But, yeah, that's what this low-budget early-2000s Ozploitation reminds me of. Minus the poop thing.

A year after seeing her dear mum get sliced in half by a killer donning a gas mask, Melinda was just celebrating her birthday with friends one night when the same masked maniac shows up to ruin the evening, slaughtering a couple of guests. More of Melinda's buds are then bumped off no soon after, forcing the rest of the gang to try saving themselves from being murdered by driving into the countryside. (Which meant they'll be far from civilization and any potential help, surely making themselves convenient for the killer to pick off one by one. And some of you wonder why I often root for the killers in these films...)

One car bomb decimated, two girls burnt to a crisp and a Carbine gun opened fire later, Melinda is chased into the woods where the killer finally corners her and this is when the movie begins to shift the curve because next thing you know, she's bound to a hospital bed and stuck inside an insane asylum where a doctor high on religious fervor plans to reunite her with a long lost family member ala surgery. Melinda must now find a way to escape the demented doctor and his crazed cohorts before she suffers a fate worse than death, all in the meantime taking a gander or two to what kind of delusions the sick surgeon is feeding himself, his staff and his congregation of patients.

From teen slasher to medical-cum-cult horror, To Become One (2002) has the ambition to better itself and be more than just another slasher flick which is admirable, yes, even more so when the production only had a couple of grand to work with. However, the clumsy execution of this gesture shows that the film still bit more than it could chew and it's distracting to say the least, more often within the movie's clunky ventures to stylize itself with warping colors and overly active camerawork, as well as dripping the horror drama elements with too many talky scenes that are just made worse by wearisome writing. There are no likeable characters to root for and the killer could have been this movie's strong point as they do rock a good gas mask and black trench coat combo, and the murders they commit have a decent splash of blood and gore to them, but all that's tossed away the moment they're unmasked midway into the movie and, before you know it, they're just annoying to watch.  

Finishing on an inevitably frantic note, To Become One (2002) is too much of an overworked yet underwhelming chore to watch as a whole; while the slasher half have a lot of dumb moments, it's somewhat entertaining with its badness, which is a lot more than I can say about the pretentious wannabe psycho-drama we're treated with in the other half. If you think about it, it doesn't really add up now, does it? Why does the killer even have to stalk and massacre Melinda's friends if the main goal here was to get her to the hospital and settle her for surgery? Why waste all that precious time and energy? I don't know. All I can tell is that there is a good idea to be found here, it's just messily handled in this blunder of a film. 

Bodycount:

1 female sliced in half with a sword

1 female ran through with a digging bar

1 female had her head skewered with a digging bar

1 female had her neck crushed and slashed open with metal claws

1 male garroted with a thin wire

2 females decimated with a bomb

1 elderly male passes away

1 male stabbed in the back with a knife

Total: 9

A Heart of Tainted Candy: Dark Harvest (2023)

Dark Harvest (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Casey Likes, Emyri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Based on a 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of the same name penned by author Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest (2023) could have been your classic creature feature with small town misfits joining forces to become unlikely heroes fighting against a powerful threat and, in a way, it does walk that path, but not without its bittersweet twists and grim turns.

Set in the1960s, at the rural town of Bradbury, a curse plagues the community every Halloween as a creature known as Sawtooth Jack makes its presence to wreck havoc and take lives, promising even greater devastation once it reaches the church by midnight. To fend off this entity, the folks of Bradbury initiate a ritualistic competition dubbed The Run, wherein the male teens of the town are starved for three days before being unleashed on Halloween night with masks and weapons, with the goal of hunting down Sawtooth Jack before it steps even one foot to the town church. (Given, that is, they don't end up either killing one another or raid butcher shops for food after brutally murdering the owners) The boy who successfully kills Sawtooth Jack will be heftily rewarded with a prize money, a decent housing and brand new Corvettes for a chance to get out of town to see the rest of the world.

This year, Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is anxious yet adamant to join The Run, hoping to prove to himself as well as the rest of the town's doubters and bullies that he is just as good as his older brother Jim (Britain Dalton), who won last year's Run and is currently travelling across the states. All Hallows Eve night would eventually come and the town's boys, riled-up with a bloodlust for violence and the need to eat, are sent off to hunt down Sawtooth Jack once again. As Richie joins in the macabre competition with his small gang of friends, including the town's newest African-American resident Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield), they will unfortunately learn that there's more to the annual The Run than most expected, a deadly secret that puts them not only in danger of Sawtooth Jack and the murderous gang of teens, but also of those working in between.

Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night (2007), Dark Harvest (2023) looks and breathes small town horror story with its population of archetypical caricatures of meathead bullies, untrustworthy police forces and parents hiding dark secrets hounding over the main casts stirring up trouble and drama, all in the backdrop of an old rural American town that holds its traditions seriously, strictly and, dare I say, dangerously under the rule of a powerful group who may know more than they're letting on but choose to keep quiet about it for the sake of the peace. There's practically an allegory running throughout the plot, of class conflict and the repetitive nature of violence disguised as tradition, and for some parts it is handled quite nicely as it adds a little more weight and depth to an otherwise standard creature feature affair of teen victims getting slaughtered by a rampaging monster. But the further the story goes, the more questions it leaves open as it tells us how things work in Bradbury, though never bothering to dive deeper into the rabbit hole they introduced thus leaving some vital plot points hanging in the air unsatisfyingly. 

Fortunately, what Dark Harvest (2023) lacks in substance, it makes up with style; whenever the movie decides to focus on The Run, it guarantees at least one or two satisfying murders with a generous amount of gore, a crisp Halloween atmosphere and a very novel-looking creature design for our dear Sawtooth Jack. Makeup effects designer Francois Dagenais (of many Saw sequels) and visual effects supervisor James McQuaide manages the onscreen violence and it is impressive how well both practical and CG effects blend in with one another here, showcasing kills from both the monster and the deranged young men that's as entertainingly gruesome as they are absurdly inspired. Cinematography strikingly evokes a genuine Autumn spirit and captures perfectly the wide destruction both Sawtooth Jack and The Run cause. Talent-wise, Likes and Crutchfield more or less sold themselves as the empathetic duo since majority of the character development and focus fall on them, following their characters bond over their outcast status as they find warmth and trust from each other in this dangerous night, which does make the movie's conclusion effectively bittersweet to swallow.

Dark Harvest (2023) may not work all the way with its narrative, but it does a fair service of providing us a fair amount of thrills and kills, an interesting lore behind its creature and a couple of good leads with a heart. It's crafted to look cozy good and, I say, it succeeds at that, making this film a fulfilling enough watch for the spooky season, preferably with a bucket of sweets and nice cold bottle of pop!

Bodycount:

1 boy killed, later seen set on fire

1 boy torn in half

1 boy had his head sliced in half

1 boy had his head pried apart by the mouth

12+ boys slaughtered, blood splash seen

1 boy shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 male beaten to death

1 boy had his head sliced down with a machete

1 female knifed in the neck

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot dead

1 boy buried alive

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

Total: 24+

The Campus Halloween Rampage Massacre: Primal Rage (1988)

Primal Rage (Italy, 1988)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Patrick Lowe, Cheryl Arutt, Sarah Buxton

Taking more interest in covering leisurely school events and saving lovely girls from getting their cars towed, university journalist Sam (Patrick Lowe) have his fellow reporter and friend Duffy (Mitch Watson) tackle on an assignment concerning a possible animal abuse case. Unbeknownst to the two, said animal abuse is actually a part of a secret experiment on curing degenerative brain conditions handled by one Dr. Ethridge (Bo Svenson), though the endeavor is threatened to be cut off financially when supervising investors point out its lack of progressive results after watching an experimented baboon going nutzoid.

That night, Duffy breaks into Dr. Ethridge's lab to take pictures of all the inhumane treatments happening behind its closed doors and frees the experimented baboon. The primate, unfortunately, is carrying an "infectious rage" as a result from all that medical poking and prodding, thus spreading its sickness to Duffy through a scratch before the monkey gets killed off by a responding campus cop car, running it down by accident.

Over time, Duffy starts to feel ill but pushes himself to tough it out when Sam invites him to a double date with two female students he befriended, Lauren (Cheryl Arutt) and Debbie (Sarah Buxton). The night mostly went swimmingly with Sam and Lauren getting romantic with one another on the dance floor, while Duffy protects Debbie from an aggressive campus horndog who started to get too forward to the gal. Trouble comes spreading, though, when Duffy starts to act erratically and scratches his date while they were making out, thus starting the outbreak of "rage" across campus, building up to a trio of degenerates going full slasher maniacs at the university's rather impressive Halloween bash.

An outbreak horror film with a handful of zombie and slasher film tropes mingled in within the chaos of its story, Primal Rage (1988) is a gruesomely enjoyable melting pot of horror sub-genres done on a generous enough budget and a tad more cheddar in its execution, far from great cinema but dripping with a sense of B-grade badness that screams a riot of a good time! Its script oozes with laughably odd writing, its direction filled with crazy scenes of rabid terror and there's an aggressive amount of late-80s aesthetic, it shouldn't have work as well as it does, but the adorable chemistry from its likeable main casts and the way the easy-to-digest plot fooled around with our expectations makes the film a worthwhile spectacle of hammy romps and contagion horror.

Despite being a 14-year forerunner to Danny Boyle's 'rage zombie' movie 28 Days Later (2002), it's intriguing to note that in spite of the large cast, the outbreak only get to spread on a handful of victims and, by the end of the film, all of the them were killed off which pretty much meant the threat of the virus died along with the infected. No, the focus of the viral scare here was more on the body horror aspect of the infection (with gnarly make-up effects by Carlo Rambaldi, who did movies like A Bay of Blood (1971) and that 1976 remake of King Kong!), which relatively takes a while before the infected starts to drool black sludge, literally pop a vessel or start shrieking like an angry monkey on steroids. It's also interesting to point out that not a lot of the infected's victims get to live long enough to become infected themselves, and the trio of gang-rapists who eventually becomes this movie's penultimate bad guys doesn't even show the same kind of primal rage as of the others, instead acting more like bloodthirsty psychos who coordinate their attacks and take extra pleasure on their killings. So those expecting more of a zombie bash may want to look elsewhere, but slasher fans will definitely get something a tad unique from this run.

The contamination nightmare eventually leads to the movie's best part, a last act taking place in a Halloween ball where all the students attending don tons of frightening, comical and inspired costumes in the midst of the fancy dresses and typical get-ups. Like, for real, there are so much surreal and quirky costumes here, from a lady who's wearing an entire nostril as a mask to another whose entire gaunt face splits open via motor revealing a spooky skull, all dancing while the live band sings an earworm of a song, 'Say The Word' by The Facade Band, which I'm pretty sure is this movie's theme. Entertainingly, a few of these costumes were utilized by the killers in their murder spree, with one wearing a three-headed mask with taps for each of the noses getting the life crushed out of them, blood spilling out said taps in great grisly detail! Our do-gooders eventually steps in to stop the (mostly ignored) chaos, setting up a classic cat-and-mouse stalking as our maniacs, fittingly dressed up as grim reapers with red blinking electric eyes, attempt to end our protagonists.

All in all, Primal Rage (1988) is far from a great example of a contamination horror flick but it’s a genuinely fun one for its novel plotting, positively fantastic physical gore effects and make-ups and, too, a manageable amount of ham. It's an underrated mish-mash of ideas, reputable enough for a watch on a Halloween nights or any nights swimming in good booze and good friends!

Bodycount:

1 male brained to death against the wall

1 female found murdered

1 male mauled to death

1 male shot

1 male had his scalp torn off

1 male clawed to death

1 male had his throat ripped off

1 male hanged with a noose

1 male had his throat crushed

1 male ran through the head with a pole

1 male crushed inside retractable bleachers 

1 female beaten, later found mutilated

1 male decapitated with an axe

1 male tossed off a building, jaw impaled on a sprinkler head

Total: 14

Criminal Carnage And Gory Guffaws: The Cottage (2008)

The Cottage (United Kingdom, 2008)

Rating: ****

Starring: Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Jennifer Ellison

Grab the girl. Hold her for ransom. Escape with the cash. This is the plan a thug named David (Andy Serkis of the Lord of The Ring trilogy) have in mind when he decided to kidnap the teenage daughter of one Arnie (Steven Berkoff), a mobster boss. His boss. And it would have been a fairly passable plan given, that is, he didn't tagged along his brother Peter (Shaun of The Dead (2004)'s Reece Shearsmith) and the kidnapped girl's own stepbrother Andrew (Steve O'Donell) as accomplices.

Now, see, Peter is someone you would call a tool; meek yet obnoxious, suffering from a phobia of moths and is pretty much ruled under the fat thumb of his own whale of a wife. He doesn't really want to be a part of David's little scheme, but knowing this is an opportunity to please his overbearing spouse as his brother agreed to give him his half of an inherited house should everything goes according to plan, Peter tags along which much reluctance. On the other hand, Andrew is, for the lack of a better term, an oaf. The type who buys the wrong kind of ski mask to cover his identity and may or may not have slipped sometime somewhere about this little gig which leads to a very pissed crime boss sending out a couple of hired hitmen to end whoever needs to be ended.

The night gradually goes from bad to terrible when the kidnapped girl, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison), proves to be more than these guys could handle as her foul mouth, short temper and psychopathic tendencies coincide with her resourcefulness and surprising intelligence. So it kinda comes to no surprise that she soon escapes after the fellas dropped their guard one too many times. And even worse, she takes Peter hostage at knife point as they go deep into the woods to look for a way back to the city. 

And this. All of this is just the first act of the movie.

For more than half of its run time, The Cottage (2008) is a crime comedy wherein its black humor is centered within one of the worst kidnapping schemes in movie history and the engagingly hilarious characters involved, with failure upon failure stacking up against our hapless hooligans to the point that you actually want to root for these luckless suckers to at least get one thing right and somehow still win in the end even if, y'know, they messed up many many things along the way. In spite of some pacing concerns, it's honestly a smart direction to take as we do get to know more about these wannabe criminal chumps and their terrifyingly aggressive victim, giving them memorable distinctive traits and a good score of funny moments as their idiotic plan goes up in flames, as well as a decent level of character development, especially between David and Peter as even though they don't see eye to eye, they do still have their brother's back and sincerely cares for one another.

This little slice of depth do come in handy for cathartic reasons once the film drew out the creepy villagers (one of them being Hellraiser's Doug Bradley!) ominously warning not to go out at night and the plot shifts gear to slasher horror territories; as David and Andrew go after Tracey and Peter, the four soon ended up stumbling into private lands with a not-so-cozy farmhouse filled with clutter, strange noises from down the cellar and severed hands in the freezer. Oh, and a large, heavily-deformed, bellowing farmer with a killing streak. Kinda hard to miss him considering, apart from being a towering blood-thirsty maniac out chopping people up with shovels and billhooks, he often have his own goofy moments that are completely in tone with the kind of silliness this film runs on, mainly his confused and frustrated reactions when things don't go the way it normally does in a night of bloody massacring. (Like, how often do you get one of the victims aggressively coax the killer to murder another victim? Weird.) 

As any good slasher would, the kills here are gruesomely gory, some parts satisfying, other parts shocking and devastating. Heck, even the offscreen slayings have some decent splatter and guts to be seen from the resulting corpses through some fair-looking make-up and gore effects. The cat-and-mouse antics are mostly played for laughs and cheeky shocks, occasionally accompanied by classical music and a running gags of sorts with Peter being the butt of painful and/or humiliating torment not limited to the monster farmer's own brand of brutalizing. Interestingly, there's actually a story behind the killer's madness and the way the movie decided to acknowledge this is to hint it all over his abode through photos, diaries and even the corpses laying around. It's real gnarly stuff from what I can tell and I do like the fact that it's mostly kept in the shadows for an effective creep factor, though I cannot deny that I wished they explored this a tad further as it would have made the killer much more interesting.

Still, The Cottage (2008) wears its madcap crime comedy and cartoonish splatter with devilish glee and whimsy and I absolutely love it for that. Delivering acting of pure quality, comedic writing that's darkly witty, and the splatter horror that's entertainingly gruesome, if you adore a damn good slasher comedy with a British tang then go on and add this one to your collection!

Bodycount:

1 male found eviscerated

1 male found dead with his neck cut open

1 female decapitated by the mouth with a shovel

1 male killed, jacket seen

1 male gets a billhook to the groin

1 male hacked on the chest with a pickaxe

1 male devoured alive

Total: 7

The Blood Ferry: Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghost Ship (2002)
Rating: ***
Starring: Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne, Ron Eldard

It's better than you expect but not as good as you hope. This is how film critic Roger Ebert described this film and, yeah. He's right. It's an early-2000s horror movie about a haunted ship with murderous apparitions killing off anybody who steps into it and if you're not expecting anything more than that, then the movie is serviceable despite the clichés.

Starting the scene with, honestly, one of the best opening sequences in a horror flick, it's 1962 and about dozens of wealthy passengers aboard the Italian ocean liner, Antonia Graza, are having a great time dancing in the ballroom and at the decks. A young girl named Katie, however, isn't finding any of this dazzling so when the Ship’s captain notices her boredom, he kindly offers his hand to dance with her. All the while, another pair of hands pulls a lever to unravel a thin line of steel cable from a spool. A snap is then heard and almost everyone on the dance floor looks out in shock as a projected cable slices across, dissecting them in a mere flash. Only Katie is spared due to her height, as the Captain didn't fare any better than the rest, with his head decapitated by the mouth as Katie screams in horror.

Flashforward forty years later, we now follow the self-proclaimed best damn salvage team in the business, made up of team leader Epps (Julianna Margulies), first mate Greer (Isaiah Washington), engineer Santos (Alex Dimitriades), tugboat captain Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and a pair of best buds Dodge and Munder. (Ron Eldard and Karl Urban) The gang was celebrating a successful haul when weather service pilot Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) approaches them at a bar for an opportunity to salvage a spotted vessel adrift in the Bering Sea. Being in international waters meant that the ship can be claimed by whoever is able to bring it to port and, by luck, said ship happens to be the Antonia Graza, which mysteriously disappeared in 1962 and was believed to be lost at sea, crew and the passengers never heard from again.

By the time they make it to the rotting ocean liner, the crew ponders the possibilities of salvaging such a rare find for cold hard cash, as well as discover that the ship has hidden stashes of gold and various valuables cargo. They will, unfortunately, discover that within the abandoned rooms and hallways hide haunting memories and deadly secrets which would soon start preying on the salvage team one by one.

From what I read, screenwriter Mark Hanlon's original draft of Ghost Ship (2002) was more like Stephen King's The Shining set on a boat rather than a straight-up supernatural horror film, centering itself on the uneasy dynamics between four members of a salvage crew after they get stranded in the titular ghost ship. Much like Jack Torrance in the Overlook Hotel, one of the crew mates goes cuckoo for murder after spending one night of spooks, paranoia and panic, though changes were made through rewrites and the final product ultimately ended up resembling a slasher with gnarly kills and a paranormal villain, much to the disappointment of the casts who favored the dropped psychological aspect. 

As a supernatural bodycounter, Ghost Ship (2002) is favorably entertaining so long as you don't demand a lot from it; the casts plays the average B-grade slasher fodders and the pacing does take a while before getting to the body pickings, spending a fair bulk of the early act looking into the characters' encounters with various oddities and scares as they try to make do with their current situation. The further the film goes, the more the salvage mission goes from bad to worse by the minute, thus leading way to more haunting imageries, a couple of fun scares and the ghoulish forces becoming more bloodthirsty as not only do we get a climactic reveal as to what happened to the passengers and crew of the Antonia Graza, but the ship practically becomes alive and starts snuffing out the crew with whatever moving parts it has. A cheeky bad guy motive then gets added into the bloody affair, and too a hammy finale involving heavenly lights and a last might surprise that I'm sure no one was, um, surprised to see, just little slices of outrageousness that keep the generic plotting of Ghost Ship (2002) an amusing watch. 

The premise of a boat-set horror flick will always be a refreshingly intriguing set-piece as the idea of surviving whatever horrors lingering within a vessel afloat a vast body of water often invokes a sense of isolation and helplessness, factors that would greatly benefit any scares and thrills to come. Ghost Ship (2002) projects the same sentiments here, albeit on a tone and direction communicating a more fun angle with the conventional thrills of bloody killings and hokey supernatural action. It isn't offering anything new to the table, but for what it is worth, the film definitely works as a popcorn B-flick and I can respect that! 

Bodycount:
80 victims cut in half by a projected steel cable

1 male decapitated by the mouth by a projected steel cable

7 males found dead inside a submerged room

1 male immolated in an explosion

1 male falls down an elevator shaft, impaled on steel rods

1 girl killed offscreen, body seen hanged (flashback)

1 female impaled in the jaw with a crane hook (flashback)

1017 crew and passengers massacred via poisoning, stabbing and gunfire (flashback)

1 male found drowned inside an aquarium

1 male gets caught on gears, crushed into pieces

1 male killed offscreen
Total: 1112

A Wolf On The Prowl: Project Wolf Hunting (2023)

Project Wolf Hunting (Neugdaesanyang) (South Korea, 2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Seo In-Guk, Dong-Yoon Jang and Jung So-Min

And here I thought Ricky-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) is the silliest, goriest action horror thriller I'll ever lay eyes on... 

After a fiasco back in 2017 in which a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed many at a publicly announced prison transport flight, the higher ups involved with an extradition deal between South Korea and the Philippines opted to try a different mode of transportation when it comes to transferring dangerous Korean criminals captured in the Philippines back to their country. This time, Frontier Titan, a seemingly normal cargo ship, will be used to escort an assorted batch of ruthless fugitives from Manila to Busan by sea, a three-day mission headed by hardened "fist-to-your-face" cop Seok-woo (Park Ho-san) and kept in check by an army of fellow police officers.

What these law enforcers didn't know, though, is that one of the inmates, vile murderer and rapist Jong-doo (Seo In-guk), arranged a job with his vicious underlings where they'll infiltrate Titan disguised as crewmates and smuggle in some high caliber weapons. It isn't too long then before the bloodshed begins as the criminals are freed and start torturing and massacring as many cops as they could, all the while the remaining law enforcers who quickly learn of the grim situation fight back in hopes of still turning the tide to their favor.

Now all of this is just the first hour of this two hour long action horror epic and it's pretty much a gorier and sea-bound version of Con Air (1997) as a transport mission becomes a bloody war between heartless criminals and law abiding officers, with the former quickly taking the advantage of them outnumbering their captors, as well as mostly having the element of surprise and a well-planned sabotage working on their benefit. Gunfire of varying calibers are exchanged, heads are brained with nailguns and bolt cutters, brutal stabbings, hatchet hackings, it's all a visceral show of unrelenting violence leading up to what could have been a climactic showdown as Jong-doo's army of miscreants would come face to face with what remains of seasoned cop Seok-woo's forces, but this is when the horror elements of Project Wolf Hunting (2023) comes into play.

You see, the whole escort mission is also being closely monitored by a shady organization who also arranged the Titan to carry a top secret cargo: an ancient bioweapon that was once a man, created all the way back in World War II when the Japanese army was experimenting with the creation of super soldiers. Codenamed "Alpha", this monster just has to pick that day to wake up from his drug-induced sedation and we're quickly treated to one heck of a killing spree as Alpha single handedly obliterated nearly all of the cops and criminals gathered in a brawl out. And by obliterated, I'm talking about people getting kicked across boiler rooms and bursting into bloody messes upon impact, limbs getting torn off to beat their owners dead, lots of throat rippings, chest stompings, head pulpings, it's everything one could have wished Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) was, especially once Alpha brutally dispatched our supposed "main bad" of the film and starts prowling the ship for remaining victims to beat down dead, all the while those who survived the killing spree so far have to stick together and figure out how to stop an undead bioweapon enhanced with the strength of five men, Predator (1987)-esque "thermovision" and the cunningness of a wolf.

From a criminal escort-gone-wrong gig to a ship-set scifi slasher, all done with a splatter film treatment of practical effects, 2.5 tons worth of fake blood and very little CGI, it is within these two acts that Project Wolf Hunting (2023) shines its bloody best as an exploitation piece where violence is the name of the game and deliver it does. Almost every minute of the film is dedicated to gore and splatter with every layout of the ship is used for the carnage and everyone and everything bound to be covered in blood and grue. It's honestly an outrageous feat of adrenaline infused, hardcore ultraviolence that mostly makes up for the film's less than noteworthy protagonists, lack of genuine scares and simple plotting, so those wanting to see a fulfilling character development out of its cavalcade of casts or a decent amount of scare factor might need to look elsewhere, but for those who find bliss in mindless entertainment centered on intense action and brutal slayings, this film is a thing of beauty.

The real big flaw of Project Wolf Hunting (2023), frankly, lies in its last act; without spoiling much, it introduced more enhanced superhumans into the plot, almost all the characters we've been following throughout the bloody affair are simply unceremoniously killed off and the film completely shifts its gear to a scifi action thriller route as bioweapons duke it out with fists, knives and gunfire ala Resident Evil movie sequel starring Milla Jovovich. In any other film, this would have been an okay turn but, after all of that build-up wherein normal humans struggle and fight to survive against an enemy that's seemingly impossible to stop, switching its focus to superpowered characters with personal vendettas and agendas simply doesn't have the same cathartic gut punch and, honestly, it wasted a great opportunity to bring a satisfyingly fulfilling final act to the table. Instead, all we get is multiple bite-sized flashbacks worth of info dump, an underwhelming villain and a so-so tragic hero beating the lights out of one another, leaving us in the end with a groaner of a twist reveal/cliffhanger combo doubling as sequel bait. It's all too overly ambitious, if I say so myself.

Still, as flawed as the finale was, I strongly recommend Project Wolf Hunting (2023) to anyone with a taste for action horror hybrids, especially ones that come with B-movie grade craziness and geysers of blood to satisfy the inner gorehound! A nonstop thrill ride of (literal) bloody proportions, tailor made for long nights of exploitation cinema and splatter movie runs!

Bodycount:

1 male killed in suicide bombing

7 victims killed in suicide bombing

1 male knifed in the neck (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male brained with a nailgun

1 male shot on the head with a nailgun, beaten to death

1 male stabbed to death with a switchblade

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed on the head with boltcutters

1 male throat cut with a switchblade, stabbed to death

1 male repeatedly beaten with steel cuffs, hunting knife buried into his chest

1 male stabbed in the jaw with a hunting knife

1 male shot to death

2 males shot to death

1 female seen dead from knife wound (flashback)

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male stabbed in the neck with a hunting knife

1 male hacked to death with a hatchet

1 male shot to death

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot to death

1 male kicked across a room, crushed on impact

1 male had his throat cut with  knife

1 male had his throat ripped off

1 male stomped on the back

1 male punched to death

2 males had their throats crushed

1 male scalp torn off, stomped on the chest

1 male elbowed, brained against a gas tank

2 males shot to death

1 male had his face pulped with a punch

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed headless with a sledgehammer

1 male had his head crushed

1 male found with a ripped throat

1 male killed offscreen

1 female had her throat ripped off

1 male had his head stepped on, crushed

1 male punched across a room, head bashed against a table

1 female slashed across the face with a hunting knife, bled to death

1 male had his legs sliced in half with a hunting knife, chest stomped on

1 female pinned to a wall with a hunting knife to the neck

1 male had his chest punched open

1 male beaten to death with his own severed arm

1 male had his throat crushed (flashback)

1 female brained against a table (flashback)

1 female bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male shot on the head (flashback)

1 male repeatedly stomped on, killed in elevator crash

1 male kicked on the head, neck broken

1 female shot on the head

1 female shot to death

1 male had his neck broken

1 male shot on the head

1 male expires from an experiment (flashback)

A number of victims seen dead from experiments (flashback)

1 male pushed unto a steel pipe, neck impaled (flashback)

1 male gutted offcamera

1 male crushed with a metal door

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 male brained to death with a rifle

1 male beaten to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male had his throat cut with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed and slashed to death with a hunting knife

Total: 87+