[REC]4 (2014)

I'm a huge fan of the [REC] saga, particulary the first two. The first one is just a great horrormovie and the first sequel is among one of the rare few - the sequels who are as good as the original movie. Heck, I even love the reason behind all of this that is revealed towards the end of [REC]2, something that I know a lot of people don't. Part three was a fun watch too, although the dark and nasty tone of the first two was sorely missed. It felt more like an 80:s horrormovie.

So now it's finally here, the movie we have been waiting for. The final part in the saga and I will admit to being a bit peeved when I learned that the whole thing was set on a boat. No major apocalypse in the streets here, something I was hoping for. But the trailer looked good so I kept an open mind.

And I am happy to say that [REC]4 is a solid piece in the series. The movie begins with a couple of policemen entering the building where the first two movies were taking place to place explosives and find Angela Vidal, the heroine of the first movie still alive. Flash forward an unknown amount of time and we are on a boat with a security lockdown. Angela and the two policemen are in quarantine, a lab has been set up and people are working on something, possibly a cure. We learn that (slight spoiler for part 2) Angela is not carrying the virus like everyone, including the audience, thinks. The people doing all the testing have a testsubject locked up and soon someone let's it out. Mayhem ensues. Terrific mayhem ensues.

I have a couple of issues with the movie. First, there is an awful lot of shakycam which can be quite disorienting in some of the attackscenes when everything is shot in closeups. I saw the movie at a cinema and suspect that it might look better on a tv, time will tell.

The second issue I have with the movie is a minor but sad one. And now there will be major SPOILERS of [REC]2 and [REC]4. It turns out that the cause of it all is a parasite, a large slimy thing that wants to find the perfect host. This is incredibly sad to me because I loved the reveal in part two when it turns out that the whole thing is a disease that might have been (accidentally? Haven't seen part two since it was released) created by the Catholic church. There are no demons in part 4, something that i truly missed. Sure, the concept of a satanic parasite is quite fun but the notion of a satanic virus is supremely cool. This was a letdown for me but it didn't stop me from enjoying the movie. A lot. This just struck me hours after watching it and it's what makes me a little sad. I wanted more demons. END OF SPOILERS

And the bottom line is that [REC]4 is a great horrorflick. It's tense from the start, building up to an awesome explosion of violence and mayhem and never let's you down as it frantically runs along to a great climax. It does tend to focus more on jumpscares than trying to freak you out in the darkness but there is a sequence towards the end that involves infected monkeys that is a nailbiter. And I am happy to say (this must be the first time for me) that this isn't the gorefest I was expecting from the trailer. Sure, there is gore, but the movie is more brutally violent than messily gory which works great.

It might not have been what I expected and hoped for but it's a great finale to the saga.

Maniac nurses (1990)

Seriously, I have no idea how to properly rate Maniac nurses. No clue, it's just so mindbogglingly bisarre and strange that just explaining the plot taxes my brain too much. But here goes.

A number of nurses hang around in an old hospital in their sexy underwear, lying about like footage from a lingerie commercial. While not fondling each other they kidnap young women and torture them or just go about blowing the heads of men. Or each other. The leader of the motley crew, Ilsa, has a young daughter that she either wants to make love to or already has a sexual relationship with (it really isn't made clear). The daughter, Sabrina, is a sociopath that reads violent comicbooks and just kills people randomly. While all this is going on there is a somewhat pretentious narration explaining why everyone is a sexual pervert and from time to time some text pops up on the screen scoring everything, dealing out points to all the maniac nurses.

If this had been a porno with all the porno edited out it would explain why this is so baffingly incompetent but it doesn't seem like it is. I guess the director just wanted to make a violent movie with naked women and made it up as he went along. There is some sort of perverted satisfaction in watching this but I can't really decide if I was actually entertained by it. The dubbing is awful, the ladies cannot act whatsoever and nothing makes any good damn sense!

And the best thing about it? I bought it from the director himself while at Weekend of horrors 2014 in Oberhausen. I am a proud owner of a personally signed dvd. I just wished that I had seen the movie before I left Germany, I have a lot of questions for him now.

Just a big WTF. And I would probably watch it again with beer and friends.

Aux yeux des vivants aka Among the living (2014)

Why are Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo so obsessed with violence that truly hurts? Sick fucking bastards. This time they're telling a story about three young kids on the start of summer vacation that see a strange man carry a bound woman into an abandoned movieset in the woods. They follow and discover a quite dysfunctional family living in the ruins. Mayhem and death ensues.

Among the living might not go all the way Inside style (there is far less onscreen gore here and actually a couple of surprisingly gorefree deaths that made me wonder if I was watching a censored version) but there is some pretty harrowing brutal violence going on here as the movie progresses. The only flaw of the story is that it never really manages to blend the Stand by me-ish part of the care-free youths roaming the outskirts of their hometown with the more straightforwards horror bits. Both parts are fine enough with good child actors and a number of creepy bits but as the movie is only 85 minutes long including end titles we never really get to go deep enough into them as we really need and want to. The main villain is quite creepy and the death he dishes out is at times nicely harrowing but it isn't enough. A good flick for sure but nowhere near the insanity of Inside or Livid. It makes you wonder if the movie was cut down for pacing, it sure feels like that.

I do love the sight of a very pregnant Beatrice Dalle brandishing a large kitchen knife in the beginning of the movie, brought a nice grin to my face.

Sucker Punch (2011)

This is a cautionary tale.

This movie feels like it was written by a hormonally imbalanced 13 year old teenager who has overdosed on video games, which paints a not so pretty picture about the mindset of Zack Snyder especially since the whole fucking movie revolves around watching Emily Browning dress up like a thirteen year old schoolgirl. Everything is set to (mostly) awful popmusic that very rarely fit the tone of the movie other than the million scenes where the girls are walking in slow motion towards the camera, an overused theme if there ever was one that could have bordered on parody if I didn't know that the whole thing is totally moronically serious. It all boils down to the viewer enduring waves upon waves of Snyders patently retarded fight scenes where every punch ends in slomo and when the story is as bad as this you wonder what the hell is wrong with his brain.

At least it's better than Watchmen. The only reason I'm giving it one and a half star is that I kinda like the first two sequences, the samurais and steam zombies. And the fact that it flopped. But the rest is just a big bloated turd.

Psycho pike (1992)

Psycho pike! Psychooo pike!

I hate fish. Sure, sharks are cool and majestic creatures and there are quite a few deep sea creatures that I enjoy scaring myself with by looking at pictures of them on the internet. But most of them are just smelly creatures that really don't deserve to live. Then there are the Pikes. Pikes are vile and disgusting creatures, massmurderers of our lakes. You will never see a Discovery special teaching you that they should be revered, I can assure you that. I've always wanted to see a killer pike movie and thought that I never would get the chance but to my amazement there had been one out there for twenty-two years! Ok, it doesn't seem like it got an official release but still! Twenty-two years! There was a large hole in soul until today! I finally feel complete!

The movie? Not particulary good. Low budget semi-serious stuff about pollution causing a pike to grow huge and some people that want to hide it. Two couples out on a fishing trip. You know. The usual schtick. Poor acting and very little actual pike. The final attack is awesome though and the pike itself is rubbergoodness beyond awesome. The movie not so much. It's obvious that they went for quirky (and who can blame them?) and some of it works. Sorta. I did have a nice time watching it but mostly for the novelty of it.

Soon back from the dead

If anyone cares the reason there has been no activity at all here is the fact that I have been home taking care of my daughter for the last two months. Swedens paid paternity leave. Or whatever it is called. Having a baby means very little movies, especially after they start walking.

So, soon. Soon.

Star crystal (1986)

Star Crystal really wants to be Alien but ends up like the slow little cousin that maybe stayed under water for an extended period of time and suffered brain damage because of oxygen depravation. It plays out its cards straight, an expedition on Mars discovers a strange egglike object in the ground and brings it onboard their spaceship. On route they are all killed and their craft taken to a spacestation that has some sort of meltdown and explodes, leaving only five survivors on the very same ship. Soon enough they start to die one by one, killed by a tentacled creature that somehow has control over the ship.

Sounds good, eh? Not really. I could go on and on about the low budget inhibiting the scifi elements of the story, the very strange design of the spacecraft where every room is connected by small tunnels and the piss poor acting but I will leave you with one thing. The ending. There will be SPOILERS now but frankly, read on. It will spare you 90 minutes that you will never get back. You see, while killing the crew one by one and sucking their bodies dry of all fluids the alien creature accesses the ships computer to learn about humanity and ends up reading the bible. Then everyone becomes friends, the alien apologizes and everyone departs as friends. There is even a scene towards the end where we are supposed to feel sorry for the creature as it is left behind. Yes. I'm not making this up. End of SPOILERS.

So, what we have here is a cheap Alien ripoff with one of the most preposterous endings of all time. At least it is weird enough to be one of those "Ok, did you hear about the one where..." movies.

And I love that poster which has nothing to do with the movie, it feels more like it was ripped off from Lifeforce. Those were the days when the poster really meant something.

Dead Shadows (2012)

Dead shadows has frankly one of the coolest stories that I have ever seen. When a comet comes close to earth people start to mutate into strange tentacled beings. Think Lovecraft and The Thing, a match made in heaven alright. The makeup sfx are frankly awesome, lots of melting people and other fun stuff. The CGI is uneven but works well and there are a couple of nice scenes of mass destruction. Unfortunately, that is about the only thing that is good about the movie.

For starters, the script is awful. The dialogue is mostly just juvenile and the plot plain bad. The main character goes from introvert recluse with a fear of the dark so strong that he has to medicate himself to a superfighter that can handle two baseball bats at the same time to take down hordes of infected people (and walk in darkness without being afraid). It's like there is a large chunk of plot missing, like an Edge of tomorrow montage where he trained himself over and over again into perfection. And speaking of the fightscenes, the soundeffects are atrocious. Everytime out hero hits someone with his bat it sounds like he is striking a sandbag, like they are using the same soundeffect every time. It sounds cheap, like an 1990 Amiga computergame.

This is a shame since the visual side of Dead shadows is frankly astounding, especially since the budget was fairly low. There is quite a lot of excellent gore and fun tentacled horror so watch the movie for that, not its dumb plot. And it has one of the finest melting faces I have seen in years. And a naked Spiderwoman. Yay for naked Spiderwomen!

Oh! I almost forgot, it has a tentaclerape scene too! If you are into that.

Oltre il guado aka Across the river (2013)

An ethologist is tracking animals in a remote mountain forest and get's trapped in a ruined village when the river he crossed get's too high for him to go back. He continues with his work but starts to find dead animals everywhere, hears strange sounds coming from ruined buildings and one one occasion sees two ghostly girls caught on one of his remote cameras. At first our hero has the safety of his RV to stay sane but when it goes missing he has to spend the nights in the ruined village and that is when the horror really starts to set in.

Across the river is basically the essence of a slowburner, the entire movie revolves around the main character as he roams the village (mostly at night of course) in search for whatever it is he is hearing. To be fair, there isn't really much going on here, the movie takes its sweet time building atmosphere and if you are expecting your average j-horror inspired shocker from seeing the dvdcover you will be sorely disappointed. What the movie delivers on is an excellent location and a protagonist that is quite believable, acting rationally in a very strange situation and that does a lot in keeping it from descending into something that easily could have been just silly. It is mostly a one man show apart from a couple of scenes with an old couple to fill in a bit of backstory and that is what makes the movie work. The sense of loneliness together with an unknown threat lurking in the darkness helps tremendously with the suspense. It's not perfect, however strong the atmosphere may be the movie still moves just a little bit too slow but apart from that I had a decent enough time and the finale is quite creepy.

Maybe not for everyone but an accomplished movie that you might enjoy on a dark night with the lights turned off.

Savaged (2013)

Young deaf-mute girl goes on a roadtrip in the New Mexico desert before she moves in with her boyfriend and ends up being a witness to a group of racist rednecks murdering two native american men. They proceed to rape and torture her before finally deciding to finish her off and burying her alive but her nearly dead body is found by a shaman who performs a ritual that binds her soul to the spirit of a very angry native american warrior. Now she is back from the dead and pretty fucking angry.

Normally I really don't care for rape/revenge movies but decided to give Savaged a spin after reading a couple of positive reviews online and realizing that it had a supernatural element (I am a sucker for any horror based on native american myths and stories). I'm really glad I did. Yes, it starts out pretty nasty with the raping and the torturing but it really isn't dwelled on in any lenghty detail. It's when the girl comes back from the dead when the fun really begins as she goes on a gory rampage, killing the rednecks one by one while slowly turning into a bloody mess.

While some of the special effects aren't very special (in particular a visual effect concerning a toppling car) the rest of the movie is quite good. Amanda Adrienne is not a very imposing figure, very thin and slender, but she comes off really well as a woman possessed by an angry spirit and the makeup of her slowly rotting and damaged body is excellent. The rest of the cast have roles that doesn't require them to do much more than to be as repulsive as possible (the filmmakers work overtime reminding you that these people deserve everything that is done to them - and more) but they are all in on it, making you giggle with joy as they are disposed of with tender love and gore. And gore is what you get here, decapitations and disembowelements galore. The tone of the movie does turn slightly less serious as the vengeance starts going down but I think that's why I enjoyed this movie so much, it isn't as depraved as I expected it to be. Instead of a dark and depraved thriller we get a ghoulishly messy supernatural horror (with a nice and sad little love story included) and we need more of those.

In short: Fun and gory horror that was way more fun than I expected. Recommended.

Mr Jones (2013)

A young couple goes to a cabin in the Californian hills to shoot a documentary (never heard that one before). They have some personal issues (of course) but all of that is forgotten when they happen upon a strange cabin filled with grotesque scarecrows and realize that they have stumbled upon the legendary Mr Jones, a Banksy type sculptor who has been an enigma in the art scene for many years, causing nightmares to the people that has his sculptures. But when they start to dig deeper they realize that Mr Jones might just be building the fucked up pieces of art as protection against something, to hold something back...

Mr Jones has an exceptional concept and the sculptures/scarecrows are awesome pieces of art (I wouldn't mind owning one myself, not that my girlfriend would ever let me display one and I understand her). The first fortyfive-ish minutes or so are excellent but it is when we slowly start to be shown why Mr Jones is doing what he does this that things start to fall apart. A bit of SPOILERY talk now: There is some talk about the border between the living world and the dreaming world being a bad place and while the concept is sound enough and quite intriguing, this means that you the audience is subjected to a lot of random dreamlike imagery and while nicely shot (quite a few cool shots of the crows) it is just too random to be more than just interesting. I like it when horror goes into slightly Lovecraftian territory and Mr Jones shows off some fleeting images and odd sounds, I just don't like it as much when it is drenched through a dreamhaze. End of SPOILERS. It just doesn't hold up, a bit more straightforward horror here would have done wonders here. Still, the ending, while pretty ambigious, ties everything up fairly well.

Oh, it's found footage as well (until the final act. Sort of) which will put some people off.

Flawed but interesting and incredibly well designed, Mr Jones is worth your while. It's just that it could have been so much better but the filmmakers wanted something else.

Zombi 3 (1988)

I know I was not the only one to be disappointed by Zombi 3 when I finally managed to aquire a bootleg vhs most likely around 1989-1990. The poster was awesome, we were promised gore and mayhem and expectations were sky high. And we got something very different from what we thought we would get.

The worst thing you could do when watching Zombi 3 for the first time is to compare to what is frankly a masterpiece of Italian horror, Zombi 2. The reason for this is that they are entirely different bodies with no connection whatsoever. Where Zombi 2 is a slow, moody piece of horror with a general feeling of old 50:s and 60:s horror (albeit with a bit more grue), Zombi 3 is a product of it's own era, a fastpaced actionpacked piece of cheese that is so firmly attached to the actionmovies of the 80:s that it is virtually impossible for it to age well. Even when it was released it felt like a parody of itself. I partly blame Fragasso and Mattei for this, just take a look at their output of the time and you'll see a pattern. Fulci can't be excused either, there isn't really anything in Zombi 3 that shows the hand of the same master that gave us such iconic movies as Zombi 2 and The Beyond. I'm guessing that this is partly due to declining health but more importantly that the crew he had weren't his old troopers like Sergio Salvati or Gianetto De Rossi. The quality of his 70:s and early 80:s movies is nowhere to be seen, replaced with a general aura of cheapness.

With all of that negativity out of the way, I won't deny that Zombi 3 is a very entertaining movie. The pace is strong, getting into the zombieaction fairly quickly and it does manage to maintain it until the end. There is enough tacky gore and absurd events to keep you from being bored and it does have a pretty damn good score as well, most likely the best thing about the entire movie.

So whatever you do, don't expect another Zombi 2, think more of Hell of the living dead. For me that isn't that much of a bad thing, as long as you are aware of it.

Död Snö 2 aka Dead snow 2 (2014)

Död snö 2 starts when the original ends, the lead character having sawed his arm off, accidentally killed his girlfriend and fled the scene of the crime with the nazi treasure returned to it original "owners". Unfortunately he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes his car, only to awaken to find himself accused of murder and the nazi commanders arm grafted onto his stump. The zombie nazis are still on the march and now he has to escape the law and find out what their target is before everyone is killed. Well, it turns out that their original target is to kill everyone. Surprise.

The sequel to Död snö is bigger, gorier and has a much higher budget, giving Wirkola and his fellow filmmakers a chance to fill the screen with hundreds of zombies and a shitload of goofy gore. Unfortunately, and this is a big one, someone decided to include a group of American characters that are amongst the unfunniest I've seen for years. It's like a group of Norwegians sat down and wrote what they thought American nerds were like, without ever having met an American in person and based them on the lamest US comedy shows they had seen. Nothing about them is funny, nothing! That includes the dialogue that to me, a Swede, felt like nothing an American would say. They're even supposed to be nerdy teens that live at home with their parent and are played by 30+ actors. Argh. I could fill pages upon pages with bad things to say about them. Argh.

Fortunately the rest of the movie is quite entertaining with a great Norwegian cast and a lot of tasteless violence where no one is spared, not even babies. A good enough sequel but the fucking Zombie squad does so much damage that it is almost irreparable. And those überlame Star Wars jokes. Those god damn Star Wars jokes. What the hell were they thinking?

Skinless (formerly known as The Ballad of Skinless Pete) (2013)

Dustin Mills latest is a microbudget little nugget of slimy joy, basically The Fly versus The Incredible Melting man. It tells the story of Dr Peter Peele who is trying to find a cure for cancer by using the enzyme from a parasite. As funding falls through he decides to test it on his own inoperable skincancer which at first seems to work very well. But, since this is a horrormovie, all goes straight to the lesser known circle of hell: the circle of blood and slime!

Mills is getting better and better with the art of telling a story for every movie he makes. I've been following his career from the start, ever since Puppet monster massacre (although it wasn't actually the first one I saw, though I did buy it on its release) and you can somehow watch him putting the pieces of his storycrafting together one piece at a time. With Skinless (I did like the The Ballad of Skinless Pete title better but I suppose it's easier to sell it without a title that sounds slightly phallic) he has made an oldfashioned monstermovie his own way, pouring on buckets of slime and blood, sprinkling it with nuggets of nudity and arrived at a nice little movie. Slightly hampered by its miniscule budget, yes, but nowhere near enough to lessen your enjoyment. Brandon Salkil, Mills own Bruce Campbell, does his usual schtick, chewing the scenery with gusto and Erin P Ryan does a good job with her role as his colleague who ends up a victim of his experimentations. More importantly, they hold up well enough to sustain a narrative that is essentially a two person show, something that could have killed this movie outright in the hands of the wrong person(s). The script isn't actually reinventing the wheel but the pace is good and the story is intriguing. Good, slimy fun for the whole family.

So, in short, if you like watching people melt you should get this. You can buy it from here.

Bach Ke Zara (2008)

Ever thought that Evil dead was a fun movie but felt that it would have been better if it was acted out by a group of possibly mildly retarded Indian people (the dialogue is pretty damn preposterous and make the cast sound more than a little intellectually challenged) and had a couple of cheesy song and dance numbers? Well then, here you have Bach Ke Zara, an exact replica of Evil dead, Bollywood style. Made in 2008, this oddity looks like it could have been made in 1988. Scene by scene is replicated, only with far less graphic violence and talent, and tons of music I'm pretty sure was stolen from other movies. If you thought Bruce Cambell was overacting in the original, wait until you see this, the hysterical crying and whining of these Bollywood actors goes to a whole new level of absurd. It is on the other hand slightly more raunchy than I expected a Bollywood movie to be. No nudity or things like that, only a lot of grinding asses and bare flesh. Heck, there is even a little sideboob at one point!

No, this is far from a good movie. On the other hand, there is quite a lot of fun to be had watching how the Bollywood filmmakers steal scene after scene after scene of the original movie. It is entertaining to say the least and it is fricking hilarious to hear someone scream "Shut up, you rascal!" to a possessed person. Just watch the hilarious overacting in this dramatic scene where one of the cast just has chopped up his possessed girlfriend with an axe. Then decide if the rest of the movie is worth it.

Shark: Rosso nell'oceano aka Devil Fish aka Monster shark aka Devouring Waves (1984)

It has a shark with tentacles. Win.

But it only has about 30 seconds of sharktentacle footage. The rest is just mindlessly boring thrillerstuff.

It has a shark with tentacles.

But the score is the worst kind of 80s cheesepop, giving you a headache just by thinking about it.

It has a shark with tentacles.

And everyone involved just seem so damn uninterested in what they are doing, including the actors and the director.

It has a shark with tentacles.

And it's put together so sloppily, the supposedly tense scenes are edited to hell.

It has a shark with tentacles.

So has Sharktopus. What's your point?

It has a... Uh. Well. Nothing. And the worst thing? It's probably the fifth time I see it. Some people just want to sit and listen to their brain rotting away. I want a blu ray.

Blood predator (2007)

A group of people on their way to a ski-resort are involved in a planecrash and end up stranded in a cabin, besieged by alien creatures hungry for human flesh. And that is about as positive as I can be about this snoozefest of a movie.

First of all Mr Filmmaker, if you are making a creaturefeature, please have some creatures in it. Oh, we do get creatures but it takes exactly one hour and seven minutes of wading through a lot of pointless bickering of some of the most cliched and annoying characters ever put on celluloid. It's not even like you are hoping them to die horrible deaths, you are actually finding yourself devising scenarios where someone travels back in time and murder their ancestors so that they never existed in the first place. And when we do get creatures we are treated to "special" effects that make Bert I Gordons Empire of the ants look like an showcase for new technology. A mixture of wobbly puppets (that look sorts ok when they don't move) superimposed on the screen and really crappy cgi that looks like they didn't even bother to finish it properly.

No, this is not worthy of anyone's attention. The actors aren't totally worthless but the dialogue they are forced to spout is just fucking awful. There is a bit of gratitous nudity (including an odd scene where a lesbian character seduces a woman whose husband just got killed) and some minor gore but its far from enough. Skip it.

Alien Terminator aka Alien Species(1995)

This low budget Alien ripoff is just so mindbogglingly awful that words cannot describe it accurately. Here are a few nuggets of joy:

They copy the chestbursting scene from Alien, complete with during dinner and convulsions, only with the minor difference that the alien comes out of the guys back. This way they won't have to spend any money on the effect, just show a big bloody hole afterwards.

Towards the end, when the whole desert underground base blows up, the movie cuts to a scene of an explosion in a city apartment where a man in a monstersuit goes flying out the window. Wtf?

There is a really charming scene of a couple having some wine in an air duct, only for the girl to take her top off so that the guy can go straight to sucking on her silicone boobs. Eh.

This is a shitfest. I like Alien ripoffs and have seen quite a few clunkers in my days but I'd rather watch Savage water again than this. It is THAT bad.

Godzilla (2014)

So, here it is. The new Godzilla. I've been a fan for at least thirty years now and after watching the trailers you could easily say that my expectations were beyond sky high. I am happy to say that I was not disappointed one bit. I won't discuss the plot here, you know parts of it already, just mention the good and some of the perhaps not so good parts.

The good parts:

Well, most of it. Gareth Edwards Godzilla is a visual feast with superb special effects and tons of cool mass destruction. The plot is nothing new but Toho has been rewriting the origin-story several times and as such it's pretty good. Most importantly, this is a smorgasbord for monsterlovers. The Mutos are fricking awesome although they do look like they should belong in a Gameramovie (Gyaos anyone?). From looking at the leaked actionfigurepics they looked kind of silly but I can assure you, they are worthy Kaiju. As for the new look of Godzilla: Yes, he looks different. More thicker, denser, bearlike almost. But this is about the eight new look he has gotten so who cares. Get over it.

The not so good parts:

The characters are flatter than the people Muto steps on. Heck, even Pacific rim had more depth in that area which says a LOT. On the other hand, most of them are fairly likable, unlike Pacific Rim which had a bunch of angsty teens that you wanted dead.

And this is about as SPOILERY as I am going to get: It could have used more Godzilla.

The 3D is pretty useless, you need not bother with it.


So, the short version: an excellent monstermovie and a worthy American version. More than worthy.

Prometheus (2012)

I was halfway through rewatching Prometheus when I got the news of H.R Gigers death. Although Giger did not work on this movie the whole look of it is taken straight out of his masterful designs on Alien which means that this review will be my tribute to the most exceptional artist the world has ever known. RIP.

Ok, there are a couple of major issues with Prometheus, coming from one single source: the script.

Firstly we have the Alien connection. By rewriting the alien history a lot of fans were pretty damn pissed off, and fair enough, I understand them. A little. We wanted xenomorphs, not squids. But as far as the plot goes it isn't that bad, only different from what we wanted. A little blunt maybe but still worthwhile. And the squid is actually quite a cool creature. I mean, anything with tentacles is cool. Even Monster shark.

Then there are the characters. Looking back at Alien with its colorful crew we have to settle with a bunch of bickering, faceless buffons. Yes, they bickered in Alien but that felt like it was actual people arguing, not actors speaking from a script.

And now we come to my only genuine hatred towards Prometheus. The space jockey. One of the absolutely coolest things about Alien is that so very different remnant of a creature, one of the very very few instances in cinema history where we were able to lay our eyes upon a truly alien being, something so mindbogglingly different from all the bugeyed aliens before and after. I was well and truly pissed off over the fact that this was just an exoskeleton, a fucking spacesuit. Years of picturing from what alien hell this was spawned from was just blown out of my mind with a single scene. I hate the filmmakers for that, I really do.

So why am I still rating this movie as high as I do? Because no matter what flaws the script have, it still is one hell of a gorgeous looking scifimovie that has all that sure craftsmanship that we are used to from Ridley Scott. And as soon as I remember that this isn't really a prequel to Alien, then I'm actually pretty damn content. Just the scene of the Prometheus entering the atmosphere and landing on the surface of the planet makes the blu-ray worth its price..

Oh, I forgot about the donutscene. Why the hell would you try to flee a tumbling spaceship by running in it's PATH? Gah.

And they really should have used the alternative scene of the mutated geologist attacking the Prometheus. It looks so much more alien instead of a guy covered in latex.

Almost human (2013)

Guy watches friend get abducted by aliens and no one believes him. A couple of years later friend returns and starts a rampage of  bloody Xtro reenactments.

I wanted to like this Xtro homage more than I did, it has a number of good points like a simple but fun plot and a lot of really bloody old school violence. Josh Ethier is an excellent lumbering hulk of a monster and while some of the minor characters are pretty mediocre, the leads do an ok job. Unfortunately Almost human is a bit too short to really go anywhere special, it runs through the usual numbers in its brief 80 min running time (of which 8 are really, really slow end credits). It might sound like I didn't like the movie, I did, but it had the potential of being something more, something squishier and gloopier but instead chose the easy way out. If you compare it to the obvious influence, Xtro, it is so much more restrained and by the numbers. I suppose it might have been a budgetary issue so we'll have to do with what we have now which is a fairly fun and gory monstermovie, which isn't actually that bad. I look forward to what writer/director Joe Begos comes up with in the future because there is nothing about his direction and scriptwriting to complain about, on the contrary. It's just that somewhere on the way his vision got a bit limited. Until next time. I'll be there waiting.

Last Exit Entertainment - A new dvdlabel that promises to kick ass!

Jason Meredith over at Cinezilla and Tomas Sandquist who used to be a part of Swedish dvdlabel Dark Entertainment have joined forces to release some major grue upon an unsuspecting world, starting with Andrey Iskanovs tour de force bizarro-movie Nails and following up with some of his other mindfucks like Philosophy of a knife and Visions of suffering. Grand guignol russian style that has to be seen to be believed.

To show their diversity there will also be some classic German gore from Marc Rohnstock, titles like Graveyard of the living dead and Necronos. Those of us that grew up watching shoddy vhs-copies of Andreas Schnaas Violent shit trilogy will have a ball watchings the most recent wave of German low budget splatterfests.

Check out their facebookpage for more info.

50 years of Godzilla - Part 3. The Millenium years

23. Gojira ni-sen mireniamu aka Godzilla 2000 (1999)

The first movie in the Millenium series is an excellent introduction to the now grown up Godzilla junior as he fights Orga, a creature spawned from a meteorite long buried in the Japan trench (well, actually, Orga is the meteorite itself). The monster on monster fights are mostly confined to the end but there is a fair share of excellent mass destruction and the final image *spoiler* of Godzilla beating the crap out of Orga and proceeding to total Tokyo with a massive breath of fire is frankly awesome, almost rivalling the end of the previous movie, Godzilla vs Destroyah.

24. Gojira tai Megagirasu: Jî shômetsu sakusen aka Godzilla vs Megaguiras (2000)

The Heisei/Millenium run of Godzilla had been consistently fantastic but finally we arrive at a dud. Well, not really. More of a Big G movie that is just Ok. The plot is pretty meh and Megaguiras is a so so opponent but fortunately there is a lot of monsteraction and it's never boring, just a slight letdown after Destroyah and Millenium.

25. Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaijū Sōkōgeki aka Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Another reboot of the series that goes pretty far off the usual goings on, this time with Godzilla a true monster that shows no remorse, just a massive creature of destruction. The biggest surprise though is having the movie completely rewrite Ghidrah into one of the good guys. And it works! The fights are truly spectacular and it's quite refreshing to get to see Godzilla totally annihilating his foes, no holds barred. The only thing I don't really like is the new design of Big G, making him look more like a Tyrannosaurus rex than ever but that's no big issue. Shusuke Kaneko should have made more Godzillas, his only attempt is one of the best. His wonderful Gameratrilogy is frankly better than a lot of the newer Godzillamovies. Was that heresy? Well, I do love Gamera too. Can't a guy love both?

26. Gojira tai Mekagojira aka Godzilla against Mechagodzilla (2002)

Coming straight after the wonderful GMK, Godzilla against MechaGodzilla is quite the disappointment. The plot is cheesy in the extreme with a number of cringe-inducing moments involving a motherless girl and the soldier who accidentally caused a couple of deaths and now has to prove herself as the pilot of the new MechaGodzilla. It's a shame really since the fightsequences are really great and the sfx just keeps getting better by each movie. There could've been a bit more of them too.

Not a bad movie by any means, just an ok one.

27. Gojira tai Mosura tai Mekagojira: Tôkyô S.O.S aka Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S (2003)

Apart from an overly übercheesy ending, this is a pretty damn solid entry in the series. Even better, it is actually a direct sequel to the original Mothra with Hiroshi Koizumi returning to play the same character as in the original movie. There are big fights and while maybe not as spectacular as in previous entries in the series they are all good fun. I liked this one more than I did the first time I saw it, just plain ole kaiju fun.

28. Gojira: Fainaru uôzu aka Godzilla: Final wars (2004)

I like Ryuhei Kitamuras Versus a lot but taking that style and putting it in a Godzillamovie was kind of a bad idea. I love all the monsterfights, seeing a lot of old friends again and all the actors from the older movies, that made final wars a treat. Unfortunately the human versus xian fightscenes (of which there are a lot) are just boring. And that ending... Gaah. But all those monsters compensate a lot and as a final part in a series it does its job well.

But where the hell was Megalon?!


So here I am, having rewatched the whole series in about a months time. When I viewed these movies the first time it was never in any particular order, more in the order of how I was able to obtain them and it is quite interesting to see how Godzilla has evolved over the years - from a horrible metaphor of nuclear death to a cheesy friend of the japanese children and then turned into the champion of earth and back to evil again. And so forth. There is no real consistensy here, only in segments of a couple of movies here and there. But I did have a lot of fun and that is the big issue here. Watching the whole series in a short period of time could quite possibly have made me grown weary of the giant monster but it did not. My love for Godzilla has grown even stronger. And my expectations of Gareth Edwards Godzilla are still through the roof.

50 years of Godzilla - Part 2. The Heisei years.

16. Gojira 84 aka Godzilla 85 (1984)

The rebirth of Godzilla in this direct sequel to the original is not entirely succesful, at least as far as actually being a sequel. It does not have the same darkness and the pathos for the creature sometimes borders on the ridiculous, a lot thanks to the bombastic score. It worked better when Godzilla was a metaphor for nuclear destruction, that point doesn't really come across here other than a slight nudge to the cold war and the fear of total nuclear war.

But still, it is one hell of a comeback after all the lame movies that fukuda directed when Godzilla was nothing more than Ultraman with a tail. There is plenty of mass destruction here and the special effects are excellent. It it quite refreshing to watch Godzilla cause massive mayhem, something we really havent seen since maybe Destroy all monsters.

17. Gojira tai Biorante aka Godzilla Vs Biollante (1989)

Godzilla vs Biollante is quite an oddity. To call the plot outlandish is truly an understatement and certain parts of it are goofy beyond belief, the whole bit about the soul of a dead girl in a rose is just wow, what the hell were you thinking. It is also pretty damn slow to begin with and filled with typically awful nonjapanese actors that have worse understanding of the english language than most japanese. Then there is the score, taken straight out of a Steven Spielberg movie and totally unsuitable for this movie, apart from the damn ending with Biollantes final scenes for which it is perfect (not a particulary good thing).

But enough complaining now. Godzilla vs Biollante is much more than that. As soon as Godzilla enters the scene we get a fine piece of engaging Kaiju with a lot of excellent special effects and a short but sweet final showdown between the title beasties. Biollante might have an exceptionally silly backstory but as a creature she is awesome, a giant heap of teeth and tentacles that should have had more screentime than it got. Just get past the really dull first forty minutes and you are in for one fine treat.

18. Gojira tai Kingu Gidora aka Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah (1991)

Another solid entry in the Godzilla saga, this one has a pretty damn overcomplicated and still incredibly silly plot featuring timetravel and androids. But who cares really, Godzilla is in great shape trashing a lot of buildings and even better, we get King Ghidorah transformed into Mecha-King Ghidorah! YEAH, MECHA-KING GHIDORAH! Woohoo!!

19. Gojira tai Mosura aka Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)

Godzilla vs Mothra tries very hard with its ultracheesy plot about the earth fighting back against pollution with Mothra and Battra being opposite sides of it and Godzilla, uh, caught in the middle. It kinda works but you do vomit in your mouth a little when the leads little daughter gets involved and gets to cheer for Mothra. Still, far from the vile, sickening cuteness of Minya.

But, as it always is, everything comes down to the special effects and monsters and G vs M does contain a lot of Godzilla on building related violence. The final thirty minutes are pretty damn cool actually and though the movie is a bit too long it is a fun watch.

20. Gojira tai Mekagojira aka Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (1993)

I'm not sure that introducing Baby Godzilla was such a good idea but it sure as hell isn't as hateworthy a character as Minya. Fortunately the movie that spawned it is an excellent one with some pretty damn sweet fights with lots of cool destruction. The new Mechagodzilla is fricking great and Akira Fukubes score is awesome, bringing back a lot of themes (and goosebumps) from the past.

And it's always nice to have Rodan back, at least for a while.

21. Gojira tai SupēsuGojira aka Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla. (1994)

The story in this one is just as insane as Godzilla vs Biollante, with cells from Godzilla ending up in space and sucked into a black hole, thus creating Space Godzilla. Uh, sure. Ok. There is even more silliness involving Baby Godzilla and the first half is pretty dull with several characters whose motivations seems to have been forgotten in the editing room.

BUT, and this is a big one, the last half is basically a fifty minute long fight between Godzilla, Space Godzilla and new robot Moguera. And it's just plain awesome. Space Godzilla, however silly its origin story may be, is one hell of a creature and if you get past the first half you will be rewarded with plenty of rubbermonstergoodness.

22. Gojira tai Desutoroia aka Godzilla Vs Destroyah (1995)

The final movie of the Heisei series is one hell of a finale with one of the best plots of the series, with Godzillas heart (a nuclear reactor) going into meltdown while creatures spawned by new experiments on the Oxygen destroyer is wreaking havoc on Tokyo. The message might be a bit heavyhanded (lots of somber speeches on mans folly) and there is a little less giant monster action than in the previous movies but it's all forgiven when we come to the slam bang finale which features some of the best monster on monster action of the entire run but is also both sad and powerful.

The Heisei series is probably the most consistent of the three different series, all of the movies are more than decent kaiju although they do tend to be a bit too long.

50 years of Godzilla - Part 1. The Showa years.

Godzilla has been a big part of my life for the last thirty years, ever since walking out of the videostore with a vhstape of Rymdmonstren anfaller (Invasion of the astromonsters aka Godzilla vs Monster Zero) and I was hooked instantly. It is now sixty years since the first Godzilla appeared in Japanese cinema and burst forth as a true monster icon. 28 movies has been made so far (I do not count the American edits of Gojira and Gojira 84 or that Emmerich monstrosity) and this seemed like a good time to watch every single one of them in order. So here is the first part, the Showa years.

1. Gojira (1954)

It is truly amazing that the original Godzilla turns sixty this year and still packs quite a punch thanks to its not so subtle Hiroshima and Nagasaki metaphor. Yes, you can bitch and whine how much you want about it being just a silly monstermovie with a goofy puppet and a man in a suit destroying toy buildings but then I'm pretty damn sure you haven't actually seen the original movie, just some of the not so serious movies that followed in the wake of its success. This is dark, bleak stuff with children being terminally radiated and toddlers crying over the loss of their mothers. The scenes of mass destruction still hold up incredibly well and while obvious miniatures they are staged and shot with total perfection. The only flaw that the movie has is the ending. While somber and suitably dark it still comes off a bit anticlimactic, especially after the supreme carnage that came before it. A masterpiece and an iconic monster, it's no wonder it got twenty-seven sequels.

2. Gojira no Gyakushū’aka Godzilla raids again (1955)

Watching this one straight after the wonderful original was not a good thing. It is so much more strangely lightweight and silly, with the overcranked fightscenes not helping at all. With that said I would lie if I told you it was a boring movie, on the contrary. As far as kaiju goes this is a fun flick with a lot of rubbersuited action, its just lacks the superb mood of the original.

3. Kingu Kongu Tai Gojira aka King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)

With King Kong vs Godzilla the series goes into full cheese mode and I really don't see any point opposing that, the entertainment value is enormous. There is a lot of cool footage of nice miniatures being smashed to pieces and the sight of King Kong trying to ram a tree down Godzillas throat is hilarious. You really can't hate this.

And that apesuit? God damn it's ugly. It looks fermented. I bet it smelled like Hákarl, that Icelandic rotten shark dish.

4. Mosura tai Gojira aka Mothra vs Godzilla (1964)

I've always had the opinion that I didn't like Mothra that much. I mean, who wants a "good" monster?! But after rewatching Mothra vs Godzilla I realize that I have been wrong all this time. Mothra is an excellent adversary to Godzilla (back in the days when Godzilla still was a force of destruction) and Mothra vs Godzilla is a damn fine piece of Kaiju. Heck, even the Peanuts are cute and belong in the plot. There is a lot of excellent special effects and the Godzilla suit is at its prime. I'm getting that incarnation as a tattoo as soon as I get around to it, probably never.

5. San Daikaijū: Chikyū Saidai no Kessen aka Ghidrah the threeheaded monster (1964)

This has always been a favorite of mine, with Ghidrah being a cool foe and the ongoing fight between Godzilla and Rodan pretty damn hilarious. The special effects are top notch and the whole enterprise is just so much fun!

6. Kaijū Daisensō aka Godzilla Vs Monster Zero (1965)

This was the first Godzillamovie I saw, renting it on vhs back in the days and it's no wonder I was hooked, it is truly a scorcher of a kaijumovie. We have everything we need, silly aliens with antennas controlling monsters to take over the earth with tons of great special effects. Actually, there is surprisingly little monsteraction with most of it confined to the last twenty minutes but there is so much fun watching Nick Adams and Akira Takarada hamming it up while the evil Xians try to destroy Earth. Apart from the original, this is the Kaiju you need to see.

7. Gojira, Ebira, Mosura: Nankai no Daikettō aka Godzilla vs the Sea monster (1966)

And here is where everything began to go sour. Jun Fukudas first Godzillamovie is just too plain silly and goofy and taking Godzilla away from Tokyo is a really bad thing. Sure, there is some enjoyment out of watching Godzilla play ball with a giant lobster and the surfmusic on the soundtrack as Big G is attacked by jetplanes is quite an eyeopener but this is so far from the original darkness of the original and the quirky scififantasy of the ones before this that it becomes a chore to watch at times. At least I wasn't bored.

8. Kaijūtō no Kessen: Gojira no Musuko aka Son of Godzilla (1967)

This is just plain awful. Seriously, what the hell were they thinking? Every single scene with Godzilla fathering Minya is just cringeworthy beyond belief and the Godzilla suit looks more like the cookie monster than the mighty being he used to be. The low point of the series.

9. Kaijū Sōshingeki aka Destroy all monsters (1968)

Destroy all monsters should be so much better than it is. Sure, it is one hell of a movie compared to the previous one, the awful Son of Godzilla but it had so much potential, especially since it was directed by the master: Ishiro Honda. The problem is not with the story, it has aliens and monsters galore in a classic Evil aliens wants to take over earth using Godzilla which worked so wonderful in Godzilla vs Monster Zero. There is nary a shot without some kind of model or monster suit. And here is the problem. All the special effects and scenes of mass destruction aren't shot particulary well, you almost get the feeling that it's leftovers from a cheapo Ultraman ripoff. The cinematography is dull and everyone is dressed in yellow or silver, like someone is channeling Mario Bava on heroin and it looks just bad. The tone of the movie is pretty strange too, one second a narrator is overexplaining the plot as if telling it to a five year old and moments later someone is shot in the head. And then there is Minya. I hate Minya.

With all of that said, I don't hate the movie. There is plenty of monsters and mass destruction and the plot moves like a steamtrain, never a dull moment. There are far worse Godzillamovies, it's just that this one had so much potential.

10. Gojira, Minira, Gabara: Ōru Kaijū Daishingeki aka Godzilla's revenge (1969)

Things I learned from this movie:

Don't worry if you are bullied, dad will beat the crap out of the bully.

To gain respect you must beat the crap out of the bully

As a Kaiju flick this is pretty awful, most of it is stockfootage from earlier Godzillas apart from the silly scenes with Minya facing up to his bully, Gabara. I hate Minya. The rest of it though isn't actually that bad as a kids movie with a little kid dreaming of going to Monster island as he is by himself when his parents are working overtime. It does end on a strange note with the kid saying to his mom that they should work as much as possible so they can have a good life. Yeah kid, that helped you a lot when those criminals came around when you were by yourself. In another movie your mutilated corpse would have been dumped in a hole in that abandoned factory you like to play in all the time.

An oddity for sure but it sure as hell is about a million times better than Son of Godzilla.

11. Gojira tai Hedora aka Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971)

This is just one big incoherent lsd-trip full of Kaiju, melting people, ecological messages and strange animated interludes. I love it.

12. Chikyū Kogeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan aka Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)

Godzilla vs Gigan looks nice on paper, an alien race trying to conquer earth using Ghidrah and a new and fairly cool/silly monster, Gigan. Unfortunately it just isn't much fun. A lot of the mass destruction is footage from earlier movies, something that is pretty easy to spot since there us a big difference in quality, the footage shot for this movie is not as detailed and shot mostly in closeups. It takes forever to get to the action and when you finally get there you've already grown tired of the annoying cast and the fact that Godzilla and Angillus speak to each other using speech bubbles (though it's even worse in the english dub where they actually have voices). It's not a completely worthless movie, there is some fun to be had watching the final fight and it doesn't have Minya but it's still one of the lesser Big G movies.

13. Gojira tai Megaro aka Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)

This was actually much better than I remembered it, G vs Megalon might not be that good but it's pretty damn entertaining. The plot is cheesy as hell as the people of Seatopia wants to destroy humanity using Megalon and the incredibly silly looking Jet Jaguar but of course Godzilla comes to the rescue when there is seventeen minutes left of the movie. There is a lot of stock footage (though not as much as in Godzilla vs Gigan) but the long fight in the end is fun in a pro wrestling kinda way. It's all simple fun with a funky typical seventies score and garish clothes.

I remember having some sort o discussion about Terror of mechagodzilla being the only Godzillamovie to feature nudity but G vs Megalon actually has that too, in the form of a pinup in the back of a truck. Ah, the seventies...

14. Gojira tai Mekagojira aka Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)

Jun Fukudas final Godzillamovie is his best, no doubt about that. It suffers a bit from the same syndrome as most of his movies - never really having any major mass destruction taking place in a city and it focuses too much on Godzilla as a slightly goofy force of good bit other than that it is a fine piece of kaiju. The special effects are excellent, it seems a little more money than usual was spent on them and Mecha Godzilla is one of the best baddies ever made from the series. And King Seesar? Well, maybe the idea was better than its goofy execution but he still works. Good, clean kaiju fun.

15. Mekagojira no Gyakushū aka Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Ishiro Hondas final Gojira is a solid piece of kaiju when you consider that Godzilla vs Megalon was just a few years earlier. It is also surprisingly violent and is the only Gojiramovie to feature nudity. A cool and silly plot along with a lot of mass destruction makes this a must watch for kaiju fans.

So, in short, the Showa era is filled with excellent kaiju madness though it also has some of the worst of the series. It is the most inconsistent period (the later got a lot more even, for good and bad) but also has some of the possibly best ones. Tune in for the Heisei period in the near future.

Ozombie (2012)

I bet the creators of this movie sat in a bar somewhere discussing this movie, probably just having decided to make it based on the title and giggling a lot over the fact that they came up with it after four Pabst blue ribbon and a couple of shots. I have no problem with that, movies have been made for far more worse reasons.

Ozombie is one of those movies that aren't exactly bad or boring but just so average that while keeping you entertained you have to fight hard to keep your attention to it, it's oh so easy to wander off in your thoughts forgetting that you are watching a movie. It has scene upon scene of generic, unmemorable characters walking around shooting zombies in the head (a very pictueresque Utah doing a not so good job standing in for Afghanistan) while looking for zombiefied Osama Bin Ladin and that is really all there is to it. There is A LOT of zombies getting their rotten brains blown out, I swear to Godzilla that I have never seen so many headshots outside a Call of duty game. It's all cgi but actually some of the best cgiblood I have ever seen, I was actually quite impressed.

So, if you like seeing zombies being shot in the head, this is the movie for you. It's far from the best zombieflick ever made but it's technically competent with some pretty stunning cinematography and a lot of splats. It's a shame about the exceptionally bland script.

El vampiro de la autopista (1970)

Let us examine the english title of this movie, Horrible sexy vampire.

Horrible, yes. An invisible vampire kills people randomly in a small german town. Why invisible? I have no idea. What I do know is that this movie has some of the worst dialogue known to man. I saw the english version and it feels like the dubbing was made up on the spot by people who had no idea of what the movie was about.

Sexy. Well, yes. The vampire mostly kills nude women after we are treated to loong scenes of undressing. Almost like a long commercial for lingerie.

Vampire. Yes, there is a vampire walking around in a typical vampire cape while not invisible (which is most of the time). He doesn't even bite his victims, he strangles them.

So at least the title is correct, it doesn't lie. It would have lied if it had been called Entertaining horrible sexy vampire or Horrible sexy vampire movie worth watching. Let's focus on the Horrible part and warn all our friends from watching this (unless they are like me and has to watch every damn spanish 70s horrormovie that exists). Sometimes my hobby is a curse. And I would buy it on a proper release.

Cabin fever: Patient zero (2013)

I never saw the point of Cabin fever, it had a nice concept but the movie itself was pretty bland, going out of its way to promote itself that it was the ultimate goremovie when it was nowhere near that (see the pattern here? Eli Roths next movie was the similarily overrated Hostel). Cabin fever 2 upped the gorequota severely bur it didn't really help when it turned out to be one of the worst sequels ever made. Seriously, I get angry just thinking about the fact that I spent money on that piece of totally unwatchable crap.

And here we are now at part three, which to my pleasant surprise somehow manages to be the best of the lot! Samwise Gamgee, I mean Sean Astin, is Patient zero - the only human being immune to the flesheating disease and is being held against his will at a small lab on a caribbean island and is notably upset of being experimented on. In the meantime a group of youth are heading out for a party - on that very island. A lot of melting, flesh-ripping and skull-crushing with dildo ensues.

No, no wheels are re-invented here. The youths are as annoying as ever and the plot won't win any awards, it's your basic infected people at a remote location thingie but the movie is well shot with some pretty stunning cinematography and the flesheating disease is a nasty thing indeed. The makeup sfx are nicely yucky and the gorehounds will love this.

This means I'm actually looking forward to the next part. Wow. Who would have thought that?