Frankenstein's Army (2013)

"Toward the end of World War II, Russian soldiers pushing into eastern Germany stumble across a secret Nazi lab, one that has unearthed and begun experimenting with the journal of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein."

As a rule, I loathe faux "found footage" movies, but sometimes there can be an exception. I may moan about the subgenre being oversaturated with crap, but I'll still watch yet another one of these "Blair Witch Project" clones if there's nothing else available. In this case, it's a Dutch horror movie filmed in the Czech Republic with heavily-accented English dialogue. Call me naive, but that sounds intriguing enough on its own. The fact that it's called "Frankenstein's Army" and contains lots of "Soviets versus Nazis" wartime action is just icing on the cake.

Having watched it three times in a row, I'm pleased to report that "Frankenstein's Army" does not disappoint. That's the first time I've ever written that overused, archaic and cringeworthy phrase in one of my reviews, so now you know this movie is even more special.

"Frankenstein's Army" really kind of rocks somewhat, but I'm not going to get too carried away with the overpraise because I still hate the handheld shakycam gimmick. I'm not sure why director Richard Raaphorst took that route for his debut feature, but maybe he wasn't confident enough in his cameraman's ability to use a tripod. The good news is that it isn't even remotely as nauseating to watch as any other found footage movie—well, not in the motion-sickness way—but the bad news is that it doesn't look like real found footage due to the subject matter. The Russians would be speaking Russian rather than English for one thing! It would still look fake if there were subtitles everywhere though because the attention to detail in other areas doesn't try to disguise that it's a modern film. Subtitles would simply alienate the dumber horror fans who don't like to read, so I can accept why it was done this way.

It's probably wise that the "found footage" wasn't made to look too real anyway because I'd hate for any the far-fetched cyborgs to exist in real life. The extreme horrors shown are more than enough for most people without adding another level of cruelty. The monsters are such artfully created nightmares of dead flesh and machinery that I think whoever came up with their designs must have something very wrong with them in all the sick and twisted ways I like, but anyone squeamish who watches this will not be happy. This is certainly not a "date night" movie unless you want to end up sleeping alone. "Frankenstein's Army" is a gorehound's delight, full of truly horrific and gruesome stuff, which makes a refreshing change from the wimpy PG-13s and R-rated punch-pullers lately.

"A man of vision is always misunderstood."

The biggest problem with finding a horror movie which I actually like is writing about why I like it without spoiling it for everybody else. I've also been so negative for so long that having a decent movie in my clutches is a surprise which almost renders me speechless. I want to pull out all the bog-standard descriptive words and phrases such as "awesome", "amazing, "fantastic", "I was blown away", and "the best horror movie that I've seen this year" except that none of them would be applicable in this particular case. "Frankenstein's Army" is very entertaining, practical effects-laden film, and on a purely subjective level, I loved it for its blood and guts, but as usual, there are flaws.

I've already mentioned how the found footage camerawork isn't something which I'm keen on, and the contrivances about who is carrying the camera and why are blatant in every scene. Occasional "Stop filming!" or "Film this!" orders draw more attention to the fakery than is necessary. Once the action kicks in, "Frankenstein's Army" sometimes feels more like playing a "first person shooter" computer game with no ammunition left rather than watching a movie, but that's my only other gripe. Although there's an obligatory "I'm so sorry, Mum and Dad!" homage to "The Blair Witch Project", I can also let that pass because it's quite important to the speaker's motivation.

Apart from the accents and linguistic skills, there's not much to the acting although everyone gets a chance to do something impressive. In particular, Joshua Sasse (a British actor) is very charismatic as the Polish Sergei, and Alexander Mercury is perfectly cast as Dimitri. Andrei Zayats, who seems destined to be typecast as a Russian soldier for the rest of his career, is very realistic as Vassili. Despite having yet more stereotypical character names (Sacha, Ivan, Alexei, etc.), the other cast members are equally strong only in much smaller roles.

The most famous face is Karel Roden as Viktor Frankenstein. Horror fans will probably only remember him as Dr. Varava from "Orphan" (2009), which is a bit of shame since he's been in exactly 100 roles to date. At first, I thought he was Srdjan Todorovic, the star of "A Serbian Film" (2010), because there's definitely a similarity. If there's a weak link in the chain, it's that his performance isn't manic or obsessive enough to appease hardcore "Frankenstein" fans, but this movie is a long way from Mary Shelley's novel in any case.

"Frankenstein's Army" is a nicely paced fusion of classic horror and wartime fantasy which I highly recommend. It's not available on DVD until September 10th, and its very limited theatrical release may not be in your area, but you can watch it now on Amazon's Instant Video service. I suggest that you do so immediately.

Sad day. One of my fans died.

Today I lost a very dear friend to me. In spite of a valiant effort to remove the chill from my office space this morning, my little CZ40 fan heater finally burnt out.

My CZ40's birthday was in September 2008 according to the manufacturer's label. I'm not sure how long $10 fan heaters are supposed to last, but I got a lot of use out of the little bugger. We've survived terrible winters in two apartments and my current pigsty of a house, but, alas, there will be no more cosy times watching horror movies together.

I took my CZ40 apart and cleaned it out (with a paintbrush and a can of compressed air) in an attempt to revive it, but now it just smells like burning plastic and switches off again after less than a minute. It's horrible. I'm almost beside myself with grief. I loved my little fan heater.

Although the tragedy is hard to bear, I suppose I'll just have to go to Big Lots or Family Dollar and get another one later.

The Evil Dead (1981)

"Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons."

The trouble with rewatching a lot of the movies from "The Vault" is that they have lost all their shock value. Because I've seen them so many times, the effect is like some gruesome looking wallpaper, and never more so than in the case of "The Evil Dead".

It's not that I don't like "The Evil Dead". It was a serious horror movie with some nicely done gore if you take into account the low-budget and time it was made. It just doesn't hold up too well under closer scrutiny today. There are a lot of people dreading the remake, sequel, or whatever it will turn out to be, but I'm quite looking forward to an update which doesn't involve so much stop-motion animation and plasticine.

Allegedly, "The Evil Dead" was made for $375,000 which was actually quite a large sum of money to put into a horror movie back in 1981. All those filmmakers that use "The Evil Dead" as the inspiration for their own backyard epics with their budgets of less than $2000 really need to stop being so delusional, quit relying on Kickstarter e-begging, and take out some loans just like Sam Raimi did if they want any real credibility.

Even with the huge budget that "The Evil Dead" had, it still comes across as very amateur compared to the more comedic sequel/remake "Evil Dead II" (1987). The acting is atrocious and the dialogue, sparse though it is, isn't exactly a strong point. Any scene involving Scott (Hal Delrich) where he's being an asshole or starts laughing really makes me cringe.

I can't even say that Bruce Campbell as Ash doesn't rub me up the wrong way nowadays either. Given that he's the unlikeliest of heroes anyway, he doesn't have very much charisma in "The Evil Dead". Although it looks as if he's trying to act occasionally, more often than not he's just going through the motions or mugging at the camera.

As for the girls, I don't have anything good to say about them. Cheryl, the one with the big nose who shows her left breast and gets raped by a tree for all of ten seconds, is very annoying otherwise, and Linda (Betsy Baker) looks a lot better when she's in the "scary doll" make-up. Shelly does a little bit better possibly because she was clearly the oldest there, but she hardly stands out even as one of the Dead. Since they were all replaced by "Fake Shemp" people for much of the movie anyway, it's impossible to tell who put the most (or any) effort in at all.

I know a lot of people really like the "groundbreaking" POV camerawork, but it has always irritated me. Yes, it was clever, but it had no effect on me other than causing dizziness. Couple that with all the overly loud music, banging, screaming and shouting, and "The Evil Dead" becomes something designed to cause a headache rather than scare the crap out of you.

Having said all that, you probably wonder why I still consider "The Evil Dead" to be one of the best horror movies ever made. It's simple really. Although the "The Evil Dead" wasn't the first "cabin in the woods horror", it was the first and most supernatural "cabin in the woods horror" that I remember.

Back in the day, I had to watch a bootleg version of "The Evil Dead" after it got banned as a video nasty which made it seem even more special than it really was. Of course, it got re-released with cuts to the "tree rape" and "pencil in the foot" scenes, and those scenes became something of a legend before the internet came along and forced the "uncut" version to get half a dozen different releases.

As you can see, my present copy of "The Evil Dead" came free with a British newspaper. I don't have any of the "Book of the Dead" editions, steelbooks, or however many other versions are currently in circulation because, basically, I don't get anything out of rewatching the copy I do have.

"The Evil Dead" had its time. Although it was supposed to be serious, it was good for a "bit of a laugh" with friends. Now it's just one of those "must have" cult movies that everybody has in their collection and will probably never watch again.

Grace (2009)

"After losing her unborn child, Madeline Matheson insists on carrying the baby to term. Following the delivery, the child miraculously returns to life with an appetite for human blood. Madeline is faced with a mother's ultimate decision."

I watched this ages ago through Netflix but forgot to post the review up until now. Anyway, "Grace" was more of a drama with a few horror moments than a real horror film and it certainly wasn't in any way scary.

It's no spoiler to tell you that it was about a dead baby which comes back to life and needs to drink blood to live. You'll get that from the DVD sleeve and the trailer.

What you won't expect is how slow and character driven it all is. To say that it's another typical Canadian independent film would just be an insult to Canada and independent films but that's really the only way to describe it. There's a certain subgenre of Canadian movies which all have the same pacing and would drag if it wasn't for the camerawork and story. "Grace" however isn't as good as any of those.

"Grace" is really something that would be better as a 15 minute short as it doesn't really go anywhere. There are no twists or real surprises and it's 100% predictable. The only saving grace (yeah, I realise the pun) is that Jordan Ladd is quite easy on the eye.

I also noticed a really good goof at the 45 min. 49 sec. mark. One of the crew is clearly visible hiding in the doorway while Jordan Ladd is emptying meat into her wheelie bins outside. In fact he's so visible that I thought she was going to go back indoors and have an intruder jump out on her. He didn't and the director's commentary doesn't even mention it either so it just shows how little attention was paid to the editing.

It's still not a totally bad film for one viewing but the more times you watch it, the more you can tear it apart. I watched it twice over and my rating went down from an initial 5 out of 10 to just 2.

I hated Jordan Ladd's weirdo vegan character and all the stuff with breast feeding just made me want to keep saying "Bitty! Bitty Now!" like the David Walliams character in "Little Britain". One scene involving the old mother-in-law really was that sketch too.