Blood and Chocolate (2007)

"A young teenage werewolf is torn between honouring her family's secret and her love for a man."

Before "Twilight" existed, there was "Blood and Chocolate", and teenage girls went crazy for the book by Annette Curtis Klause. When the movie came out, it was to mixed reviews. Fans of the book hated the changes while the not-quite-intended "horror-lite" audience thought it was mediocre.

With nothing else on my watchlist, I thought it was about time that I gave "Blood and Chocolate" another try. I'm glad I did because, even though I'm neither the right age or gender to fully appreciate it, I came to realise that Katja von Garnier actually made a very good werewolf movie indeed.

As you know, I have a thing for Agnes Brucker. It's called "Percy" and it lives in my underpants. Thus, when I saw a copy of "Blood and Chocolate" in the DVD section of my local pawn shop a few months ago, I just had to have it. It was still sealed and I could tell that it came from Big Lots due to the price sticker still being on it. That reminds me that I haven't been to Big Lots for ages. I really need to see if they've got any new $3 horror DVDs.

Anyway, for the $2 I paid for it, I ended up with a beautifully shot film which held my interest all the way through. "Blood and Chocolate" certainly changed a few of the more commonly used werewolf tropes and wasn't at all formulaic. Apart from one dirty dog, these loups-garous were more like a peacekeeping force and protectors of Bucharest rather than the more vicious lycanthropes from classic horror movies.

As far as star-crossed lovers go, the parkour-loving, chocolate-maker, Vivien (Agnes Bruckner) and the overly pushy, comicbook artist, Aidan (Hugh Dancy), had enough problems even without the werewolf element, but they overcame all that to generate some of the best chemistry that I've ever seen in a screen relationship. Although it may be some kind of heresy in certain circles to suggest such a thing, they were actually a lot more convincing than Bella and Edward, or even Bella and Jacob for that matter.

With the bulk of the story being taken up by their romance, there was little time for a lot of werewolf action, but it was nicely done when it did happen. The first chase scene which involved Pete Lee-Wilson as a drug dealer who had fallen foul of the loups-garous' private version of the law was very nicely put together.

There were also none of those painful "An American Werewolf in London"-style transformation scenes since the werewolves in "Blood and Chocolate" had a more magical shape-shifting ability which turned them, via only a tiny bit of CGI, into real wolves. I thought that was much better than watching them sprout hair and turn into bad computer game effects.

Everyone did a great job, but the standout in the film was, of course, Olivier Martinez as Gabriel. He was very convincing in his slightly menacing role as an over zealous and not entirely unselfish leader. When he turned up riding a motorcycle at one point, I was amused by the '60s pop song reference as he truly was the "Leader of the Pack".

I'm glad that the DVD had subtitles though because Agnes Bruckner was a bit mumbly at first, and I found Olivier Martinez's accent to often be quite unintelligible. As an aside, no wonder Olivier Martinez's relationship with Kylie Minogue didn't last as, apart from all the other things which went wrong there, she probably couldn't understand half the things he said either (and vice-versa).

Although everything was played straight, there were a few subtle "in-jokes" (for lack of a better term) for werewolf aficionados to pick up on, but I won't spoil any of them for you apart from Aidan's final words which I feel need a little bit of explanation. Because "Blood and Chocolate" was filmed on location in Bucharest, Romania, the "Paris" reference was only a half-nod to "An American Werewolf in Paris" (1997). The replica Arc de Triomphe which they passed through was built in 1922 to honour the bravery of Romanian soldiers who fought in World War I. I know such facts aren't important to the story, but I just thought I'd share that anyway.

Apparently, "Blood and Chocolate" was by the producers of the "Underworld" movies, I didn't know that until I looked it up as, fortunately, there were no similarities in style or mythology other than the "Antigen" pharmaceutical which they must have placed in the latest "Underworld: Awakening" to neatly pull "Blood and Chocolate" into the same universe.

As "Blood and Chocolate" was an exceedingly slick and entertaining movie which had a lot of originality, I'm going to add it to "The Vault". It wasn't exactly full of horrific and bloody slaughter, but I liked it.

The Pact (2012)

"As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother's death, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home."

Ah, the old bait and switch. I only wanted to watch "The Pact" to see more of Agnes Bruckner, but she was only in it for just over six minutes. Then it was all down to Caity Lotz to carry the rest of the film.

I was impressed by the casting since Anges Bruckner and Caity Lotz physically matched each other really well as sisters. Caity Lotz was a little bit more freckly and didn't have lots of nasty tattoos of crucifixes all over her, but they still could have been siblings in real life.

As for the story, well, it was okay even though it seemed to take forever to get to where it was going. For something so ridiculously predictable, I suppose the writer/director, Nicholas McCarthy, tried to add a couple of original touches to the formula, but they just made things unnecessarily unfocused and slightly confusing.

The jump scares were nicely done. The one with "Global Maps" (no prizes for guessing that it was really "Google Maps" rebranded) caught me out even though I half-expected it. I had my pizza plate in front of my monitor as I watched this on my computer so I was up real close and personal at that moment. That was by far the best bit though.

Another surprise for me was seeing Casper Van Dien is something other than a SyFy movie again. Without the grey in his beard, he's hardly changed at all over the years. He probably has a magic portrait hidden in his attic or something. I thought he did quite well as the cop in this and I was a bit sorry to see the end of his character. His was the only character that I cared about.

The big twist (which wasn't really a twist) turned out to be far too like a certain movie from 1989 starring Gary Busey, and that knocked a lot of points from my final rating. Up until that point, I would have said that "The Pact" was just below average. The fact that a supernatural entity wasn't singly responsible for everything meant that it was a total disaster.

Here's the thing. There was a ghost in the house which could move objects and violently drag people around yet it couldn't do anything to its own murderer? That made no sense to me and, nor, for that matter, did the epilogue. Once again, a horror movie missed its punchline by continuing to ramble on for another ten minutes.

I was actually looking forward to "The Pact" but, overall, it was a huge disappointment caused by inept directing, bad pacing, and really weak characterisation. Some of the camerawork left a lot to be desired as well.

The Woods (2006)

This is now the best horror movie that I've seen not just from 2006 but for many years. I don't understand why this turned out to be a straight to DVD release as it's certainly good enough for a theatrical distribution.

I can't find enough good things to say about this at all. Not only does it do for witches what "Ginger Snaps" did for werewolves but everything is perfectly executed from the 1960s period setting to the outstanding acting by everyone involved.

The director, Lucky McKee, was also responsible for the more lacklustre "May" but don't hold that against him. This time he really got everything right. Again, he has used a very strong lead, Agnes Bruckner, and she will definitely enchant you (pun intended) throughout.

It has a sufficiently spooky atmosphere, great characterisation, a good storyline and excellent gore scenes at the end.

Don't believe anyone who writes bullshit comments about this being "derivative" and "unoriginal". Yes, it does have similarilties to "Carrie", "The Initiation of Sarah" (and a great many others) but it does it all so much better and mixes the elements in a far more entertaining way. You'll be drawn in so much by it that you won't even notice the "clichés" that the nitpickers like to point out.

The plot is indeed also similar to "Suspiria" but only in the way that "Suspiria" is the same as "Rosemary's Baby", i.e. they both have a coven of witches involved. But whereas "Suspiria" is an unwatchable, boring crapfest, this is a much smoother affair and much more enjoyable in every way.

Even the music is good!