Live-In Fear (2014)

"In the snowy Utah mountains, an ancient being terrorizes four friends as they try to survive."

There aren't many independent horror movies which I've waited over two years to see (or even cared about for that matter), but Brandon Scullion's "Live-In Fear" is one of them. In fact, it was way back on Friday, October 26th, 2012, that I first mentioned this movie, and earlier today, thanks to Maria Olsen from MOnsterworks66, I finally got to watch the HD screener.

Is "Live-In Fear" all that I expected it to be? Well, yes and no. I was mostly looking forward to the wintery setting, "The Shining"-style madness, and of course, the performances by Maria Olsen, Arielle Brachfeld, and the equally lovely Sarah Greyson. There's undoubtedly nothing to disappoint anyone too badly with these three actresses involved, but—and there's always a but with these things—the "cabin in the woods" (or rather "lodge in the snow") story itself is a tad confusing in places.

The good news is that this movie now exists and it won "Best Grindhouse Feature" at the 2014 Los Angeles RIP Horror Film Festival. Fans of Arielle Brachfeld (from "The Haunting of Whaley House") will also be pleased to learn that she won "Best Actress" for her role as Mallory at the same festival.

The bad news is that "Live-In Fear" is still another C-grade indie horror which isn't for everyone's tastes. You can't compare something like this with a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster, and so I'm not going to be foolish enough to try. However, when despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the story ultimately doesn't make a whole lot of sense, there's always room for criticism.

Nice retro poster. It reminds me of the '70s.

I was fine with everything (sort of) for the first 53 minutes. "Scooby Doo"-style villains and "Cassanda" tropes aside, each of the characters has dark secrets which are revealed in due course. Coupled with the usual low-budget horror bloodshed, this makes for some decent entertainment overall.

Admittedly, I found myself distracted by the scenery and ogling Sarah Greyson (whom, I have recently been informed, was in the "Road Rules" TV show) as Becca with her Bettie Page hair, but the camerawork is competent enough for the most part, and the sound has some unnerving ambient additions which first made me wonder if there was something wrong with my speakers and then caused me to worry that I was hearing things which weren't supposed to be there. Trust me, you'll notice these things too, and many more.

Written and directed by Brandon Scullion, "Live-In Fear" is a co-production between Brandon's Iodine Sky Productions and Maria Olsen's MOnsterworks66.

Maria Olsen is very attractive in her earlier scenes (and a bit scary later) as Seth's mother, and she definitely gives the younger actresses a run for their money, even if the aforementioned Arielle Brachfeld as Mallory is the one who is meant to stand out the most. Aiding and abetting them is David Lautman as Seth and Chris Dorman as Eric, neither of whose characters I warmed to, and with good reason considering the reveals.

The supporting cast of Geoffrey Gould, Myles Cranford, Charlene Geisler, and Nancy Wolfe are okay-ish, but Nancy Wolfe (who played Susan Atkins in the original 1976 "Helter Skelter") is the obvious stand-out here. None of them have very much screen time.

Sadly, "Live-In Fear" isn't a very scary movie, and it kind of takes itself too seriously for what it is. I actually prefer the latter element in a horror genre movie rather than everything being played for laughs (although I know other people don't feel the same way), so that's another point in its favour.

There's some nice blood and gore in places, which we all like, but there could have been more. Practical effects of various qualities appear throughout, several of which are unintentionally comical, but I can't say any more without spoiling them for you.

Eric is not a very nice man.

The only thing which threw me right out of my willing suspension of disbelief was what can only be described as a "WTF moment" around the 54 minute mark. Something far too weird happens with a younger version of Mallory (played by Charlene Geisler) which had me puzzled for the 4 minute duration of the scene. It makes absolutely no sense even with a second viewing, so I'll generously put it down to padding. The scene could be excised with no great loss, although with a running time of only an hour and 20 minutes, "Live-In Fear" isn't a very long movie anyway. It also has, in my opinion, an unnecessary and unsatisfying "Epilogue".

"Live-In Fear" did not quite live up to my expections, and I highly doubt that it's truly "the most disturbing film you'll see in your lifetime" (as the voiceover in the trailer suggests), but it certainly left me shaking my head and wondering, "What the fuck did I just watch?"

I recommend "Live-In Fear" for fans of this subgenre of indie horror movies, but it isn't good for anyone with mainstream tastes. It's hardly "The Evil Dead" despite some superficial similarities, but then again, it doesn't try to be either.

Having said that, "Live-In Fear" is likely to be one of the best micro-budget indie horrors that you'll see this year. Give or take a plethora of unrealistic situations and responses (which abound in all horror movies), I enjoyed it.

The Dirties (2013)

"Two best friends are filming a comedy about getting revenge on the bullies at their high school. One of them isn't joking."

If you're expecting "The Dirties" to be another "Rampage" (2009), think again. "The Dirties" is amateur handycam crap of the highest order with semi-decent acting wasted on an unoriginal plot which ultimately peters out and stops dead just as the excitement begins. It's all talk, very little action, and mostly unconvincing characters.

Apart from the location, "The Dirties" is far too similar to Samuel N. Benavides's "None Left Standing" (2005) for those of us who know our low-budget movies. Although "The Dirties" isn't a blatant rip-off and doesn't focus on a descent into madness as well, it's certainly in the same vein. Both are about a trio of students making a film with one of them being dangerously obsessive.

The difference, of course, is that "The Dirties" uses a no-budget student film within another no-budget student film as its novelty "meta" contrivance. The levels of metafiction reach their peak with Matthew Johnson not only acting as himself but also being the director and writer of this disappointing drivel. He doesn't do a bad job for a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none), but I would love to see Canadian filmmakers come up with something more original rather than lazily reworking American movie tropes to death.

Because of its borrowings, I'm not sure if "The Dirties" is supposed to be "found footage" of some kind or if it's meant to be a bizarrely filmed "fly on the wall" drama. Either way, it failed for me aesthetically and stylistically. The unseen cameraman (who I think is called "Ed" at one point) brings up too many questions about who is filming what and why, and it threw me out of the movie several times.

As far as stories about high schools and bullies go, "The Dirties" is full of the usual clichés; jocks versus nerds and all that bullshit which, as a Brit, I never encountered and can't identify with no matter how many times the same stereotypes are forced on me. There's nothing that any of the kids do in this movie that a good old-fashioned punch in the mouth wouldn't have solved if only the emasculated characters stood up for themselves. I know this is Canadian, but Americans and Brits are usually so mouthy about expressing everything that I can't even get my head around the internalisation which leads to isolation, self-destruction, or murder. In Canada, where the myth is that everybody is nicer and less selfish, the frustration caused by repression is maybe less puzzling.

Prior to watching "The Dirties", I came across an interesting documentary called "Bullied to Death: The Tragedy of Phoebe Prince" (2010) which covers the subject of American high school bullying and its psychological effects a lot better. But, as someone whose only experience of attempted bullying has been as a "victim" of the online geek-cliques of hypocrital prudes, their whiteknights, and "flaggots" who I laugh at for being so childish, I still don't quite understand how such things are allowed to escalate. Maybe kids need to find better ways to deal with their frustrations like going outside once in a while, helping someone less fortunate, or stroking a cat.

Teenagers are nasty buggers anyway, and every modern movie and documentary which shows the younger generation and their infantilised parents is an argument to bring back corporal (and capital) punishment. In my day, a few hard whacks with a cane would've sorted everything out. But enough of me on my soapbox. Suffice it to say that the predictably violent but very brief (and punch-pulling) ending of "The Dirties" is the culmination of what happens when you spare the rod and spoil the child.

"The Dirties" isn't a movie recreating Columbine or any of the other famous school shootings, nor is it meant to be, but what it's trying to say as a drama about teenage relationships, loneliness, and a kid who can't tell fiction from reality anymore doesn't work either. It's all too tame, and even an old British kids' TV show like "Grange Hill" dealt with the topics in a more controversial and satisfying way over 30 years ago.

If you're looking for something gritty, I recommend skipping this one.

Phobia (2013)

"In 1885, a female doctor helping a group of people with their phobias becomes embroiled in a murder mystery surrounding a patient that may or may not be a vampire."

What the Hell did I just watch? It's not often that a movie is so soulless and ineptly made that it leaves me speechless, but this is one of those times. After "Phobia" ended, I sat staring at the blank page on my computer screen for three hours afterwards waiting for the neurons in my brain to reconnect, and then I had to go to bed for a long depression nap before I could bear thinking about it again.

Even though it's only 90 minutes long, "Phobia" feels several times longer because of how dialogue heavy and boring it is. When I say boring, I mean really boring in the way that watching an amateur dramatics production or a high school play is boring. Actually, no, this is worse than either of those; "Phobia" is seven-year-olds-performing-a-nativity-play-boring but in a foreign language which you don't understand. I was familiar with the subject matter, I knew what was intended, but I couldn't process it because it was so shit.

How any movie could be both overwritten and overacted but contain characters so underdeveloped at the same time is a mystery to me, although I'd hazard a guess that it must take some severely misplaced genius to create such a thing and a lot of luck to get it distributed. Maybe not so much luck since "Phobia" is only another one of many Gravitas Ventures VOD movies which I've written off this year, but still... I can't even... I don't know... my head is full of FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU! Sorry for writing like a fifteen-year-old, but honestly, this movie was probably written by a teenager too. With no nudity, swearing, or anything more gory than you'd see in an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", it's definitely PG-13 all the way, and it's impossible to call it horror with a straight face.

She's dressed as a man, but he's wearing a fake beard. WTF?

If you can concentrate on anything in the first half-hour without being distracted by Erica Leerhsen's thumbsucker-mouth which stands out more because she's supposed to be disguised as a man (à la "Yentl") then you're a slightly better person than me. But if you don't wonder why she still wears a girl's wig, or notice that Sigmund Freud (played by Matt Moore) has a ridiculous fake beard, there's no hope for you as a movie critic. I know this is a low-budget B movie of sorts, but what the bloody Hell were they thinking?

Also how can anyone hire Eric Leerhsen—the only girl in "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" (2000) who gets naked—and not ask her to get naked again? Wouldn't a clichéd and gratuitous nude shower/bath scene being overlooked by another character make a better reveal of her gender than removing a stupid black wig which doesn't match her ginger eyebrows? It's not as if you can't see that she's a woman anyway, but... oh my God!

Bearing in mind that director Jon Keeyes is only a couple of weeks younger than me and hasn't directed anything worthwhile other than "American Nightmare" (2002), a few shorts, and a couple of horror TV shows for kids, he should still know better. Exactly what age group is "Phobia" intended for? It's too talky for kids and too tame for adults. And what's with all the badly spoken French with subtitles? It's distancing, alienating, and irritating. It certainly doesn't make the period setting more realistic.

You just have to have a bald Nosferatu guy called Guy!

Once there are no more scenes of Americans butchering the French language, things improve slightly, but just to redress the balance towards crap again, half of them now need to have fake Romanian accents which are more like Russian. Has no one ever heard a Romanian speak before? They usually sound Latin (for obvious reasons including Romanian being a Romance language) not Russian! Jesus wept! And was it really necessary to have a bald-headed Nosferatu lookalike just so that everyone knows that this is a vampire movie? Seriously?

Beautiful Tiffany Lonsdale spices the eyecandy up a bit as bald Guy's sister with claustrophobia, but the lack of any family resemblance is uncanny. She doesn't even look like anyone in the family portraits or her cousin Val Drakul! Maybe she was adopted or a lusty milkman paid her mother a visit? Casting decisions were clearly not a strong point, so it's probably better to not overthink these things.

At least everything improves considerably after the location change from Paris to California (although it's really Texas). Once Erica Leerhsen starts wearing big Victorian dresses, lets her hair out, puts on some lipstick, and looks like a woman again, she's actually quite pretty. She's still not believable as a doctor, and her relationship with Nicholas Brendon lookalike Chase Ryan Jeffery lacks chemistry, but to give credit where it's due, her performance gets much better as the story progresses. The fact that Dr. Lesley doesn't get the chance to cure her patients' phobias is relatively unimportant.

Stephanie Rhodes (the Camp Counselor in the "Friday the 13th" remake) steals the show completely in her scenes as sexy Elizabeth, the ward of agoraphobic Annabel Lee (Carolyn Wickwire), but not enough is made of her to be memorable overall. Without any eroticism or some desperately needed sex scenes, why even add a lesbian facet to Elizabeth's character? What's the point? Again, who are the target audience?

The saddest thing is that everyone in "Phobia" can act! They've all been in other things before, whether TV shows or movies, and they don't disgrace themselves once you take into account what they had to work with. The fault rests almost entirely with the script despite annoying background music which outstays its welcome, lethargic pacing, cheap-looking camerawork, and a lot of staginess which doesn't help. Whatever clever period mystery Anne Gibson may have thought she was creating, it would have been better as a pulp YA novel than a movie. To say that "Phobia" is reminiscent of Kim Newman would be an insult more than a compliment, however, since I can't stand that grinnygog or his books.

Okay, she does look a bit better in a dress.

On the plus side, the way the use of hypnotism and vampires are combined into a mystery seems to be fairly original. If my mind wasn't still numb, I'm sure that I could find better examples than "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or "The Vampire Lovers" to prove myself wrong, but as all roads lead back to Hammer and Bram Stoker's "Dracula", I'm positive that there's nothing new here other than the way it's presented. A couple of homages to Edgar Allan Poe are harmless additions.

Before I wrap this up, I have to mention the effects. Apart from the wig and beard fiasco, the make-up is generally good and a couple of torn throats look the part. Inevitably, there are some very cheap "Buffy-esque" CGI effects near the end which place this movie in the "Syfy Original wannabe" category and will doom it to appearing in Echo Bridge or Mill Creek multipacks one day, but they do provide some horror action. I doubt that "Phobia" will ever been shown on TV unless Chiller (or Zone Horror/The Horror Channel in the UK) get it for next to nothing though.

According to the IMDb, the ensemble cast from "Phobia" is due to reappear in "The Harrowing" (2014) but with the addition of Debbie Rochon instead of Erica Leerhsen. As I'm done with being a masochist after suffering through this borefest, I think it'll be another good one to miss.

Do Not Disturb (2013)

"After his fiancee is brutally murdered, Don Malek sets out for revenge."

I've seen some strokes pulled in my time, but this one really takes the biscuit. Although I've never had the misfortune to watch the slightly longer "New Terminal Hotel" (2010), "Do Not Disturb" is simply a recut and renamed version of the same thing! What the bloody Hell?

Was this done just so that director B.C. Furtney could get two IMDb credits for the same crappy, low-budget borefest, or was it supposed to fool people into thinking that a straight-to-video movie made in 2008 is a new one?

Apparently, the recutting and repackaging is all due to a change of distributors, so I suppose we'll just have to accept that as the definitive answer on the subject. To be brutally honest, I don't actually care that much. It's not as if I'm going to write a huge shill-review enticing you to watch either version anyway. You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, and "Do Not Disturb" would still be an overly talky turd by any name.

So, let's see why anyone would be silly enough to watch this movie.

Well, the late Corey Haim has an extended cameo role as a washed-up English rockstar with a constantly slipping accent—the point being that his character is not really English or a rockstar but just an alcoholic bum. Are his less than three minutes on screen worth your consideration? I think not. I'm sure he was only on set because he was allegedly engaged to Tiffany Shepis at the time, and someone thought it would be a good idea to give him something to do while he waited around for her. The biggest clue is that you could cut his parts out of the movie and it wouldn't make any difference to the story whatsoever.

Secondly, there's the aforementioned Tiffany Shepis who fanboys go crazy for but I've never found attractive. It's only fair because she definitely wouldn't find me attractive either. I must admit that she does a better job than usual and seems to be able to act a little bit. How much of her potty-mouthed character is acting and how much is just her, I wouldn't even try to guess at. Yeah, she's kind of pretty, I suppose, and she briefly shows her bra, but it's down to Danielle Fortwangler as a hooker to provide the topless eyecandy.

"Oh, you're so cool, Brewster!"

The lead role goes to Stephen "Evil Ed" Geoffreys who I haven't seen in anything since "Sick Girl" (which was, of course, only filmed the year before). He seems in pretty good shape for an older guy and spends a lot of the movie with his shirt off. If that floats your boat, have at it. His acting here is also better than in anything he has ever done before despite the fact that he's horribly miscast as either a writer or a multiple murderer. A little bit of Evil Ed shines through occasionally, but you can also almost see echoes of William H. Macy's performance in "Edmond" (2005) at times. That would be great if "Edmond" didn't already exist... but it does.

Thus, it's all down to Ezra Buzzington to steal the show as Malek's crippled and equally shirtless neighbour Spitz, an even more boozy and bad-tempered version of Lieutenant Dan from "Forrest Gump" (1994). Easily one of the most prolific and successful character actors around, he doesn't disgrace himself here either. Given what and who he had to work with, the only reason that I could possibly recommend "Do Not Disturb" is for Ezra Buzzington, but that's not enough. For a "Murder Monday", I need lots of blood and guts to set me up for the week ahead.

There's some decent splatter in places, but not that much gore to see as most of the torture and kills occur off camera until near the end. When Malek's revenge surgery starts, the lack of torture porn is overwhelmingly disappointing, but as this is primarily a stagey "crime drama" with horror elements, it's only to be expected that a lot of punches are pulled. While "Do Not Disturb" may have aspirations to be more than something thrown together by the local amateur dramatics group, the lack of budget doesn't help matters.

The camerawork is okay, but the sound is so echoey in places that "Do Not Disturb" feels "studenty" throughout. With unlikeable characters, too much talk, and not enough action, "Do Not Disturb" is tolerable enough to rate as a 2 or 3 out of 10, but it's also hella boring. I didn't make it through in one sitting, and I doubt that you will either.

Make no mistake about it, "Do Not Disturb" should have been renamed as "Do Not Watch".

Do not confuse it with the other 2 dozen identically named movies!

Lost Lake (2012)

"A young couple travels to a deserted town to try and find their mysterious uncle, only to discover that ghosts are real and very dangerous."

I'm a little bit flummoxed about how to review "Lost Lake". It's not that I've forgotten how to review movies to the extent that I need to MacDougall one from somebody else, but I can barely scrape together enough enthusiasm to put one word after another after watching this turd.

If I had my druthers (as they say round here), I'd be writing a review of "The Conjuring" right now instead of this one. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances and the heat, I still haven't gone to the movie theatre since "The Conjuring" started playing, and it's starting to annoy me that I've fallen behind everyone else this time. The worst case scenario will be that I wait for the DVD to be released. I'm bound to buy it based on the very positive buzz that's already flying around the internet, so it's not as if you actually need a review of "The Conjuring" from me anyway.

Just to tide everyone over until I'm back on track, I was looking for other ghostie movies to watch yesterday and came across "Lost Lake" on Amazon. Although I'm sure a lot of people have watched it, nobody seems to have had very much to say about it online. Thus, to redress the balance, I thought I'd give it a try. I thought, "It's only 80 minutes long, it's about ghosties, so what could be the harm in watching it?" Little did I know that it was going to be one of the longest 80 minutes of my life.

For a low-budget movie, "Lost Lake" starts off extremely well. I have to admit that the first jump scare is so well-timed that it actually got me. That rarely happens nowadays so I thought I was really going to enjoy everything which followed. As I was watching the movie "cold" with only a vague awareness of the subject matter and no idea about who was in it, it was all a case of "Thrill me!" and "Let's see what you can do!" rather than the predominantly negative way that I've been approaching "indie" dreck recently. After all the multipack reviews I did a few weeks ago, you can't blame me for being jaded, but I honestly wanted to like this movie.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, everything went downhill from the moment I saw the lead characters. It's not that they are the typical pretty teens in trouble, but bald-chested John Shartzer (who plays Jeff) looks about 12 years old, and I initially thought that his character was incestuously in bed with his older sister or something. When the next scene had him playing on the floor with a toy robotic arm, it took a while for it to sink in that he was supposed to be a nerdy student rather than a mentally retarded pervert. It was only when I scrutinized Katie Keene (who plays Tricia) more closely that I realised she was equally young. I doubt that she is more than 18 or 19, and it kind of made me feel like a dirty old man for ogling her as the story progressed. Katie Keene is very photogenic though.

The next thing which gave me pause was the intentional misdirection about Uncle Vern's identity which could have been good if it hadn't caused me a moment of total confusion and an unresolved question which remained with me for a few minutes after the movie ended. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but once you've seen "Lost Lake" for yourself, feel free let me know in the comments section if you get what I'm talking about. The motivation for a lot of things which happen in this movie is so poorly explained that I don't think there even is a good answer. The realisation of whatever clever ideas evidently went into the script sucks, and it's very frustrating.

A more outstanding example of ineptitude is when what should be a scary supernatural scene just isn't. As the leads investigate an abandoned grocery store, it's a time when some imaginative jump scares could make a lasting impression. For whatever reason, possibly budgetary, the gags aren't even set-up enough to fall flat, so ultimately, this botched non-event adds nothing but a decoy for possessed Uncle Vern (Ezra Buzzington) to do something important which we don't find out about until later. It's a plot contrivance for sure, but it could have been handled so much better.

While the camerawork and acting are fairly decent, it's not only the plot but the lack of horror action which really lets "Lost Lake" down. Apart from a severed finger and some realistic reactions to it, nothing much happens at all gore-wise. When it does, the bits you want to see are either off camera or too dark.

Contrarily, an unneccessary bit of animal cruelty involving a white mouse and a snake is something that I didn't want to see. Yes, I know that there are weirdo reptile owners who have to feed their pets as nature intended, but this scene is both gratuitous and superfluous. I may understand what writer/director Marcus Nash was trying to do, but I don't approve of it.

Filmed in Trona, California, a desolate place which I was intigued enough by to look up on Wikipedia, "Lost Lake" is all about a location which struggles to lift everything a couple of notches higher than the horrible storytelling will allow. Apart from a few tell-tale signs which give away that it isn't really a ghost town, including the electricity still being connected and a physical sign for "Free Wi-Fi" on one of the buildings, I wanted to believe that the setting was real. Well, the town is real, obviously, but you know what I mean.

I suppose that's all I really want to say about "Lost Lake". It wasn't the ghost story that I expected it to be, and I found the ending very disappointing. Suffice it to say that there's something about witchcraft to "Lost Lake" as well, so it's probably best to classify the movie as a below average "possession from beyond the grave" with slasher clichés and leave it at that.

My new 200 movie challenge!

Okay, so I couldn't leave Blogger alone for even a day. I've set up a new blog where I will be reviewing the absolute worst of the bargain DVD multipacks:

The Pit of the Pendulum

I think you can guess from the name of my new blog which multipacks I'm going to be watching for the next 5 months, but here they are:

As far as I know, nobody has ever been silly enough to have watched all these movies in their entirety and blogged about them. I can't imagine why.

Watch my descent into madness or my brain turn into mush as I boldly go where no-one with any taste or discernment has gone before!

Upcoming Horror Movie - Live-In Fear (2012)

"In the snowy Utah mountains, an ancient being terrorizes four friends as they try to survive."

I can't quite work out what "Live-In Fear" is supposed to be about from the trailer so I don't know if it's a supernatural horror or a slasher.

In an attempt to discover more, I even broke one of my unwritten rules and asked for a screener a few weeks ago. Since I have yet to receive one, I'm assuming the worst about this movie already, but I do like the poster.

Among others, "Live-In Fear" stars Arielle Brachfield and Maria Olsen who were both in "The Haunting of Whaley House" (2012) which I've already favourably reviewed.

According to the IMDb page, "Live-In Fear" was written and directed by Brandon Scullion and had an estimated budget of $50,000.

I know what you're thinking because I'm thinking it too. "Live-In Fear" will probably be little more than a glorified YouTube video which everyone ends up watching on Netflix when they've run out of real horror movies. But should a screener for it ever turn up, I'm still prepared to give it a chance.

Check out the official website for more details.

Nailbiter (2012)

"A mother and three daughters get caught up in a tornado and take shelter in a storm cellar. While trapped inside the cellar, they quickly discover that they are not alone."

Never mind how I saw "Nailbiter" since it isn't even out on DVD yet. If I was one of the privileged sycophants who praise everything just to get a free screener, I would have had whoever was responsible for this piece of crap falling over themselves to send me one. As it is, I'm just too honest, which is why, even though I've been doing this far longer than any other specifically horror movie reviewer on the internet, I'll never be a success compared to the big name websites. Mind you, it all depends on how you measure success because at least I will always be honest.

This terrible movie was absolutely one of the worst I've seen this year (or last year, or even the year before that). I'm still in total shock that anyone could make something this bad, not realise how bad it was (or even care), and hope to get a distribution deal for it.

What made it even more disappointing was that it wasn't all bad. It had quite good production values, started off well, the tornado effects were nice, the acting was mostly acceptable, and the mother of the three girls was kind of hot. She was certainly a lot better looking than her daughters anyway. I have no idea what her name was, but I'd guess from the IMDb cast list that she was played by Erin McGrane. If the IMDb have got it wrong (as there seems to be some confusion on there about this film) then I may have incorrectly named one of the ugly little girls in the film by accident. At this stage of the night, I don't even care.

With hardly any gore or action, "Nailbiter" was so shit that I'm going to give as many spoilers as I can just so you never have to watch it, and, hopefully, it never gets a DVD release. You know why? It's not that I mind anyone having a go at making a horror movie, but I've had enough of bad ones to last me a lifetime. This was the final straw.

The story was absolutely ridiculous with more plot contrivances than a 12-year-old would come up with for a school play. Basically, there was a mother and three daughters trapped in a basement during a tornado (and subsequent storm) who were too feeble between them to push open the basement doors, or use any of the numerous jars of inflammable moonshine to burn the doors open, and escape. There may have been some weird, mutant humanoids outside, but nothing a good hard kick in the goolies couldn't have sorted out. I know American horror movie characters are often pretty dumb, but this film was an insult to the intelligence of any viewer stupid enough to watch it. It didn't even have the decency to try to be a comedy!

The "storm creatures" (AKA werewolf ripoffs) were crappily done, made no sense (except that the storm was said to affect them all differently), and didn't appear on screen for more than a couple of minutes in total. The first one was apparently green in colour like a reptillian-zombie too just to give you an indication of how little thought went into this.

Honest to God, I thought I'd seen it all until the uglier of the two younger daughters got bitten on the arm (ON THE ARM!) and then, despite being full of energy before, fell into some kind of coma for over half the film! When the mother got scratched and collapsed in a similar way before eventually blowing herself up for no good reason, I was almost bald from pulling my hair out. Why did she do that? Couldn't she have thrown the jar of moonshine at the still which they'd moved under the basement doors and ran away quickly? It made no sense unless she was supposed to have died from having a couple of scratches on her belly.

I can barely even bring myself to talk about the eldest daughter's use of a nail-gun instead of a real weapon. They don't fire nails through the air, you know! You have to physically press them onto a board before the nail will come out. It's a little thing called a "safety mechanism" to stop dumb people from getting all Lone Rangery with the things and ending up in the emergency room.

I'm almost certain that the eldest daughter was played by Meg Saricks (pictured above with a real pistol), but I'm not 100% sure. She did okay with what she had to work with. Unfortunately, this was one of those films which was directed by nobody you've ever heard of, and starred even more people who you've never heard of and probably never will again.

It doesn't matter anyway because everybody died in this film even the cleverer of the ugly daughters. You could tell she was clever because she was wearing glasses and knew how to read! Oh, Christ-on-a-bike. She wasn't clever enough to recognise moonshine in a jar though. No, the mother just had to be a recovering alcoholic so that she could tell everyone what that was. Speccy-four-eyes was only in it to inform us of the background story to the creatures by finding a load of old newspapers full of headlines about storms, mutilations and weird numbers of babies being born because, clearly, somebody didn't know how to write exposition properly.

And, of course, it just had to end with a set-up for a potential sequel which promises to be even more lame. Oh great, next we can have the father of the girls being a military badass along with the big-nosed, nerdy boyfriend who must also have read the delayed text messages, as they wipe out the whole town of mutants. Or not, as the case may be.

How can anyone sane like or praise a movie like this? I know there's still a trendy, hipster movement which keeps hyping intentionally bad horror movies over any actual good ones, but the times are a-changing. Most people are sick of these amateur horror films now, and I'm proud to be part of the backlash.

The Dark Hours (2005)

"Dr. Samantha Goodman, an attractive psychiatrist in her thirties, joins her husband and sister for a weekend at a winter cottage when an unexpected guest arrives. Harlan Pyne, a violent sexual offender, is convinced that Samantha conducted unethical experiments on him while she was his doctor."

How I missed "The Dark Hours" when it first came out is a complete mystery to me, unless, of course, it never got distributed at that time in the UK. Mind you, it's quite possible that I saw the DVD sitting on the shelves in Blockbuster, and because of the artwork with the bloody axe on it, I dismissed it as yet another one of those handycam slashers which were even drifting into Britain like the slew of shit that they were and still are.

Nobody ever mentioned "The Dark Hours" on the message boards that I used to waste my time on, and it obviously wasn't getting any promotion from the right people. I only discovered this movie by taking a chance on it as a $2 DVD purchase from the pawn shop.

It's also quite possible that nobody liked "The Dark Hours" because, like all low-budget Canadian movies, it copied everything else which was popular in the horror genre while not adding a whole lot of its own. If you listen to the director's commentary, Paul Fox is proud to have taken so many ideas from other directors and very well known horror movies.

Although most horror geeks find a lot of amusement in these homages, there are many other reviewers who just notice the ripoffs. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed "The Dark Hours", I felt that I'd seen it all before, and I had. Not only were there a couple of similarities to "Funny Games", but not to put too fine a point on it, we've had so many movies with a similar twist ending over the years that "The Dark Hours" is somewhat predictable. If I only mention the names of two previous movies from 2003, "Identity" and "High Tension", I'm sure that you can work out the spoilers for yourself.

Where this is actually better than all those other movies is, of course, that it has phenomenal acting and a more cerebral script. It also looks and sounds like it had a much bigger budget. According to the IMDb, the budget was 500,000 Canadian dollars, but I'm sure that the director said it was only $50,000 on the commentary. He also explained how they achieved such great sets with the minimal resources available.

While not very gory, there are a couple of scenes which I can imagine that the truly timid would not want to watch. The effects are pretty good, and there is a lot more blood shed than I thought there would be. Dog lovers, in particular, will definitely not enjoy this film.

The lighting, camerawork and editing are really exceptional. I also didn't spot any continuity errors (apart from a mistaken one which was because I didn't quite get what was going on at the time), and I was very impressed by the overall production values. This is high-end Canadian stuff and not just another oddly paced, off-beat, and slightly out-of-sync product.

With a cast of mostly TV actors, some of whom are more famous than others (although probably a lot more so in Canada), there's nothing too unusual here. Where "The Dark Hours" ups its game beyond just settling for being good enough, however, is in the performances from everyone involved. Kate Greenhouse acts her heart out (not literally but nearly) and shows quite a range. Aidan Devine also really stands out as a psychopath who grows increasingly more likeable.

I even liked Iris Graham (who also played one of Emily's sisters in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose"). She's really hot when she isn't crying, and sometimes even when she is. I wish I could find a better picture of her, but I don't want to spoil her sexy scenes for you with a screencap.

Five days ago, Mister Exploit left me a comment, "Dr Blood you are going to love The Dark Hours if you are anything like me." Well, Mr Exploit, I've seen it now and can safely report that I did and I must be.

With this being a more adult and talky thriller than any of those lowbrow, teenage, slasher movies which there are far too many of, there really isn't anything for me to complain about at all. If I had only rented "The Dark Hours", I'd definitely be looking for a copy to buy right now.