The Eves (2012)

"A Spring Break beach trip turns into a waking nightmare in this indie shocker based on true events. When car troubles lead a group of students to seek shelter in an abandoned lodge, dark forces emerge and blood is spilled."

Ever watched a horror movie just because of the picture on the DVD cover? Yeah, me too, all the time. That's how I ended up watching "The Eves" after promising to only watch good movies from now on. Oh well, as far as slasher clones go, it's not that bad. At least the scene with the shotgun-toting blonde occurs eventually.

Thus, although I was expecting something more like "High Tension" or even "Baise-moi", I ended up with yet another bunch of teenagers breaking down in the middle of nowhere and falling foul of a serial killer (or two) in a movie which shamelessly borrows from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) and every slasher made since. Presumably, that's how it's "based on true events".

All the usual clichés are ticked off including cell phones not working, teenagers with entitlement issues getting drunk, doing drugs, and having sex before being murdered one by one, and of course, there's the inevitable twist which I have to admit is nicely done here and not predictable at all. It's not overly original either, but it works.

The funny thing is that I actually enjoyed "The Eves", albeit not entirely in the way it was intended. I've never liked the original version of the "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and if it wasn't for R. Lee Ermey as Sheriff Hoyt in the remake and its sequel, I wouldn't have watched those. I'm glad I have though, because it amused me to see the same setup being used again by one of these so-called "groundbreaking and innovative" indie horror movies, and my cynicism was constantly being justified.

To give credit where it's due, the acting in "The Eves" is more than acceptable considering that the characters are quite poorly differentiated. Out of the teenage guys, there's a serious one, a quiet one, an even quieter one who looks identical to the previous quiet one, a prankster, a smartass, and all of them are assholes. The three girls are basically two slutty ones (a blonde bimbo who shows her boobs and a kinky brunette who doesn't) plus a more serious blonde who is as normal as any of these stereotypes can be. What their names are doesn't even matter until near the end.

I like the pretty girls.

As in all modern slasher movies, there's exactly enough shown of the potential victims to make you hate them but not enough to allow you to sympathise with them, and then the lacklustre killing spree begins. In fairness, the kills are more realistically handled than having blood spurting everywhere or intestines wriggling all over the place, and the make-up/effects are okay, but there's nothing memorable about them in and of themselves either. The blinding scenes only made me feel a bit bad because they reminded me of a recent news story from China which I wish I'd never read about. "Man's inhumanity to man" is often much worse in real life than anything you'll see in a silly low-budget horror movie although a similar scene at the start of "Borderland" (2007) is just as gruesome.

While "The Eves" isn't particularly scary, some of the scenes manage suspense competently and the background music which accompanies them is complimentary. Unfortunately, nothing here is likely to get a hardcore horror fan's pulse racing. Considering that I am an example of that aforementioned "hardcore horror fan", I watched this movie calmly and patiently without a flicker of emotion whatsoever.

A casual viewer or someone new to the genre might get a kick of "The Eves", but he or she would have to be American and around the same age as the victims to avoid feeling alienated. When all's said and done, "The Eves" is just a cookie-cutter teen slasher aimed at cookie-cutter teenagers rather than someone like me anyway.

Midnight Horror: 8 Movies

I have no idea when Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released this multipack other than sometime in 2012. I got it from my local pawn shop a little under a month ago although, as it turned out, I already had a sealed copy which I bought from Wal-mart last year. Ah well, these things happen when you're dealing with movie collections which are designed to confuse the buyer into purchasing the same movies over and over again.

The powers that be must really have it in for me though because I had to scan the cover of this "Midnight Horror" multipack too (and it blurred in the bottom left corner). On the plus side, once again there are no other reviews online and no listing on the official website so I now have my second exclusive in forever. Yay, me! I'd do the Snoopy dance if I even knew what that was.


Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"A brother and sister visit the gravesite of their deceased father... but the trip turns into a terrifying nightmare when darkness falls and zombies attack."

Really, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment, really? Do you think that there's anyone who hasn't got this famous Public Domain movie already? It's even come free inside packets of cereal in some places!

Whatever. I'm not reviewing it again.


Windcroft (2007)

"When his father dies, John inherits the family farm... and a dark and disturbing past."

Sounds like a bundle of laughs, doesn't it?

Actually, "Windcroft" is all very serious and rather dull in spite of having the best looking blonde that I've seen in any low-budget horror movie ever. She can even act a bit too. Her name? I have no idea without looking it up... but having done that, it's Vanessa Daniels. She hasn't done a lot of other stuff apart from being in a couple of episodes of "Law and Order", but based on her performance in "Windcroft", I wouldn't mind seeing her in another horror one day.

Having obviously skimmed the IMDb for the finer details, I noticed that a lot of the "reviewers" (I mean synopsis writers) were complaining about the acting. But what do they know anyway? The IMDb is full of 12-year-olds who can barely put one word after another let alone know what the terms they use mean. An "IMDb reviewer" complaining about "acting" usually means that he or she didn't like the characters. You'll rarely see one add an "-isation" to the word "character" either or mention "empathy". As far as the IMDb is concerned any actor/character over 30 is old and not somebody they can identify with anyway. But I digressed.

There's really nothing that wrong with the acting in "Windcroft". The script would have benefitted from having someone with better dialogue writing skills go through it and give it some polish, but the acting itself is fine. Given the subject matter (which I'm not going to spoil for you), a little bit of nudity wouldn't have harmed anything either.

The location is great (albeit far too clean for a working farm), and the camerawork is outstanding for this kind of movie. The only niggle I have with some of the shots is that the cameraman must be long-sighted. Short-sighted people make the best cameramen, just so you know, because they use the camera lens to compensate and get in closer. If you're aiming for an oppressive or claustrophic atmosphere, you can't have all that space and distance going on.

The two things which really let "Windcroft" down are the pacing and the really irritating "music" in it. I can almost allow the former because the slowness makes the movie slightly offbeat in a Lucky McKee or Angela Bettis way, but I can't forgive whoever thought it was a good idea to put that horrible cacophony in the background. All the way through, I wanted to turn down the backing track and enhance the vocals, but of course, there's no way to do that.

If someone were to re-release this movie with no "music" (I can't bring myself to remove the quotation marks because it's that bad!), some tighter editing, and whatever clever digital enhancement there is available to make it look more "filmy", "Windcroft" would be a real award winner rather than boasting ones from obscure festivals which nobody has ever heard of.

As it stands, "Windcroft" shows the potential of whoever made it, but it doesn't deliver the goods where it counts, i.e. to anyone watching it who expects either a horror movie or the "modern gothic" tale that I imagine it was meant to be.


Interview with a Serial Killer (1994)

"A well-known crime novelist has reason to believe that her new tenant is a serial killer who has brutally murdered more than a dozen women."

Also known as "White Angel", this is a low-budget/TV quality British crime drama which apparently failed to get a major distribution deal. In the UK, it can be found as a double-feature with "Urban Ghost Story" from the same company. Despite a little bit of brutality, blood, and a flash of boobs or two, it's hard to call this horror. For one thing, the kill scenes are more off camera than on.

There are real actors in this including Peter Firth and Don Henderson (in an extended cameo), but Harriet Robinson is clearly out of her depth in the lead role of Ellen Carter after only being in bit parts beforehand. I don't know if hairy-forearmed Harriet realised that she wasn't cut out for acting or if something more sinister happened, but she was never in anything else afterwards. From her accent, she's Canadian, not that it or her hirsuteness is important to the story in any way.

As a very dated character study with a twist, "Interview with a Serial Killer" isn't a bad role for Peter Firth, but the movie feels like it should be a TV episode of "Bulman" from the 1980s due to Don Henderson's occasional appearances. The late Ken Sharrock who was typecast as a policeman throughout his career makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance as a bank teller too.


Keepsake (2008)

"When a freak accident strands Janine on a deserted highway, a call for help soon becomes a fight for survival."

The first of the two DVDs in this collection ends with some below average torture porn in the form of "Keepsake".

In spite of a powerful start, good production values (apart from the cheaper practical effects and handheld camerawork which was trendy 5 years ago), and an actress with an unexpectedly attractive body which she doesn't mind showing, it's a real shame that a movie which promised so much goes into the realm of flashbacks and hallucinations instead of staying linear.

While it becomes obvious what the filmmakers were trying to do, the eventual twist doesn't work so well either and borders on contempt for the audience. On the plus side, at least this is a more contemporary horror movie even if it isn't a particularly memorable one.


Colour from the Dark (2008)

"A family accidentally frees something from the Earth's womb while drawing water from their well and now a sinister glow is seeping into their lives."

Debbie Rochon stars in this, but don't let that put you off. "Colour from the Dark" is the classiest thing that she's ever been in, and it's not her fault that the movie is boring. Debbie certainly doesn't mind getting naked for purely gratuitous reasons, and even though she's 40 years old here, she's still a very good looking woman.

The setting in World War 2 Italy is anachronistic but also looks the part, and the atmosphere starts off right. Unfortunately, it's the horribly slow pacing of the story (based on "The Colour Out of Space") which isn't conducive for excitement. A little bit of gore here and there tries to liven things up but without much success.

While I didn't completely hate this movie, I found it slightly confusing and very unfocused. Some very odd casting choices complicate matters unnecessarily by having quite a mix of nationalities with no explanation of how or why they are all in Italy.

Nobody has ever made a good adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story anyway, but filmmakers still keep churning out these overambitious low-budget attempts. I suppose it's better to be overambitious than to have no ambition though.


Final Remains (2005)

"Four college students, who think they are making a harmless midnight stop at the mortuary, are caught in the middle of a deadly and twisted encounter."

Originally named "Mortuary" to confuse people looking for Tobe Hooper's movie from the same year, "Final Remains" is absolute crap of the highest order. While obstensibly a satire of the "Halloween" movies, it's too ineptedly put together to be funny. Thus, even if you give it credit for recognising the slasher formulas, "Final Remains" is nothing but a z-grade copycat.

A couple of flashes of full frontal female nudity early on are just randomly placed teases and don't lead to more of the same, which is a shame considering that the lead actresses are very pretty indeed. Without them, this movie would be an even greater struggle to get through, but it's still quite an ordeal. The first half is such a mess that I was tempted to hit fast-forward myself.

At the end of the day, this isn't much of a step-up from the kind of hobby horror dreck that drunken friends make in their backyards after getting a camcorder for the first time. The camerawork is considerably better than any of those abominations, but the acting, unoriginality, and half-arsed kills are easily as bad.


My Sweet Killer (1999)

"An ex-mental patient becomes obsessed with the beautiful woman who committed suicide in his apartment."

The best way to describe "My Sweet Killer" is as a no-budget version of "Taxi Driver" but with less plot and a faux ghost story to pad the 77 minutes running time.

It's not horror but drama, and as a languid character study where you're supposed to empathise with the lead, Kirk Harris isn't interesting, charismatic, or a good enough actor to draw anyone in. There are lots of movies about mental illness like this including "Loving Walter", "May" and "Roman". The most famous is "The Machinist" (2004), but I don't think "My Sweet Killer" had any influence on it.

Since very little happens until the very end, eyecandy is provided by Stephanie Knight. Recognisable TV face Clifton Collins Jr. also makes a brief show-stealing appearance.


Dark Woods (2010)

"A couple moves to a secluded cabin to deal with the wife's terminal cancer... but an erratic young visitor forces the husband to make a deadly decision."

Finally, a movie which looks like a real movie... or at least a TV movie with decent production values and solid cinematography!

Acting-wise, "Dark Woods" is full of TV actors including Mary Kate Wiles, James Russo and Corey Mendell Parker so there's a certain level of quality throughout this which most movies in these "Midnight Horror" packs tend to lack. The leads, Tracy Coogan and John Muscarnero (who is also the writer/producer), are virtual unknowns however.

It's not all good news as the pacing is very slow and a lot of the interactions between the husband and the girl are clearly inspired by "The Crush" (1993) starring Alicia Silverstone. What makes it worse is that the name of Mary Kate Wiles' character is Alicia too!

Initially, I wouldn't call this horror as it's more of a tragic love story/psychological thriller with a lot of sexual temptation going on, but there's also a macabre twist which I'm not going to spoil for you. You can already guess that things do not end well.


It's nice to end this series of posts on a high note although I still wouldn't rate these movies together as more than average. Average is better than something which you want to take outside and set fire to though.

Unlike the other "Midnight Horror" collections, there's no subtitle or volume number this time. Another thing which used to bug me more than it should is how these packs don't form a real collection due to having so many changes in the style of artwork. In this case, I think it's meant to be an oval mirror in the middle, but it could be a wooden plaque. Who knows? I don't suppose it matters, and I no longer even care after turning my brain to mush with all these crappy movies in the last couple of weeks. I'll be glad to see the back of them.

Of course, if anyone wants to donate some money to my PayPal begging bowl (link on right), I'll happily trot off to Walmart or Kmart and rummage through their bargain bins for more. At the present time though, this is the final "Midnight Horror" pack that I own, and I won't be reviewing any more of them for a while. As awesome as I am, I can't sustain reviewing 8 crappy movies a day forever.

Next week, I'll write a couple of articles about the history of these multipack releases, but I'm not in any rush to buy the dozen or so packs which I haven't acquired.

4 Films Horror Collector's Set: 5

I don't have a copy of this "Horror Collector's Set", but I do have all the movies from it in other Echo Bridge Home Entertainment packs due to repetition.

After changing the artwork to a '50s diner/motorcycle theme in February 2010 for what the online retailers call "Vol. 6" (featuring "Prom Night", "Descendant", "The Nurse" and "The Dead One"), Echo Bridge Home Entertainment reverted back to their older design in June 2010 for presumably what should really be called "Vol. 7". I'd lost all interest in buying multipacks at this point, so I'm still missing a few titles which I know have been reused again in "The Midnight Horror Collection" 8 packs and 20 pack.

More shenanigans!

Just to complicate things further for the collector, a second version of this set was released with "Skeleton Man" instead of "Lost Souls". Whether it's a regional variation, a mistake made during the manufacture of the DVDs, or Echo Bridge Home Entertainment intentionally trying to get people to buy another set just for one different movie, I have no idea. I'd hazard a guess that it's a combination of all three with a tendency towards the latter based on my experience with the first of these packs.

I'd warn you against buying the "Vol. 8" variant because "Skeleton Man" is an absolute piece of crap, but owing to the nature of these packs anyway, that's kind of a moot point. Some people with more money than sense love collecting crappy movies, so it's as valid as any "Horror Collector's Set" especially if you haven't already bought others in the series.

I must admit that if I had a load of money to waste on these things, I'd buy all the Echo Bridge Home Entertainment horror packs just to go through them, line them up on my shelves, and marvel at how one movie was taken from somewhere else and another was randomly added to make so many sets. With pawn shop prices continuing to drop and DVDs becoming cheaper than candy bars, I might do that one day for the fun of it.

For now though. I'll quickly go through this final "4 Films Horror Collector's Set".


The Fear Chamber (2009)

"A detective is on the verge of capturing a serial killer, but nightmarish visions thwart his efforts."

I've already written about "The Fear Chamber". It has some gore, but it's not a very good movie.


Passed the Door of Darkness (2008)

"Two detectives try to track a serial killer but end up becoming the murderer's next target."

Another "Night Light Films" production which tries to be a low-budget clone of "Se7en" to start with, turns into a soap opera, and then throws in a twist which you've seen dozens of times before. "Human Behavior" (2005) in Mill Creek Entertainment's "Tomb of Terrors" multipack does this better.

Being full of clichéd lines, horrible characterisation, and overlong at 100 minutes, "Passed the Door of Darkness" is even worse than "The Fear Chamber".

There's some okay gore, and a couple of supernatural red herrings are thrown in, but it's not really a horror movie. Despite that minor detail, it's also in the "10 Movie Horror Pack" and "20 Film Horror Set Vol. 1".


Marked (2007)

"A group of Ghost Hunters discover a powerful force that puts one of their members in great danger."

This isn't very good. It looks cheap, the pacing is all over the place, and the plot is confused. It ranges from nothing going on to too much being forced in too quickly, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway.

The acting isn't too bad, the girls in the movie are pretty, but nobody really stands out either. With no atmosphere, no genuinely creepy scenes, and nothing scary for anyone, "Marked" misses the mark completely.

At least it's a supernatural horror movie after the two "crime" films on the other side of the DVD, but it's still a low-budget nasty that's more of an endurance test than entertainment.


Lost Souls (1998)

"A move into a new house takes a chilling turn when a family realizes the spirits of two murdered children are communicating through eight-year-old Megan."

Not to be confused with the Winona Ryder film from 2000, this is a decent made-for-TV movie which originally aired on the UPN network for the "Thursday Night at the Movies" series in 1998. It's full title is "Nightworld: Lost Souls".

Although the use of a Thomas Edison "frequency harmonizer" machine in the movie had me thinking about "The Brink" (2006), the story is completely different. Apparently, it's very similar to Orson Scott Card's "Lost Boys" novel. Having never read it, I'd say that this is more of a precursor to "The Orphanage" (2007). I can also see a few similarities to Stephen King's "The Green Mile" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Essentially, "Lost Souls" is a formulaic ghost story/murder mystery with several red herrings and a "Scooby Doo" villain, but it's very well done. John Savage does a good job while his onscreen wife is played by MILFy German actress Barbara Sukowa. Even the kids aren't annoying in this one.

For some bizarre reason known only to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment, there is no single-feature DVD of "Lost Souls". You can only get it as part of this 4 pack, as a double-feature with "Marked" (which does have its own DVD!), or as the bonus movie with the boring Miramax Anna Paquin movie "Darkness" (2002).


Sadly, this is a very weak ending to the "4 Films Horror Collector's Set" range with only one good TV movie and three really bad, low-budget "indie" ones.

Basically, this is a collection of Night Light Films with "Lost Souls" added to it instead of their "Battle Planet" (2008). "Battle Planet" has a single DVD release, comes as a double-feature with "Riddler's Moon" (1998), and is part of a "4 Films Sci-Fi Collector's Set", just in case anyone is a big fan of Night Light Films and wants all four of their movies.

I can't, in good conscience, recommend this collection to anyone because of the two extremely boring serial killer thrillers. Instead, the "Lost Souls/Marked" double-feature offers much better value at $2.99 in K-mart's bargain bin or wherever else you may find it.

4 Films Horror Collector's Set: 1

There are two almost identical versions of this pack from 2009. The one I have has "Salvage" instead of "Wages of Sin" (2006) which is in place of "Bloody Mary" on the cover of the other. "Wages on Sin", however, is also on the second (chronologically the fourth or fifth) of my "4 Films" collections. Thus, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment were up to confusing mischief right at the beginning.

Shenanigans!

Prior to June 2009, the 20 "Horror Classics" multipacks were made up of Public Domain movies much like the ones from Mill Creek Entertainment so everybody thought the duplicates were merely schoolboy errors from a new company rather than intentional. How wrong we were!

While the "official" Volume 1 contains "Prom Night" (1980), "Nadja" (1994), "Skeleton Man" (2004) and "The Nurse" (1997), Volume 2 has "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" (1973), "The Terror" (1963), "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "The Devil Bat" (1940).

The throwback/reissue of four titles from their Public Domain catalogue makes a bit of a mess in the midst of the more modern horror movie packs especially as everyone is likely to have them several times over from other sources. Thinking that the series was only going to be a repackage/reissue of "Horror Classics", many collectors decided to ignore these multipacks in favour of the ones from Mill Creek Entertainment from then on. Being a late arrival to the party and already a collector of Mill Creek packs, I missed out on this kerfuffle completely.

If you think that I should have started with the chronological first volume rather than the first one I bought, you can rest assured that we haven't heard the last of "Prom Night", "Nadja", "Skeleton Man" and "The Nurse" by any stretch of the imagination.


Mortuary (2005)

"A family movies to a small town to run a long-abandoned funeral home, only to discover that something evil lurks there—something that raises the dead and feeds upon death itelf. Starring Dan Byrd and Denise Crosby. Directed by Tobe Hooper."

Most people (especially on message boards) seem to really hate this Lovecraft-style "B movie", but it's not that bad until the CGI vines and zombies start appearing. "Mortuary" has a good atmosphere for the first 30 minutes or so and a fair bit of creepiness going on. Too much comedy ultimately ruins everything, the pace drags in the middle, and it's a bit of mess towards the end, although it's still about the same as something moderately gory which you'd normally see on the SyFy channel.

Dan Byrd is a couple of years too old to play a teenager and Denise Crosby from "Star Trek" looks very worn, but neither is as bad as 34-year-old Alexandra Adi playing half her age (even though she doesn't look it unless you scrutinize her). If there's any justice in the world, I'm sure she looks her age nowadays. The worst offender, however, is diminutive 12-year-old Stephanie Patton playing either an 8-year-old or a mentally challenged tweenager. In fairness, it's hard to decide what she is other than extremely annoying.


Memory (2006)

"When Dr. Taylor Briggs is exposed to a mysterious drug while lecturing in Brazil, he is forced to relive the dark, twisted memories of a killer whose work may not be over. Starring Billy Zane, Tricia Helfer, Ann-Marget and Dennis Hopper."

For a slow-moving, Billy Zane-centric thriller, this isn't bad either. The made-for-TV aesthetic is a little bit off-putting at first, but when the horror elements start kicking-in, it's all very entertaining. The twist/reveal is a tad "Scooby Doo" and doesn't come as a big surprise if you watch a lot of movies like this.

Don't expect any gory unpleasantness from "Memory" as it's primarily one of those predictable "hero shares a psychic link with a kidnapper/murderer" deals with the usual discovery contrivances, some product placement, and a couple of nice tweaks to the formulas. Even from a heterosexual male point of view, Billy Zane is a very attractive man, and this is an excellent vehicle for him to show his talents as an actor.

The only bad point is a confusing scene 1 hour and 15 minutes in which feels forced rather than being part of any logical progression or set off by any trigger. Since the dénouement follows it, it's a glaringly rushed join.


Bloody Mary (2006)

"When a group of psychiatric hospital nurses invoke the spirit of Bloody Mary—a supposed urban myth—the slaughter begins. The legend is real, her vengeance is fatal, and to free her, all you have to do is say her name."

After two reasonably good movies, by necessity there has to be a bad one. Lots of pretty girls can't redress the balance in this "Candyman" clone, but they do at least try to by showing some skin. The opening scene has the best looking actress, and it's amusing watching her walk toe-to-heel without any shoes on. A nurse who is used to wearing high heels gives away the casting decisions.

If you're not a fan of "Candyman" or the "Urban Legend" trilogy, "Bloody Mary" is a lower-budget alternative which fits into the latter's "trendy teen horror" subgenre with no problem. As a supernatural slasher, it's not very memorable though.


Salvage (2006)

"Claire Parker is going to die. At the hands of a sadistic and depraved killer, she will endure a terrifying, unimaginably brutal death—and it will all happen again. Starring Lauren Currie Lewis and Chris Ferry."

Having once owned the single DVD version of "Salvage" which I sold at a yard sale years ago because it was so amateur and boring, I don't really need to say much more about it. It's yet another confusing, low-budget horror version of "Groundhog Day" which also owes an enormous debt to all the old Amicus anthologies or anything else with a downbeat twist at the end. It's "windowboxed" too to save space.

Don't do what I did and confuse "Salvage" (also known as "Gruesome") with the 2009 movie of the same name which was filmed on the set of "Brookside" because it isn't the same thing at all.


Despite being bare-bones releases, these movies don't need any extras anyway so having two on each side of a single DVD without commentaries and featurettes isn't anything to complain about. The menu system is adequate and the transfers are decent enough.

The only problem for collectors is that these movies have been repeated another 6 times throughout the "4 Films" and "Midnight Horror" DVD packs without even counting the latest Blu-ray versions.

Nowadays, "The Midnight Horror Collection: 8 Movies Pack Vol. 5" has replaced this set (plus the following one), offers marginally better value for $5, and takes up one less shelf space.

Obviously, the "4 Films Horror Collector's Set" is still worth buying for $2.99 from Kmart (or less on Amazon and eBay) if you either don't want or already have the other titles.