The Lazarus Effect (2015)

"A group of medical students discover a way to bring dead patients back to life."

Remember "Flatliners" (1990)? How about "Pet Sematary" (1989)? Yes, of course, you do. So does everyone else, especially Blumhouse Productions. Thus, it comes as no surprise that "The Lazarus Effect" is a quick and dirty remix of the two fondly remembered "millennial generation" movies from the poorer first-half of the 1990s, and seems to be another product designed to grab some easy money by using nothing but predictable formulas and tropes.

Yes, all horror movies are mainly repeated formulas, clichés, and tropes anyway, but Blumhouse have been working on getting this down to a fine art for some time. You have to give them credit for studying the genre and at least trying to create the "perfect" formulaic horror movie, although they do still seem to fail at it more often than not. The better movies which they homage are too recognisable and way too fresh in the minds of the target audience, and that makes these Blumhouse products fairly redundant.

In this case, "The Lazarus Effect" is yet another in a long line of Frankenstein-genre (or "science run amok") movies where Man plays God and things go very wrong. A little bit of pseudo-scientific babble and the old "science versus religion" chestnut get another outing to create depth, but nobody really cares one way or another as long as there are some gimmicky special effects to look at.

Adding Evan Peters who is currently in vogue by being eyecandy for teenage girls in "American Horror Story", and American TV staple Olivia Wilde (who I really only recognise from her movie roles in "Turistas", "In Time", and for wearing a very sexy costume in the horrible "TRON: Legacy"), is another stroke of Blumhouse genius to attract these actors' fanbases to this movie. Knowing how easily pleased some people are, I'm sure that it works too.

For what it is, "The Lazarus Effect" is an okay watch with very good production values, effects, and above average acting. However, despite an effective set-up, the narrative is a bit thin overall, and it obviously plays out like at least two stories mashed together badly because it is.

"The Lazarus Effect" is hardly the worst sci-fi/horror ever, since it does entertain and delivers exactly what it was created to do, so it's hard to find fault there. It even has a decent atmosphere and a couple of attempts at jump scares, but due to being PG-13, it's just not very scary or destined to be memorable.

I don't recommend it.

Gravity (2013)

"A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space."

I don't know about you, but the thought of being stranded in space gives me the heebies. The mixture of claustrophobia, agoraphobia, and vertigo would drive most people insane, and let's not forget about the possibility of being captured and tortured by aliens! Unfortunately, "Gravity" doesn't go into those areas, so it's not very satisfying for horror or sci-fi fans.

"Gravity" is a disaster movie for science nerds who love movies such as "The Right Stuff" (1983) or "Apollo 13" (1995) and believe that there really are space labs orbiting Earth, Man landed on the moon, and all that other rubbish. It's not another "Event Horizon" (1997), "Mission to Mars" (2000), or even "Armageddon" (1998), except for some very superficial similarities and, of course, being set in space. Thus, if you're expecting something other than a potential Oscar winner, look elsewhere.

To say that I wasn't impressed by "Gravity" is the understatement of the year. I was, by turns, bored out of my mind, nauseated by the shocking waste of money that went into something which the BBC could have filmed for the price of a couple of bags of prawn cocktail crisps back in the days of "Blakes 7", and because it's hard to tell what's going on unless you have some kind of astronautical doctorate degree, I was even more confused by all the confusing things which Sandra Bullock was confused by. Basically, I hated it.

Maybe it's also because I read Ray Bradbury's short sci-fi story "Kaleidoscope"—which everyone claims isn't the inspiration for "Gravity" until they are blue in the face (even though it clearly is!)—when I was a teenager, and it stayed with me. Or maybe it's just because I can't abide movies about astronauts in the first place. Either way, I felt like I'd seen the best and worst parts of it before.

Here come the spoilers!

What a load of Bullocks!

I have no idea how much of "Gravity" is CGI or filmed against a green screen, nor do I care about the smoke and mirrors behind the scenes. The result is very clever, and with such great effects now available, I'm sure we'll get a fake Mars landing from NASA eventually. What I do know is that Sandra Bullock is hot for her age, and her 3D acrobatics look cool, but neither is enough to make any of this movie exciting.

Using the "running out of air" trope is the closest that "Gravity" gets to having any tension, and a couple of dead astronauts provide the only horror. If only Sandra Bullock could've been persuaded to strip completely like Barbarella rather than just down to her t-shirt and underpants like Ripley, it would have perked things up a bit. Alas, this is a PG-13, and she doesn't do anything particularly sexy apart from grunting, groaning and gasping. Okay, so she also barks and howls like a dog at one point, but you have your fetishes and I'll have mine.

What really pissed me off, however, was the lack of scientific accuracy about how things work in space. Not only does the whooshing and swooshing make no sense in a vacuum where sound doesn't carry, the biggest cock-up is that Sandra Bullock could have just given George Clooney a little tug (no, not THAT kind of little tug!), and there would have been no need for his predictable self-sacrifice. I've seen this cliché done to death (quite literally) in American movies so many times that it's guaranteed to make me cringe and grind my teeth in anger now. In this case, it's also a terrible waste of George Clooney!

"Look, Mom, look! A falling star!"

Frustratingly, George Clooney doesn't ever get to finish his Mardi Gras story about the "hairy guy", although I've got a feeling that the punchline would have involved some kind of monkey. I just thought I'd throw that in here because I'm sure everyone else with a normal brain felt cheated by the lack of closure too. I even Googled it to see if it was an old joke by a comedian who I've never heard of, but I couldn't find anything.

Nerds will probably love "Gravity" for the various spaceships with their big boards of switches and flashing lights, but I couldn't make head nor tail of which was which or how they are supposed to work. Apart from the Cyrillic in one and Kanji in another, everything looks the same to me. You also have to laugh at how years of training and millions of tax-payers' dollars are proven to be completely wasted when Sandra Bullock makes her "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" choices. I guess that NASA will be changing their astronaut training program accordingly, unless of course, that is their astronaut training program already. Mind you, it's not as if man (or woman) has ever managed to leave this planet in any way other than a coffin, so it's all bullshit.

My biggest complaint about this whole boring mess, however, is that there are no apes riding horses and catching humans in nets when Sandra Bullock finally gets back to Earth and crawls out of the lake. I'll never understand why they left out that very important detail, but hopefully, it'll be available as an extra on the DVD and Blu-ray later.

The alternative DVD ending.

As far as anything called "Gravity" goes, I still prefer Zlata Ognevich's sexy Eurovision video.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Elysium (2013)

"Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds."

Using key plot elements from "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995) and "In Time" (2011) may not be enough for the general public to hate "Elysium", but the "critics" have certainly gone out of their way to bash this movie with those reasons already. Consequently, I have very little to add to their arguments except that I didn't like the predictable self-sacrifice ending either.

What? Have I just ruined the movie for you? Too bad. You've had over a month to watch it, and it's not playing in cinemas now anyway. On top of that, "Elysium" is just another generic sci-fi movie set in a dystopian future which looks good but you've seen dozens of times before. Admittedly, you probably haven't seen one with Jodie Foster's mouth movements out of sync with her words, but that's a dubious bonus which you can now avoid until the DVD is released.

Unlike the "critics" (even though I'm one of them), I'm not going to hate "Elysium" for being aesthetically similar to "District 9" (2009) since it's by the same director, but it's disappointing that poor people (and "prawns") living in scrapyards have become Neill Blomkamp's trademark. As a South African with a bee in his bonnet about apartheid, Blomkamp also seems destined to repeat the same "rich vs. poor" storyline—with the underdogs always representing good—for the rest of his career. Maybe things will change in his next big sci-fi movie "Chappie", but I doubt it.

"Elysium" isn't without some merits, however. It's nicely paced for one thing, and Matt Damon might not be everyone's cup of tea as Max, but he's not bad in the action scenes, even if those scenes are worse than the Bourne trilogy for making it impossible to tell who is doing what to who. He certainly looks the part once all the robotic enhancements have been done to him, although how he managed to get his dirty t-shirt back on afterwards is anyone's guess. I didn't dislike his character, but there's not enough there to feel anything for him either.

"Everything I found out, I wanna forget."

South African Sharlto Copley, on the other hand, steals the show as psycho-mercenary Kruger, albeit with Alice Braga coming a close second by providing splendid eyecandy as Max's former love interest. Both are far more interesting characters than the doomed Max despite being as stereotypically two-dimensional. William Fichtner (aka Sheriff Tom Underlay from the cancelled "Invasion" TV series) has a small, very important (and extremely typecast) role, but is the only other actor worth taking notice of. Everyone else is either just there playing dress-up or in bit parts which are instantly forgettable.

As a sci-fi "popcorn flick", it's not worth reading anything into "Elysium" apart than what's right in front of you. The lapses in logic are so obvious that there wouldn't be a story at all if they didn't exist, but if that's what some people want to waste their time arguing about on blogs and message boards, good luck to them. I must admit that I read a few of the oh-so-serious nerdy debates before writing this review and had a chuckle over them.

There's definitely entertainment to be had here for teenagers or anyone with low-intelligence and expectations who enjoyed "Oblivion" or "Pacific Rim", but having said that, I enjoyed a few of the gorier action scenes too. I'm not ashamed of leaving my brain outside the movie theatre occasionally, especially when I don't have that much interest in the sci-fi genre to begin with.

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.

33 horror movies from 2012 which I will never watch

Speaking as someone who tries to watch every horror movie from every subgenre as they become available, there comes a point when the amount left to see is so overwhelming that harsh decisions have to be made about whether they will ever be watched or not.

Sometimes it's the subject matter, sometimes it's the uninspiring artwork and blurb on the DVD—occasionally, it's merely the name of the movie—but every case is assessed individually before I invest my time and money. Due to many years of experience, I can often tell if a movie is going to be a crappy one without even putting the DVD in the player. Mistakes still happen, and some of the slew of shit manages to slip through, but at least they're confined to rentals because I never blind buy.

You can me "narrow minded" if you like, but you'd be wrong. I'm cynical, and I usually do a lot of research before parting with my money. I don't succumb to marketing or peer pressure, so all my movie watching choices are entirely my own. The following, however, are the titles which didn't interest me enough to give them a chance.

Please note that I'm going "old school" with this post. There are no trailers, no pretty pictures, and no Amazon links. I'm just going to write a couple of sentences about each movie to give you a brief insight into how I choose what is worth watching and what isn't. I haven't actually watched even a second of any of these movies, and I never will.


1. 23 Minutes to Sunrise (2012)
Despite having Eric Roberts in it, what looks like a low-budget crime drama set in a diner doesn't appeal to me. The title suggests a vampire movie, but it isn't. It's also a lot more than 23 minutes long.

2. 1920: Evil Returns (2012)
Tempting though it is to watch an Indian version of "The Exorcist", I've done that before with another Hindi movie which I can't remember the name of. It wasn't good. There's novelty value here and a very beautiful actress, but I'll pass.

3. American Horror House (2012)
The SyFy channel's attempt to cash-in on the name of "American Horror Story" suggests that it's about ghosts, but it looks like a TV-rated slasher centred around a University sorority. I suspect it to be yet another load of annoying teenage girls running around and screaming. No, thank you.

4. Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012)
I have no interest in Bigfoot or fake found footage, so this is an easy one to skip. I can imagine that it's all shakycams, some guy in a hairy costume, and everybody will die at the end.

5. Black Forest (2012)
Tinsel Korey, the scarred werewolf-girl from the "Twilight" movies is in this, but so is Ben Cross, and it's another SyFy movie. The blurb says that it's a fantasy set in the Black Forest, Germany, and has something to do with fairytales. If it was about gâteau, I'd be more inclined to watch it.

6. The Caretaker (2012)
A low-budget Australian "cabin in the woods" movie with vampires. That's all the information I need. Vampire kangaroos would be a much better idea.

7. Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)
It's a comedy, so it doesn't matter how many well-known British actors have cameos in it. Also zombies. Ugh! If I was still living in England, and it was shown on a satellite TV channel, I'd probably give it a few minutes just to ogle Michelle Ryan.

8. Community (2012)
Reading between the lines, this may be a British shakycam version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set on a council housing estate. It has Jemma Dallender (the pretty star of the upcoming "I Spit on Your Grave 2") in it, but sadly, it's full of angry chavs as well.

9. Creep Van (2012)
Apparently, this is a low-budget slasher rather than the story of a possessed van. Either way, it sounds boring, and it's bound to look like a YouTube video.

10. Crowsnest (2012)
Canadian found footage about nomadic cannibals in an R.V. attacking a bunch of teenagers. Since it's Canadian, I imagine that the acting will be okay, but the plot will rip-off half a dozen more famous American cannibal movies and slashers.

11. The Dead Want Women (2012)
A Full Moon movie full of pretty girls and Eric Roberts. What could go wrong? I'll wait for it to appear on an Echo Bridge multipack, and then fast forward through it for the nudie bits. Not really.

12. Demon Hunter (2012)
There are so many movies like this in existence that I've probably already seen this under another name. Just different girls to see topless, more no-budget effects, and non-existent "acting" to spoil my day.

13. Donner Pass (2012)
This is bound to end up on Netflix. By not having the service anymore, I can ignore another bunch of pretty "teenagers" getting killed and eaten by cannibals. Strange title though. It makes me think of kebabs.

14. Fetish Dolls Die Laughing (2012)
With a title like that, it reeks of being a no-budget horror-comedy.

15. Freakshow Apocalypse: The Unholy Sideshow (2012)
It's one of those no-budget nasties which is directed by, written by, and stars the same person. I'll bet that it's about a bunch of weird-looking friends with more tattoos than teeth as they try to copy scenes from Rob Zombie videos. If I'm wrong, I don't care.

16. Ghoul (2012)
A made-for-TV clone of "The Goonies" and "The Monster Squad" maybe? Nope. I can't stand horror movies with little kids doing a load of investigating and their uncaring parents who don't believe them.

17. Girls Against Boys (2012)
A rape-revenge drama which might be good, but I've seen far too many rape-revenge dramas over the years. I'd be very surprised if it offers anything better than "I Spit on Your Grave" as it's probably a formulaic clone of the same thing.

18. Grave Encounters 2 (2012)
I didn't watch more than 5 minutes of the first one, so I'm not going to watch an obviously inferior sequel. I hate all those bullshit "Ghost Hunters" TV shows which this is supposed to look like anyway.

19. Haunted High (2012)
Another SyFy movie which I've had no interest in since learning that one of the morbidly obese movie reviewers from YouTube has a part in it. That, and the childish story itself, puts me right off wanting to see a couple of minutes of Charisma Carpenter.

20. Lizzie (2012)
Having seen the TV movie version, "The Legend of Lizzie Borden" (1975), I can't see any way that this could offer anything new.

21. Lost Woods (2012)
Because the title suggests a movie about erectile dysfunction on a porn set, I was intrigued for a few seconds. Finding out that it's about an alien creature, i.e. a guy wearing a bear costume and a "Predator" mask, who chases campers through a forest destroyed those hopes. It's clearly no-budget crap of the highest order.

22. Love Bite (2012)
Supposed to be a romantic-comedy version "The Inbetweeners" with a werewolf. Apart from Jessica Szohr, there doesn't appear to be any good reason to watch this low-budget "An American Werewolf in Paris" clone.

23. Monsters in the Woods (2012)
Yet another one of those "film crew shooting a movie" ones with boobs and blood but no-budget. Normally a good choice for a "Woeful Wednesday" post, but I have my limits.

24. The Mooring (2012)
"Every 40 seconds a person goes missing." And he's getting really sick of it now! It's a handycam "Friday the 13th" clone set in Idaho, so it's girls being chased through the woods by a psycho. Probably has potatoes in it too.

25. Night Claws (2012)
I wanted it to be a movie about cats, but it's another one about Bigfoot. It's distributed by Midnight Releasing, so it's got to be worse than something by The Asylum.

26. No Tell Motel (2012)
I have a horrible feeling that I've already seen this one... about 50 times over and made by other people! It's about a haunted motel, but it's not going to be as even half as good as "The Innkeepers". I was very disappointed by "The Innkeepers", by the way.

27. Parasitic (2012)
A Florida nightclub gets invaded by an alien parasite. Alrighty then, it's low-budget sci-fi/horror. Do not want!

28. Poe (2012)
Either a film about Edgar Allan Poe or something about toilets, right? No such luck. The blurb says it's about a serial-killing cannibal. In other words, this is no-budget Hannibal Lecter.

29. Rise of the Zombies (2012)
The SyFy channel does more zombies. Ethan Suplee (Randy from "My Name is Earl") is in this. I like him, but not more zombies! No more zombies ever!

30. Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood 3D (2012)
Just look at the title! You can probably tell me all the reasons why I wouldn't want to watch this! It's got Tom Savini and Kane Hodder in it too, and we all know what fantastic actors they are.

31. The Sleeper (2012)
Supposedly a "throwback to the '80s"-style slasher where another sorority house is killed off. Why would anyone feel the need to make something like this in a market already saturated by no-budget slashers?

32. Snow White: A Deadly Summer (2012)
The girl on the coverart looks beautiful, but I don't think another movie with Eric Roberts in it is going to be all that great. Added to that, it's a modern interpretation of the famous fairytale, and those really don't work well.

33. Vampireland (AKA The 6th Extinction) (2012)
A no-budget version of "Stake Land". In every conceivable way, NO!


Since half the fun of being a horror movie reviewer is finding things which other people may not have heard of, if you've actually seen any of these movies, feel free to let me know if I did the right thing by not watching them.

Bad Milo (2013)

"A horror comedy centred on a guy who learns that his unusual stomach problems are being caused by a demon living in his intestines."

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you mixed "Office Space" (1999) with "Basket Case" (1982), "Bad Milo", the latest horror-comedy coming to VOD services in a couple of weeks' time from Magnet Releasing ("the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures"), is the answer. According to their official website, "Bad Milo" will also be released theatrically on October 4th, but I'd hazard a guess that it'll be limited.

As usual, some unscrupulous screener-monkey has already uploaded "Bad Milo" to the streaming sites. I would moan about how it's about time that distributors stopped giving out screeners willy-nilly to all these lame horror bloggers who either just want freebies or to upload the movie illegally—especially as I've never asked them for anything myself—but as it's only from Magnet Releasing (who kept following and then unfollowing me on Twitter every 2 days until I blocked them), and I hate horror-comedies, I couldn't care less. "Bad Milo" isn't something which I would have gone out of my way to watch otherwise.

It's not that "Bad Milo" is badly made or anything—in fact, it has very good production values for a low-budget comedy full of puerile toilet humour—but it's a one-trick pony. Once the "hilarious" joke about a demon that lives in a guy's ass has been beaten to death (almost literally!), this predictable crap has very little to offer other than remixing scenes and elements from more famous movies in ways which frequently cross the line between homage and blatant ripoff.

As you can see in the picture below, Milo the ass-demon looks a lot like Baby Sinclair from the kids' TV show "Dinosaurs" (1991). He also has the big-eyed cuteness and a few other characteristics of Gizmo the Mogwai from "Gremlins" (1984). Writer/director Jacob Vaughan's influences are extremely obvious, especially his homages to the more evil gremlins, "Ghoulies" (1985), and Belial from "Basket Case". Basically, the horror parts are a throwback to all the little creature/puppet movies of the '80s, and consequently, "Bad Milo" brings nothing new to the table here whatsoever.

Everybody Loves Milo.

Clearly, "Bad Milo" is a product of the same creatively bankrupt culture which allows these so-called comedies and parodies to elude prosecution for copyright infringement, and it begs the question of how much is really "fair use" before someone starts throwing the word "plagiarism" around? When you can so easily identify the "borrowings" from other movies, how is that not theft? At the very least, it's extremely lazy filmmaking. If Mike Judge, Joe Dante, Frank Henenlotter, and Charles Band gave Jacob Vaughan their permission to "re-imagine" their movies then forget I said anything, but I highly doubt that such a thing ever happened.

Apart from casually noticing that the lead, Ken Marino, is channelling Ray Romano and Zach Braff at the same time (which may just be his normal acting style for all I know), it's pretty obvious to me that the situational comedy of "Office Space" forms the core of this movie. There's the slimy boss (in this case played by Patrick Warburton), firing/leaving interview scenes, embezzlement, retribution, and all the poetic justice of "Office Space", plus... wait for it... Stephen Root aka Milton "Stapler" Waddams is in this too!!!

Since I'm considered such a pariah by modern filmmakers and the distribution companies that I had to watch the "Bad Milo" screener semi-legally, the irony of the whole situation isn't wasted on me, but I'm still going to call this movie out for its lack of originality even though I haven't been swindled out of anything other than my wasted time. Needless to say, I didn't find any of it particularly funny.

The scenes with Peter Stomare (Satan from "Constantine") playing the new age therapist/witchdoctor Highsmith are mildly amusing, and I thoroughly enjoyed ogling Gillian Jacobs who plays Ken's sexy wife Sarah. Other than that, you can shove "Bad Milo" up your ass!

The Demented (2013)

"Six college friends unite for a weekend getaway where they find themselves fighting for their lives after a terrorist attack turns the local residents into rage infused zombies."

Gah! Another generic zombie movie which unfolds as a checklist of every formula, trope and cliché. Having said that, "The Demented" is put together more competently than most of these "Night of the Living Dead" and "28 Days Later" clones.

I'm not sure what the budget was for this movie, but apart from too many quick cuts during the action scenes, it looks quite professional. The locations are good, the pacing doesn't lag, the gore is realistic, and it even has some fairly decent acting in it. Unfortunately, there are no characters to care about unless you think any of them are hot. The pretty "teenagers" are as poorly defined as ever; the curse of trendy teen horror strikes again!

Everyone makes the same stupid decisions that you've seen a thousand times before although, in fairness, these are young Americans so what do you expect? There's hardly a brain cell among them considering that they are supposed to be "college students". I'd hazard a guess that they attend a community college rather than a University though, and they clearly haven't seen enough zombie films to know how to survive. How the latter could happen in a world saturated by zombie movies is anyone's guess.

One contrived scene where the black guy (yes, you know what is bound to happen to him!) swerves to avoid a little girl Rage-zombie after just running over an adult male Rage-zombie only a few minutes earlier is shark-jumping of the highest order. This same character also has no problem with using a baseball bat on an infected dog! Aw, but zombie kids are sacred. The ethical double-standards and levels of hypocrisy in this movie know no bounds!

I like pretty girls!

"The Demented" stars Kayla Ewell, Richard Kohnke, Ashlee Brian, Brittney Alger, Sarah Butler, and Michael Welch, but I have no idea who any of them are apart from the two girls in the picture above. Kayla Ewell is from "The Vampire Diaries" and Sarah Butler had the lead in the "I Spit on Your Grave" remake. It's safe to assume that everyone else is from TV shows.

As this is Christopher Roosevelt's directorial debut, I'm willing to let a few things slide and even admit that the "double-ending" of a dream followed by the more downbeat reality is a nice touch. It's not original, of course, but it's satisfying. Did I just spoil it? No, along with everything else, it's even in the trailer!

The bottom line is that "The Demented" is a rather entertaining but instantly forgettable "beer and pizza flick". You can play a good drinking game by taking a shot every time somebody refers to the rest of the group as "guys" too. Just be prepared to have your stomach pumped afterwards.

If you haven't seen any other running Rage-zombie movie EVER, you'll enjoy "The Demented". But what are the chances of that?

"The Demented" will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 30th, 2013.

Man of Steel (2013)

"A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race."

Due to unforeseen circumstances yesterday with storms knocking out my internet connection, I couldn't post this review as a "Fantasy Friday" update where it belongs, but since it's more about aliens anyway, I now have the first "Sci-Fi Saturday" post in months. It's not that any superhero movie meant for 10-year-olds and 40-something comicbook nerds is a priority for me anyway, so who cares, right? I'm not a fan of Superman in the first place.

Back when I was the right age, I saw "Superman: The Movie", but I wasn't impressed. Out of all the superheroes, Superman always struck me as a bit of a wussypants, and Christopher Reeve only confirmed my prejudice. I mean, he has every superpower possible and could rule the Earth if he wanted to, yet he chooses to hide behind the bumbling façade of Clark Kent (as if people can't tell it's the same guy with glasses!), and just stops a few "bad guys" from time to time. It's pathetic! Superman and everything he stands for makes me want to puke.

I never watched more than one episode of the Dean Cain version because of his girlie voice and the fact that Teri Hatcher makes me cringe, and I certainly never watched "Smallville" either. I've seen parts of the other Christopher Reeve movies, but my interest came and went with Ursa (Sarah Douglas) in the first sequel. Thus, even though I'm not an authority on Superman, I've seen enough to know what it's all about, and I just don't care for it. As flawed as it is, I prefer "Hancock" (2008).

The trouble is that I sometimes have to watch other genres when the horror genre dries up just to keep abreast of who's who and what's popular. I'd be an even shittier reviewer if I only watched horror movies and nothing else. Thus, I gave "Man of Steel" a chance to change my mind about Superman.

Unfortunately, apart from Antje Traue looking hot as Faora-Ul (an updated version of Ursa), Zach Snyder's "Man of Steel" is easily the worst Superman movie ever made. While I can appreciate the darker tone and Michael Shannon's exceptional performance as General Zod, there's nothing here story-wise that I haven't seen before. As dated as they are, I would've been better off rewatching "Superman: The Movie" (1978) and "Superman II" (1980) instead of this "Transformers" wannabe.

"Man of Steel" features such things as disjointed storytelling which is ridiculously hard to follow, visuals which might look spectacular but make no sense, a script written by Christopher Nolan so you know it'll be crap, and lots of CGI buildings being demolished... but that's about it. With a running time of approximately three days, it's far too long and monotonous with it. It's all bang, bang, boom like a Michael Bay film with 90% of it made of swirling computer-generated battles, explosions, and gut-churning aerial shots of places which don't even exist.

It's not worth mentioning the big names who have small parts in "Man of Steel" because the only fun for anybody is spotting them and thinking, "Oh my God, so-and-so looks so old now!" I'm not going to take those suprises away from you. Just enjoy them for what they are, and savour the brief moments with Ayelet Zurer who plays Superman's real mother (Lara Lor-Van) at the start because she's really beautiful. She can't act, but she looks great.

I didn't think there could actually be a more disappointing superhero movie than "The Dark Knight Rises", but there is now.

Devil's Playground (2010)

"As the world succumbs to a zombie apocalypse, Cole a hardened mercenary, is chasing the one person who can provide a cure. Not only to the plague but to Cole's own incumbent destiny. DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is a cutting edge British horror film that features zombies portrayed by free runners for a terrifyingly authentic representation of the undead."

Call me shallow but the only reason I wanted to watch "Devil's Playground" was because I saw a picture of Jaime Murray on the IMDb and wanted to see more of her. She's been in quite a few horror genre films including "Botched" (2007) and "The Deaths of Ian Stone" (2007), but I think most people would know her from the "Warehouse 13" TV series. Unfortunately, she was very underused in this, and I still didn't get to see her naked.

Anyway, "Devil's Playground" is yet another apocalyptic virus/zombie movie with a huge amount of similarities to everything in the same subgenre from "28 Days Later" onwards. It's British and set in London with lots of fast running not-really-zombies who jump up walls and through open windows every chance they get.

The zombies are the only things that are fast about "Devil's Playground" as the pacing is ridiculously slow. Everything feels like an episode of "Torchwood" but with no comedic aspects whatsoever apart from the cast of Mockneys all being unable to pronounce any words with "th" or "ing" in them. The usual suspects are all here including Danny Dyer, Craig Fairbrass and Sean Pertwee all posturing, dropping their aitches and saying, "Nuffin'" and "Summink" every couple of lines just to show how "London" they all are. Apart from all the gratuitous swearing, gore and violence, it could have been a Hallowe'en special of "The Bill".

I didn't hate it any of it particularly except that it was the same old stuff that I've seen hundreds of times before but with different people. As a longtime consumer of Monster energy drinks, it did amuse me slightly that the virus that mutates people into zombies was, in this case, caused by an energy supplement injection.

As you can expect, the plot consists of a group of survivors trying to keep out of the way of the zombies but with some of them getting infected along the way. Of course, they go through lots of bouts of fighting among themselves too and there are the obligatory, and clichéd, suicides/self-sacrifices just to give them even more to woodenly act their way through.

MyAnna Buring from "Lesbian Vampire Killers" plays the lead female role of Angela who just happens to be immune to the virus and carries the antidote in her bloodstream. You may also remember her from "The Descent" (2005), but maybe not as she has no screen presence whatsoever. Bearing that in mind, it's no wonder that she is rumoured to be playing the part of Tanya in the the next installment of the Twilight Saga. I suppose she's pretty enough if you like blondes, but I prefer brunettes, so I didn't care about her character in "Devil's Playground" at all.

Mockney staple Danny Dyer has a backstory as a policeman who just got out of prison for shooting a kid and has all the guilt associated it, but who cares? I used to like Danny Dyer as an actor and he's still good, but honestly, he's not action hero material, and I wish he'd do better films than this. Maybe he'll be good in the remake of "The Asphyx" coming next year, but I doubt it.

The biggest role goes to the biggest (at least the tallest) actor in this, Craig Fairbrass, who always looks the part but hasn't really developed much as an actor since he was in "Eastenders". He seems to always be typecast as either a hard man or a soldier (or both) and it isn't doing him any favours even if it does pay his bills. His action scenes range from unintentionally comical to downright brutal but, without giving too much away, the chainsaw-wielding ending which I was hoping for didn't happen. He used to be a lot more charismatic but he's still no leading man material either. I just didn't warm to his character at all and the motivation behind his actions was questionable to say the least.

It's not that any of the actors should have lacked chemistry because they all seem to live in each other's pockets with all the projects they are involved in together, but they just did such horribly routine performances here that I really don't want to see any of them in anything ever again. Some people might argue that horror films don't need strong characterisation, but I disagree with that entirely, especially when it comes to groups of zombie survivors who you are supposed to feel something for.

I'm not sure if it was the low-budget ($3,000,000!!!) or just inept filmmaking, but "Devil's Playground" really dragged for me. At just over an hour and a half long it felt more like three hours in spite of some quite good action scenes. Like I said, I didn't totally hate it, but there was just nothing new or inventive here, and I got a bit bored waiting for the formulas to work themselves out.

Somebody left me a comment recently telling me that if I'm that bored with zombie movies then maybe I shouldn't watch any more of them. The trouble is that if there's nothing else available in the horror genre to watch then I still have to watch them, don't I? I don't regret seeing "Devil's Playground", but it could have been a lot better. Fans of "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later" will undoubtedly love it.