The Black Demon threatened to dominate the big screen cinemas with its theatrical trailer and megladon of epic proportions tied in with a family under threat vibe. The casting of Josh Lucas as its lead was also a relatively safe choice as he knows how to deliver in front of the camera. Yet the appointment of Director Adrian Grunberg was a worrying one despite being no stranger to action he clearly struggles with a decent execution if Rambo: Last Blood was anything to go by.
Oilman Paul Sturges has grand plans for an idyllic family holiday off the coast of Baja, Mexico whilst combining with a job trip to quality check an oil rig called “El Diamante’. The name given to this derrick should serve as a metaphor for the film; a facade that is all glitz and no glamour.
Likewise Sturges is not all he seems to be, harbouring a secret that has helped fuel the lifestyle that he has provided for his family.
The location itself is one that Sturges and his wife Ines (Fernanda Urrejola) hold strong memories with, having shared some quality time there, but upon arrival they find that it has been run to the ground and unsavoury characters are ruling the roost.
While the family in peril provides the bait for viewers to hook onto, the mode that we are expected to traverse soon becomes tiresome and predictable and this paint by numbers approach to the story combined with dire dialogue is tiring to watch unfold. While I applaud the idea of the local paganistic views being explored, this theme is saturated by the ecological viewpoints of the writers, who continuously ram them down our throats to the point that you wish they just take us out of our misery with a carefully triggered shot with a strategically placed scuba tank. Instead we’re subjected to painfully overplayed fodder with a mega shark that only casually graces us with an appearance when the tension needs to be mounted.
The Prognosis:
The films’ creatives need to seriously go back to the drawing board and reevaluate their storytelling methods because this film is seriously going to need a bigger plot.
The Black Demon slaps its morals and predictable narrative round the face like a… a 60ft gigantic megaladon.
Saul Muerte
The Black Demon is in cinemas from June 8th and streaming on VOD from June 21st.
Where unrest lies around remakes and sequels, there also comes the age-old response of untouched gold concerning “classic’ features that come into effect. Among them is undoubtedly Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s novel. The feature is so embedded in masterly terrain that the very notion of going near such material would be scorned upon, even Gus Van Sant’s controversial shot-for-shot remake was lambasted for daring to go into the material. So, when Bloch himself ventured with a novelised sequel back in 1982, that lambasted slasher films, Hollywood decided to strike back and carve out their own Norman Bates return some 22 years after its predecessor was released.
Psycho II would even struggle at first to entice its star Anthony Perkins to reprise the infamous role, but upon reading the script by Tom Holland, he agreed to do so. Holland himself had only been tied to screenwriting duties and would cameo as Deputy Norris here. It would only be another 3 years before Holland would capture horror enthusiasts further with his directorial role for Fright Night.
Helming the directorial duties for Psycho II would be Hitchcock student and heavily influenced by the auteur, Richard Franklin, who had already made Patrickand Roadgames using similar styles and techniques that the Master of Suspense came synonymous for. It would seem then that Franklin was the perfect choice to steer the ship and blend this continuation for the Norman Bates storyline.
Part of the appeal for this narrative would be the magnificent Vera Miles also returning for her role of Lila Loomis, although the treatment of her character arc is brought to contention which sees her on a malicious vendetta to put Bates behind bars again. Whilst you can understand her views, it is her gruesome demise that gets fans fuming a little. Personally, I like this journey and the subject of nature vs nurture that is brought to the helm. Can a man really change or is he doomed to repeat himself when constantly subjected to forced opinions and spectacle?
Throw in the mix, some great supporting roles in Meg Tilly as Mary Loomis (slightly biased opinion on my count as I adored her when I was younger… and still do), Robert Loggia as Dr. Bill Raymond to cast the psychological scrutiny, and Dennis Franz as the drunk motel caretaker.
The question remains though, is Psycho II a worthy sequel?
Well let’s look at Surgeons of Horror’s own six step criteria to place the feature under the microscope.
1, Identify the ideas, themes & executional elements that make the first film great. Or at least good. Or at least worthy of being sequelised.
The original movie was the epitome of suspense, filled with certain twists and turns in storytelling technique. It also posed an intriguing antagonist in serial killer Norman Bates and his alter ego “Mother”, that would lead some to ponder what happened to him and did he remain in the confines of a psychiatric ward?
2. Pay homage and do not violate/ignore said ideas and themes and elements.
It helps to have a visionary such as Franklin at the helm to carry out the look and feel of the original Bringing back Perkins and Miles to resurrect their character also lends weight to carry the torch, but with the worthy depth to character also forces the direction into a different stance in order to establish the narrative. There is also a lot of set design and props taken from the original that features here to recapture the look and feel.
3. Introduce new/expanded themes, ideas and elements that will NATURALLY ALIGN to your first ideas, themes & elements. (Ie: Don’t use your second movie to discredit & contradict your first).
Set 20 years later lays the grounds for further expansion by placing Bates in the position of rehabilitation. The subject matter of can a person be truly reformed when they were fundamentally unhinged is ripe to explore and Perkins does a magnificent job of placing Bates with the usual “innocent’ wonder combined with a slow descent into madness. Introducing a second generation of Loomis also explores shared trauma but under a new, more sympathetic outlook that contrasts her mother’s. Both Mary and Norman have a similarity in dominant mother’s and try to shirk their control to their own detriment. By placing the psyche under scrutiny, and twisting the perspectives of all throughout, the audience is kept guessing as to which way the knife will turn. In this respect it more than ticks the fourth rule.
4. To underline point 3 – DO NOT rehash the first film and just give people “more of the same”.
5. DO NOT-NOT rehash the first film by giving more of the same…. BUT “BIGGER”.
To support this choice of direction, the slow unravel of psychosis on our central characters and in doing so, grounding the narrative, the larger than life component that some sequels suffer under, is thankfully absent here.
And finally…
6. Be a good enough stand-alone film by itself.
Can this film truly stand alone without the impact of the first? In short, no, not without the same kind of delivery. The film does carry a narrative that is strong enough, and with the flashback placed in the prologue, enough is provided for an audience member to come in cold and still value the film by its own worth,
While it’s clear that one can’t merely replicate the quality and vision of a classic, the team behind Psycho II give a damn good crack at pushing into new terrain without scarring the original vision too greatly. For me, the film is a decent attempt at exploring Bates’ character and I am grateful that Perkins was given a fairly tight storyline and subject matter to expand and explore this character in more detail. Some forty years have passed now since its release, and looking back it’s well worth a revisit.
There is an inherent fear that we hold deeply of our fellow ‘man’ and the extremes of depravity that we go to away from the confines of urban security. It seems that the further or deeper we go into the backwoods or remote locations, the greater our fear becomes. At the turn of the seventies, now prominent film director Steven Spielberg exposed those fears in the open road, hauling ass from an unknown truck driver across the vast landscape of the US for Duel; John Boorman took the love of adventure and male bonding across the riverways into more dark terrain in Deliverance; and Terence Malik offered up a slice of teenage runaways on a killing spree in South Dakota in Badlands, but it didn’t stop on US soil. In Britain they amped up the fear of folk stories by subjecting its audience to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle in The Wicker Man; and in Australia Peter Weir was serving up some outback disturbance as political commentary for The Cars That Ate Paris. It was a growing trend that was steadily getting darker.
Arguably it was in 1974 that close scrutiny was cast on the unknown and sheltered parts of the country, and a family feasting on travellers to fuel their appetite in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that would throw turmoil into the mix and slowly craft out the slasher sub-genre. A master of horror, Wes Craven would pick up that agitation baton and run with it for The Hills Have Eyes, casting everyday white American family against a mutant inbred family set in the heart of the Californian desert to really shake us to the core. From here on in, the audience had hillbilly horror to contend with as a new playing field for the genre.
As we etch our way into the late seventies and early 80s, the raw appeal was on show to explore through I Spit On Your Grave; Tourist Trap; and the birth of slasher itself in Friday the 13th. The eighties would then play around with this concept with similar fodder in The Burning; Don’t Go In The Woods; and Just Before Dawn. It wouldn’t be long before the subject would be made lightly and Troma Entertainment didn’t disappoint with the horror comedy, Redneck Zombies to combine this trepidation and mix it with the undead.
The nineties would prove a lonely trail until we would be taken off the road and onto an unbeaten track in 2003’s Wrong Turn, a film that has somehow spawned six follow up features. Now, this may be a contentious point but it still stands strong twenty years on to me for nostalgic purposes and no amount of tree-leaping naysayers can sway me from this opinion. And while part of my reasoning may swiftly be driven by the casting of Eliza Dushka its heroine (still a Faith fan and not in the Buffy camp), but also with a pre-Dexter Desmond Harrington and a post Clueless Jeremy Sisto in its fold. And that’s not to mention a Queens of the Stone Age track in the soundtrack to complete the auditory reckoning, and some of the team from Stan Winston studios to add the gloss and gore. Sure it’s twee horror, but it continued this trend of hillbilly horror, satiating those needs and passing on the baton again for more comedy visions in Tucker and Dale vs Evil, and full out gross horror in the remake of The Hills Have Eyes by Alexandre Aja, bringing us full circle again.
The subject is here to stay as long as our fear remains, and in a post COVID world combined with our isolated lives, surviving or not through cyber connections, surely that fear will only grow stronger and thrust us into a whole new realm of revulsion. Hopefully this will pave way for more creativity to force us on the path of destruction and desolation.
Every so often, Shudder releases a smart and provocative feature on its Exclusive and Original platform, and Influence certainly fits that bill.
Using social media influencers as the basis for contemporary horror isn’t necessarily an original format for a storyline to unfold but its the manner in which Director Kurtis David Harder and his writing partner Tesh Guttikonda weave through the psychological, thriller narrative that resonates so deeply.
We initially follow one of these social media influencers, Madison (Emily Tennant) as she struggles on a backpacking trip in Thailand. Here she meets a coil, calm and collected CW (Cassandra Naud), who despite her pleasant manner, may not as she seems to appear. In fact, the whole premise shifts and changes through perspectives and misconceptions throughout, playing with the audience viewpoint. Each character we’re introduced to have their dark traits, but then show glimpses of light too. As we then follow a murderous personality, we’re left wondering where our allegiance and loyalty should lie.
The prognosis:
There’s more than meets the eye to this mysterious thriller. Beneath the beautiful facade of the Thailand scenery and behind the exterior of the personalities we portray on the social platform is a dark and sinister tale. Cassandra Naud is particularly gripping as the mysterious CW. Surprisingly hooked me into the web of deceit.
It is clear when watching Renfield that Director Chris McKay has channelled his comedic knowledge working on Robot Chicken and The Lego Batman movie to produce a film gilled with high energy and tongue firmly planted in cheek. This in part is due to Robert Kirkman’s (The Walking Dead) pitch following Universal Dark Universe reboot, but box office failure of The Mummy.
Using Bram Stoker’s Dracula as source material novel, the film centres on one of the price of darkness’ familiars, RM Renfield to build a modern setting upon. In the novel itself, Renfield is an important-yet-minor character in the grand scheme of things, but is ripe for exploration into a contemporary perspective.
Set in modern times, our protagonist played by Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies) finds himself drained by the everyday/night demands by his master to sustain the food supply and keep his power and strength to its fullest.
Renfield then takes himself to a voluntary self help group of people in codependent relationship with the plan to rid his peers from those who’ve been wronged and bring their abusive partners before Dracula.
A worthwhile plan that rewards his nobleness that is until he meets and falls for police officer Rebecca Quincy (Akwafina). Rebecca is also hellbent on proving her worth in the police community, striding to climb out of the shadows of her father and sister. It is here that thus unlikely duo team up against the forces of evil and stand up to their domineering counterparts.
The Prognosis:
All eyes will no doubt focus on Nicolas Cage’s portrayal of Dracula, which is suitably amped up to the nth degree and with plenty of nods towards Max Shreck and Bela Lugosi incarnations. Cage tips it onto the right side of camp without taking it too much into the extreme.
Nicholas Hoult also taps into bumbling Britism to bring a modern Renfield to the screen and when combined with Akwasfina’s dry wit, a fun, comic journey unfolds between them.
The action sequences are also gory and packed with humour, and decide a fairly mediocre storyline, the afore-mention3d elements allow for a decent flick that does just enough to entertain without being clouded by ridicule
– Saul Muerte
Renfield is currently screening in cinemas nationwide.
As Huesera: The Bone Woman opens up, we’re presented with a potentially dark and beautifully twisted journey into the heart of maternity. We’re promised a disturbing representation of this theme through a thinly veiled horror genre, when essentially this is a dramatic tale told from a Mexican folk perspective. What actually transpires is slightly off the mark though.
Valeria (Natalia Solán) has always felt that spiritual yearning to be a mother and at first her picture life appears to be forming nicely along with her partner, Raul (Alfonso Dosal) and cemented further when she learns that she is pregnant. These larger than life emotions soon diminish however and is replaced with one of fear and dread. This is combined with illusions or visions that haunt her waking hour. Are they really a fabric of emotional turmoil or is there a deeper presence at play. As the occult forces appear to be suppressing her, Valeria must find the strength to push through at the cost of her relationships or let go, giving in to the universe.
The Prognosis:
Huesera: The Bone Woman creeps along and wants to offer a horror tale but constantly drifts along without any really connection to the subject matter. The subject of maternity and struggling with coming to terms or accepting that role when we’re told it’s the most natural thing is a difficult one to convey. Director Michelle Garza Cervera does her best to twist and turn through a troubled field, and atmospherically grips hard in places and towards the final moments offers some genuinely terrifying and beautifully shot scenes. Ultimately though we’re left adrift and by the film’s end casually costing off to an unknown horizon.
Saul Muerte
Huesera: The Bone Woman is streaming on Shudder ANZ from Thu 11th May.
It must be hard to craft your way out from underneath the parental shadow, especially when it carries the name Cronenberg. Cronenberg Snr. has established a venereal horror scene to eviscerate the celluloid senses and cement a sub genre in his own right.
His son Brandon has been slowly ebbing away at this terrain but gradually shifting the focus from the physical body and into the intellect and its impact on the soul of humanity.
Where his freshman feature, Antiviral tapped into a similar vein to his father, exploring the warped world of celebrity status and bacterial infection, his follow up film, Possessor took a step further into the mind with a storyline centred on its infiltration by a secret organisation and the psychological residue left in its wake.
Now, he takes another bold step into the psyche and scrutinises the subject of morality and reasoning as his playground. Cronenberg still dips his toe into familiar waters for Infinity Pool and the vacuous facade of the riches, struggling to paste over their empty lives in the pursuit of feeling. To what extent will they be willing to go to and how long can they sustain this rush before it too ebbs away and reminds them just how insignificant they are?
Set on an isolated island, novelist James (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are enjoying lapping up life’s pleasures but soon succumb to temptation when they meet the mysterious Gabi (Mia Goth). Lured beyond the realms of the resort they immerse themselves in a world of violence and hedonism but when tragedy strikes they are given an ultimatum. Death or immunity… at a price. And therein paves the way for morals to slide and immortality loom large. If money can pay your way out of your troubles and there is an exhaustible supply of it, is there any end to the depravity?
The Prognosis:
Where Cronenberg endeavours to explore a clearly passionate subject matter, he loses some essence of what allowed him to shine through in his earlier features. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty on show here for his vision to triumph in places. The theme explored in tainted luxury through sour milk and burnt honey is a creative’s dream. Skarsgård provides the anchor to drive the narrative through, but its Goth who is in her element, providing another avenue to the unhinged mentality that she gloriously embellishes and never fails to disappoint.
Infinity Pool is a curious delight which may pale in comparison to this writer’s eyes against his other features, but no doubt this attempt is a worthy addition to his canon and will warrant further scrutiny when he gains a weightier backlog. I can’t wait to see what direction Cronenberg goes in next.
Infinity Pool will be screening in cinemas nationwide from Thu May 11th.
This latest home invasion themed movie begins like a made-for-tv feature, but as it flows through the course of events, begins to become entrenched in a more complex and compelling storyline. Part of the draw is through Eliza Taylor’s (The 100) performance of Julie, ebbing with initial frailty through to a broken mind, questioning all her surroundings both physical and mental.
Julie is an emerging painter who struggles balancing her artistic passion and rise in interest with her family. She has a growing anxiety that consumes her and it is when her sister is killed, Julie’s world spirals. Her marriage is drifting to the state of separation but Julie is bound by her insecurity and need for ‘normality’, so agrees to move into her husband’s (Bob Morley) tech wiz home, isolated from the outside world. It is within these walls that Julie’s fears become paramount, relying on drugs and alcohol as a band-aid to her ailment.
When her husband leaves for 5 days on business, against their doctor’s (Bryan Batt) wishes, Julie is thrown further into paranoia, consumed further by wild dreams and an adamant belief that someone keeps breaking into her home. Is there more to these delusions? Is her life really in danger? If so, who is behind it all? There are plenty of suspects: Her husband? The mysterious tech guy? Or the mailman? Either way, she becomes more dependent on the computerised Artificial Intelligence system of the homestead named Hera, in the vein of Demon Seed’s Proteus.
The Prognosis:
Something of a mediocre movie that doesn’t offer anything new, except a decent lead performance, a twisty thriller and intrigue to keep you in your seat, not necessarily to the edge of it.
Saul Muerte
I’ll Be Watching is available on streaming digital platforms from May 2.
Grief can drive people to the extreme. Their senses numbed by the inner pain that they are trying to relinquish. The means in which they choose to do so can vary, and one can’t quite predict which direction or even the lengths that people will go to in order to feel human or re-connect with those they’ve lost again.
From Black chooses one of these paths when a young mother, Cora (Anna Camp – True Blood), a drug addict, is struggling to come to terms with her son’s disappearance five years ago. When at a rehabilitation centre, Cora meets Abel (John Ales – 9 Bullets), a man who claims to have lost a daughter, but curiously presents her with the option to not only revisit her past, but potentially correct the mistakes she made. As always with these promises, it comes with a catch; a price must be paid. The question is how far is she willing to go in order to see her son again and right the wrongs?
Thomas Marchese along with his co-writer Jessub Flower explore the ramifications of venturing into the dark arts for his second feature length movie from the Director’s chair. Some of the elements are all-too-familiar terrain, sparking similar themes explored in A Dark Song. There’s no question about the acting range with both leads cementing their characters with emotional depth. The entity that is drawn forth by the duo is also well portrayed with a nicely created look, emerging from the shadows to haunt and torment Cora.
Where the film does fall down is through the pace of the piece, shifting and ambling along at a snail’s pace that it’s hard to keep your attention focused on the narrative. There are moments that feel like short features in their own right but stringing these together to provide cohesion and still be entertaining can be a struggle.
The Prognosis:
There is a decent playing field on show here to wade through the grief and despair of a lost child, but too often the pace of the film lets down this concept. Hats off to the creature design and some of the tension that is drawn out, especially towards the end of the feature,
Saul Muerte
From Black is streaming on Shudder ANZ from Fri 28th Apr.
Talk about a movie of two halves. This low budget indie feature, Kids vs Aliens which is part of the Shudder Exclusive and Original range drags its heels in the first half, with a lot of establishing character and setting. Normally this would encourage me to connect with the picture, but in this case I was borderline straining to do so. This in part had more to do with overlay in foundation, we get the gist, a group of young kids, hard into recreating wrestling/end of the world role play that they shoot and capture on camera. They have their own troubles, including absent parental figures, sibling rivalry, surviving bullies, and… oh yeah trying to outlive an alien invasion. So in the film’s defence there are a few things to set up before the creatives turn the dial. And when it does, it goes off in a big way.
Director Jason Eisner (Hobo With A Shotgun) extends his vision from V/H/S 2 segment “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” to feature length, which does hinder the outlook as a result, stretching out this concept to meet a decent running time, but he more than makes up for it when the kids in question stumble headfirst into saving themselves from these creatures from outer space.
The kids, Gary (Dominic Mariche), Jack (Asher Grayson) and Miles (Ben Tector) are fully invested in completing their fantasy feature, with the help of Gary’s older sister, Samantha (Phoebe Rex). Samantha is fast realising that she is being weighed down by Gary and his friends, coming into her own, lured by the repugnant Billy (Calem MacDonald). The idea that an older boy has eyes for her, clouds her perception and it takes the alien invasion to restore her priorities. Billy also has other ideas, one that is purely about finding a place to host a party with his friends. It’s all about what we project upon others and the facade we use in order to impress others – the central theme of the movie.
When the alien presence comes in full force, the tension and action dials up a notch which is amplified by the guerilla style technique in cinematography (hats off to Mat Barkley). The combination of Special Effects (Gary Coates) and Visual Effects (Sebastian Harder) help cement Eisner’s vision further.
The Prognosis:
There’s an incredibly slow start to this film and one could easily turn off or tune out. It has all the hallmarks of tired formula in this section of the movie, but patience will reap its reward when the tempo ramps up at which point Director Jason Eisner uses all the tricks in his book to grip the audience through a manner of twists and turns.
The feature doesn’t shy away from taking controversial steps in its conclusion though, setting up the notion of further instalments down the track.
If you can wait out the slow pace beginning of the film and embrace the journey, Eisner presents an exciting, ramped up adventure that you want to be a part of.
Saul Muerte
Kids vs Aliens is currently streaming on Shudder ANZ.
Surgeons of Horror 