The Others (2001) Dir: Alejandro Amenábar

Quite why director Alejandro Amenábar has not made a movie in near seven years is anyone's guess.

The plot:
A war widow named Grace (Nicole Kidman) retreats to a mansion on Jersey at the tail end of the Second World War, the only part of the British Isles to have been successfully invaded by Hitler's Nazi's. She occupies the house with her two children, both of whom suffer from a debilitating affliction, the major symptom of which is acute photosensitivity.
Confined to the house, unable to be touched by daylight, the children insist to their mother that they are not alone in the mansion, that there are Others occupying their living space.

Amenábar crafts a spooky scenario with some conviction, foregoing cheap shocks and frights in favour of a creeping sense of dread that is almost palpable as the movie progresses.
With solid performances from all, even Kidman who, as far as Smell the Cult HQ is concerned, is about as wishy-washy as they get, this is unnerving and deftly handled.
If torture porn is your bag, forget this, as we see nerry a shot of guts or viscera, instead being treated to a building sensation of genuine fear.
A cut above most modern horror, this is both frightening and thought provoking, and only loses a mark for being a touch too drawn out.
Good, solid psychological horror.

4 out of 5

The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) Dir: Dario Argento

A particularly nasty late offering from Giallo master Dario Argento.
The plot:
Dario's daughter, Asia Argento, plays Detective Anna Manni, a homicide investigator hot on the heels of a serial killer leaving a trail of butchered, raped women across Italy.
Following the trail to Florence, Anna becomes afflicted by the mysterious Stendhal Syndrome whilst in a museum, a condition that causes disorientation and confusion when exposed to works of art. Apparently able now to step into paintings, Anna has herself been targeted by the serial killer and is led down an inexorable path towards confrontation with the cold blooded killer.
And pretty vicious it is, too.
Argento here appears to have eschewed his more artistic directorial flourishes for some proper, down and dirty, nasty gruel, the feel more akin to Lucio Fulci than his own previous works.
Another new touch is the camera following inanimate objects: pills being swallowed, bullets passing through flesh.
The plot itself is pretty standard, though pepped up with the surrealist addition of the paintings made real, and the really dark thought is that, during the prolonged, savage attack sequences, more often than not it's Argento's own daughter he is filming.
Though not quite of the same calibre as Tenebre, Phenomena or Opera, this is still a cut above most horror out there, and is a study in Argento's misogynistic view of the world.
Solid Italian horror, then.

Bad Taste (1987) Dir: Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson is now world renowned as the Oscar winning director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy but, way before his rise to multiplex filling prominence, he was just a splatter fiend from NZ.
The plot:
Somewhere in rural New Zealand, an entire town, population around 75, has disappeared. A team of pretty inept investigators are on scene and discover that the citizens have been chopped up and boxed up by some form of intergalactic alien race to replenish their own version of MacDonald's, and only they can stop the menace from spreading.
Very silly, very gory and quite, quite nasty, this is gonzo, guerrilla film-making with bags of energy.
Jackson himself stars as the clumsy Derek who foolishly falls off a cliff whilst battling some alien nasties, and smashes his skull open, spending the rest of the movie having to pop bits of his own brain back in to keep him functioning properly.
With lashings of gore, and I mean really, really icky gore, this is a genuine cult classic that Jackson would go on to better with 1992's Braindead.
An amateur New Zealand gore movie that manages to be more engaging than most Hollywood horror?
Now there's a surprise.....

4 out of 5

Doomsday (2008) Dir: Neil Marshall

What an odd movie.
The plot:
It's 2007, and Scotland is ravaged by a deadly infection that sees the flesh slew off the bones of all infected. Unable to contain the outbreak, the authorities quarantine the entire northern area of the British Isles, effectively cutting the country in two, building a wall in the same spot as Hadrian some two millennia previously to isolate the spreading disease.
Skip forward thirty years, and a fresh outbreak occurs, this time in London. With news revealed to the desperate British Prime Minster that an apparent cure is evident in Scotland, a crack squad of military types are despatched.
Their mission:
Find the scientist known as Kane who, when last known alive, had been working on such a cure and bring him back to England.
The price for failure in the mission?
Banishment to the infected wastelands of Scotland....
A tried and tested plot, really, with echoes of Escape From New York, 28 Days Later, Lifeforce and more besides.
Stylistically, this is pretty confused.
The initial scenes recall the aforementioned Lifeforce but, when the military enter Scotland, we are treated to a quarter of an hour or so of full on Aliens style action, replete with lines lifted straight from the sci-fi horror classic, as well as design that also borrows heavily - the guns, the vehicle etc.
Then things take an altogether bizarre turn, as we focus on the surviving residents of the infected zone, a rowdy band of bloodthirsty cyberpunk types that could have been lifted right off the set of Mad Max.
With an undeniable energy, lashings of gore and a black, black heart, this is a melting pot of genre cliches, all fused together to create something new, something a bit different, and something that is most definitely enjoyable, without being altogether convincing.
The OTT costume designs and wonderfully overplayed performance by Craig Conway as Sol, leader of the Scottish maniacs are a little difficult to swallow but, forget all that and just go along for the ride.
Marshall is an undeniable talent in the genre field, yet to truly put a foot wrong. With Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Centurion also under his belt, he is clearly a director to look out for if visceral, genre-literate cinema sets your fluids in motion.
Flawed, then, but highly entertaining all the same.

4 out of 5

Sleepless (2001) Dir: Dario Argento

Dario Argento remains on familiar territory for this Turin based serial killer thriller.
The plot:
When a serial killer begins operating in Turin, an ageing detective believes that it is the work of a killer who has lain dormant for some 17 years. With the help of a technologically savvy rookie, the sleep deprived detective must solve the case before any more victims surface.
And it's all pretty much as you were.
Argento is the undisputed master of Giallo, at least as far as Smell the Cult HQ is concerned, but this does feel a little like treading water. Everything you would expect to be in place is present and correct: fairly savage death-scenes, primarily of women; lip-synching that is just off by a fraction; a sinister, faceless killer; plenty of knives, lovingly shot.
Though never reaching the heights of his late-seventies, early eighties Giallo masterpieces (Tenebre, Phenomena et al) this is still a masterclass in directorial flair, evidence of the fact that, really, Argento hates horror and does everything in his power to distance himself from the crowd.
I said it felt like treading water?
Well, Argento on auto-pilot is still better than most of what's out there.
Solid Giallo.

4 out of 5

Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) Dir: Anthony Hickox

Picking up straight after the events of the original, this is an altogether more ambitious affair.
The plot:
With the Waxwork burning to the ground, Our Heroes Mark and Sarah flee in a passing taxi, not noticing the dismembered, animated hand that has decided to follow them.
Back at Sarah's, the hand kills her drunken father, causing the couple to search Sir Wilfred's (Patrick Macnee) place for clues.
With Sarah standing to be accused of her father's murder, our plucky adventurers must take Sir Wilfred's time compass, and travel back in time to try to prove her innocence.
Featuring such genre fare luminaries as Marina 'Deanna Troi' Sirtis, Bruce Campbell and David Carradine and more film references than you could shake a Wayan brother at - Aliens, Frankenstein, Dawn of the Dead and The Pit and the Pendulum all get a look in, and that's just for starters - this is far reaching in scope but, unfortunately, feels a little too chaotic, a little too unfocused.
Whilst it is impossible to get bored due to the constant switching of scenes and locations, it is also true that it is impossible to become truly engaged.
With limited use of gore, though still with Hickox's Raimi-inspired directorial flair, this is a must watch for cult movie fans, despite not quite living up to the genuine originality of the first.
Decent.

4 out of 5

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) Dir: Dario Argento

Argento's understated stalker thriller is just a tad dull.
The plot: A musician living in Rome is a troubled man. Having killed a stalker a short while ago, now he finds himself the target of yet another stalker.
What a pisser.
Unable to go to the police for fear of criminal recriminations for the death at his own hands, he must attempt to deal with the mysterious menace alone.
And it's all a touch dreary.
The lead character of Robert is played in spectacularly drab manner by one Michael Brandon, never really engaging the viewer.
The plot, though standard giallo fare, feels tired and half-baked and never really convinces.
Coupled with the air of menace Argento is attempting to convey, he also chooses the odd moment of misplaced, misfiring comedy - a stereotypical homosexual character, played for laughs, weird one-liners lost in translation and the like - which doesn't work on any level, given that it simply drains away any tension and fails to amuse.
Though there are brief flashes of the brilliance to come from this director, with some lovely directorial flourishes - the lovingly shot knife blades, the head bouncing down the stairs, the close up of the eyes - this fails to deliver either in terms of intrigue or terror.
Still, Argento was merely developing his craft here and would later go on to produce some of the finest movies in horror's rich history.
A misfire, but a forgivable one.

3 out of 5