Apollo 18 (2011) Gonzalo López-Gallego

Something horrible lurks on the moon.

The plot:
Officially, Apollo 17 was the final mission to the moon for NASA but, in this 'found footage' movie, we see the reason that, even though Apollo 18 actually launched, nothing was ever revealed about it's mission.
Two astronauts arrive on the surface of the moon and, before very long at all, they begin to feel creeped out. Strange noises, odd video footage and, most disturbingly, unknown footprints in the lunar soil.
Following the path, the pair discover a Russian landing vessel and, within, signs of a struggle.
Exploration of the nearby area reveals a cosmonaut, dead, apparently by violent means.
Will the pair get off the surface?
Or will they meet the same end as their cold war rivals.

You know, found footage movies have every right to feel a bit 'last century,' yet this manages to engage from the off.
With a brief runtime that really serves a purpose, there is no time to waste on unnecessaries and, instead, the intensity soon begins to ratchet.
With some pretty cool visuals - the 'thing' inside the spacesuit is particularly frightening - and solid performances, this relies on genuine scares and stripped down sensibilities, and really delivers the goods.
Literally taking a long, hard running piss at the likes of Transfuckers 3, this is down to the bone movie making that packs a significant punch.
Liked it very much indeed.

4 out of 5

Paranormal Activity (2007) Dir: Oren Peli

Low budget, low-fi spook fest that really delivers.
The plot:
Micah and Katie are a regular couple, but their lives are turned upside down when nightly, spooky occurrences drive them both to the brink of sanity.
And damned effective it is, too.
Shot on a shoe string, this is minimalist horror that relies on atmosphere and the power of persuasion to instill the fear.
Nothing much happens: a door shifts here; a shadow lurks there.
Yet still this drips menace.
Effectively a two-hander, with only the brief interruption of a third person, the most impressive thing of all is the relationship between the two besieged in their own home as, truthfully, you really feel that they are a couple, she, a terrified woman, imprisoned in her own home, he, a bit of a joker, not really taking it all as seriously as he should.
As the tension builds, all eyes are drawn to the mystifyingly open bedroom door, awaiting a spectre and, even as the very brief credits roll, the image of that portal to impending terror will loom large.
No gore.
No theatrics.
No incidental music.
This is horror as real as it gets, and only loses a mark as it is not quite as intense as it's own sequel.
Jolly good, spooky fun.

4 out of 5

Street Trash (1987) Dir: J. Michael Muro

Some films just scream cult classic.
The plot:
An unscrupulous off licence owner discovers a case of something potent called Viper in his basement and, not really knowing what it is, decides to sell it to the local wino's.
Good idea.
Except for the fact that something in the extra strong brew causes the flesh to slew from the bones in a shower of rampant gore.
With clear social commentary cutting through the madness, this does what good horror should do and sends a message as well as causing disgust.
Whilst the level of production is poor even for low budget offerings, this is clearly because all of the budget was spent on the SFX, and absolutely splendid they are too.
Fans of splatter will be well and truly satisfied by this, as the melting sequences are truly grotesque. Indeed, this is perhaps the most notorious of the bunch of movies loosely brought together under the umbrella term 'melt movies,' though Brian Yuzna's Sociey and Robert Feust's The Devil's Rain are also strong contenders, with honorable mentions for Body Melt and Class of Nuke 'Em High.
As far removed from mainstream horror (the Saws, the God awful Michael Bay produced remakes et al) as it is possible to get, this is one for cult devotees only, and only those with a strong stomach need apply.
Good stuff.

3 out of 5

Camp Blood (2000) Dir: Brad Sykes

Scoring a lowly 3.3 on IMDB at the time of writing, the appalling rating demonstrates quite clearly what a bunch of fucknuts the movie viewing public tends to be.
The plot:
Two couples go on a camping weekend to a place called Camp Blackwood, referred to by locals as Camp Blood. Indeed, on their way to the campsite they encounter one such bumpkin, who tells them the tale of a killer clown wandering the woods, occasionally striking to claim fresh victims.
On arrival, one of the party notices that the sign for the camp has been vandalised, the word Blackwood replaced with Blood.
See, already that would be sufficient for me to turn tail and flee back from whence I came but no, these imbeciles carry on regardless.
Hooking up with a guide who leads them through the forest to a suitable camp site, they settle down and tell each other spooky stories before retiring to bed to fuck the back out of their mindless selves. Awakening the following morning, a horror awaits: the burnt corpse of their guide. Attempting escape, the party are pursued by a machete wielding maniac in a clown mask.
Will any of them make it out alive?
And did any of them actually go to drama school?
Ultra low-budget, this feels like a high-grade student movie offering rather than a legitimate feature, the extremely short runtime (73 mins) adding to the thought.
With a cast of characters who range from insanely bland to magnificently over-wrought, and acting capabilities that would shame manies the local Am-Dram society, this is for low budget enthusiasts only.
Which returns me to my original point.
Judging this against 'regular' movies is just ludicrous.
Claiming this as 'the worst film you've ever seen' simply singles you out as a dullard.
Think about the context, think about the budget, and think about who this film has been made by and for before making such redundant claims.
Lecture endeth.
Enjoyable slasher nonsense, then.

4 out of 5

The Deadly Spawn (1983) Dir: Douglas McKeown

Set your gore radar to high alert, and settle in for a genuine feast for the senses.
The plot:
In rural America, a meteor crashes to Earth. Two young folk out camping go to investigate, and are promptly eaten alive by flesh eating beasties. Cut to a nearby town, and we meet a group of friends. We have lots of establishing scenes were we get to know them and, you know, in some ways, get to like them. All except the pompous prick in the glasses who keeps spouting on about science.
Heh, shut it, speccie, no-one's interested.
Now, little do this gang of pals know that, lurking in the basement are the creatures that crawled from the meteor....and they're breeding!
Real low budget fare, this, and riotously good fun too.
Though the pace is punishingly slow at times, primarily due to the fact that there really isn't enough story here to justify even the 78 minute run time, this matters not one jot as, interspersed amongst the drawn out scenes are reasonably lengthy spurts - and I do mean spurts - of out and out gore.
Little gribbly aliens bore into people's body cavities, others emerge from poor unfortunates midriffs midway through chewing on their intestines and, in one spectacular moment of nastiness, two worm like entities burrow out from inside someones skull, using his eye sockets as a handy exit.
The monster design is magnificent, an over the top vision of all of hell's demons, the creatures effectively a gaping jaw atop a squirming, slime-oozing torso, maws opening to reveal row upon row of Great White style teeth.
The pace will put some off, which is a shame, but for those that can endure and wait for the gore, you're in for a good time.

4 out of 5

Slugs (1988) Dir: Juan Piquer Simón

Based on Shaun Hutson's infamous schlock novel, this really should be far more dreadful than it actually is.
The plot:
Having transposed the action from the UK in the novel to the US on screen, we follow a sanitation inspectors bid to convince the local authorities that a series of grisly deaths in his sleepy rural town are the work of a new breed of flesh-eating, mutant slugs.
Inevitably, his warnings fall on deaf ears.....right up to the moment bodies start appearing and a man's head explodes in a restaurant as slugs eat their way from the inside out.....
Low budget this most certainly is, having the feel, acting wise, of one of those German porno movies where you know at any moment the woman is going to be shitting in someone's mouth but, let's be honest, you don't watch a movie called Slugs for the quality of the acting.
Though the moments of gore are fairly limited, presumably for financial reasons, they are nevertheless reasonably effective. The aforementioned head chewing scene is well worth a look, and there are several other highlights of slugs chewing their way through eyeballs, cheeks and the like. We also get plentifuol shots of the slimy little buggers writhing around over each other in a particularly suggestive manner, which could be seen as a deviantly delightful treat by some.
Not by me, mind.
Not by me.
Z grade horror this most certainly is, but worst movie ever made - as several reviews I have read claim - I think not.
Decent.

3 out of 5

2001 Maniacs (2005) Dir: Tim Sullivan

Unwatchable drivel.
The plot:
A bunch of obnoxious, death-deserving college students head out for their Spring Break, and make the mistake of stopping off in a town where the residents have actually been dead for 100 years, only they are not ready to accept it just yet.
Sounds reasonably intriguing, I grant you, but this is delivered as such lowest common denominator fare it soon becomes a painful ordeal.
See, everyone appears obsessed by sex and we, the viewer, are meant to find that interesting.
A none stop barrage of smutty innuendo is sent our way so that, far from a horror movie, this feels more like a fucking Carry On film, and a really poor one at that.
Sure, there is some gruel and guts, but I soon resorted to fast forwarding to those bits as I could simply not tolerate the woeful script or juvenile antics.
What makes this all the more unforgivable is that it is a 'reinvention' of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie entitled Two Thousand Maniacs, a director who, though low-rent, always managed to inject a touch of schlock value to his projects, something that is sadly lacking here.
This may be decent if you are 13 and have yet to touch a tit but for everyone else, avoid.
Awful.

1 out of 5

Feed (2005) Dir: Brett Leonard

Uuuuurrrrgggggh.
That was vile.
The plot: Cyber-cop Alex O'Loughlin from Sydney, Australia, uses the latest technology to track down cyber-criminals, tracing their IP addresses to prosecute them for their crimes. We join him as he and his partner are on the trail of a particularly nasty individual, webmaster and owner of Feederx.com, a website dedicated to streaming apparently live footage of very large ladies being slowly fed to death, though voluntarily, by a tattooed male, whose proclivities include getting them to beg for their food whilst he, erm, rubs himself rather vigorously until his back starts to judder.
O'Loughlin traces the router the traffic is sent from, and pins the location to Ohio, US of A, and it isn't too long before, against the advice of his partner and the express wishes of his boss, he's in an altogether different time-zone, tracking the perverted son of a corn dog down.
So, essentially it's a cop on the trail of bad guy movie, but this is an altogether nastier animal than, say Se7en, the focus here more on the females' willingness to be ritually humiliated.
If Saw and Hostel are torture porn, then this is calorie porn, as the director points a camera lovingly in the direction of the bulky matter the deluded lasses happily chow down upon, some of the concoctions fit to turn the stomach of most rationale creatures.
What makes this movie all the more disturbing is that it is based on a real phenomena, men known as Feeders fattening up emotionally vulnerable women to the point that they become bed-ridden and utterly dependent on the one that did them the harm in the first place. It's the flipside of anorexia, I guess, psychologically speaking, though even more complex an issue.
At times brutal, at times emotional, this is surprisingly well crafted for a low-budget flick, and a low-budget flick from Oz, what's more.
Forgive the pun, but you'll need a strong stomach for this nasty offering and, seriously, you will never look at a burger in the same light again.

4 out of 5
Favourite line: "Consumption Is Evolution"

Hush (2009) Dir: Mark Tonderai

What can you make for £1,000,000 these days, eh?
That's barely enough to cover Angelina Jolie's nail varnish requirements in most movies but, in Hush, a taut, nervy British horror-thriller, the budget is used to maximum effect.
See, I don’t watch many British films. I tend to find them deathly dull; Social drama's about how grim life is 'Up North,' or emotional, human interest pieces about alcoholism and domestic abuse.
Not my cup of tea, certainly.
So it was with some caution I hit play on this movie, and was somewhat unprepared for what I was about to watch.
The plot: A couple on the verge of breaking up are in the middle of a long car journey, driving around Britain's motorways so that the man, Zakes Abbot, can perform his job of switching advertisement posters. As two lanes merge into one, they almost hit a lorry in front of them and, as the larger vehicle takes avoiding action, it's rear door swings open, and Zakes is convinced he's seen a naked woman inside, caged up. Caught in a dilemma about what to do, they try to get the police involved. The strain on the already fragile relationship is too much, as Beth thinks he cares more about the posters than about the alleged kidnapped woman, and tells him she is leaving him. Then Beth herself disappears, and Zakes must take extraordinary measures to try to find her.
Punchy, massively tense, this borrows liberally from various US sources; Duel is an obvious reference, but so too is Breakdown. 24 could even be cited for the giddying camera-work and almost real-time nature of the events unfolding. Then throw in a dash of Hostel, and you're nearly ready.
With a small cast, and a small sequence of locations, the director drains every last penny from his million pounds and crafts a highly enjoyable, edge of the seat movie that punches well above it's weight.
Very good indeed.

4 out of 5