Cell Count (2012)

Russell Carpenter's (Robert McKeehen) wife, Sadie (Haley Talbot), has a life threatening disease. While in hospital, Dr. Victor Brandt (Christopher Toyne) offers a possible solution. He runs an experimental treatment facility where a miracle cure for all diseases is under development and research and is open to volunteer test subjects.

After putting themselves forward for the experimental treatment, Russell wakes up to find that the facility looks more like a prison. He is reunited with his wife Sadie who now looks healthy and well.

Also in the facility are fellow patients Billy (John Breen), William (Eric Martin Reid), Mary (Adrienne Vogel), Mason (Sean McGrath) and two criminals, 'Tiny Tim' (Judd Eustice) and Abraham (Ted Rooney), who are looked away in a separate wing.



Besides the two that are locked away, they have access to other parts of the building and contact with their family via a video call system. Each day they are given instructions by a Stewardess (Laura Duyn) and visited by Dr. Brandt and Nurse Oberhauser (Suzanne Owens-Duval).

But as time goes on, it appears the good Doctor might not be all he seems to be and neither does the cure. As patients fall ill, all under the watchfull eye of the facility's staff, the whole situation turns into a fight for survival.

Dealing with their diseases is no longer the worse thing anyone is worrying about as they make an attempt to escape, with the Dr. Brandt in toe. This is where Blair (Daniel Baldwin), one of the patient's friends, comes to the rescue. Once outside the building, the realise what they just went through might have just been the easy part!

What we have here is an intelligent indie film with originallity that will make your skin crawl. It asks us the question of just how far and what we would be willing to do to save ourselves from death and whether we should put all our faith into modern medicine. Just because "the doctor says so" doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing to do! And that is certainly proved in this case.

The movie starts with a slow pace, but builds up and gathers steam the further it unravels. This is all helped along by the solid acting. The standout performance for me was from Haley Talbot and the creep factor is heightened by Judd Eustice as Timothy 'Tiny Tim' Jacobs, who is a disturbingly great character. It was also good to see Daniel Baldwin, who I haven't seen in anything since John Carpenter's Vampires and barely noticed in an episode of the TV series Grimm!

The direction from Todd E. Freeman is engaging and flows smoothly. Along with some pretty damn cool make up effects for a low budget horror, this really was a pleasure to watch. And with it ending in such a crazy fashion, which leaves it wide open for the sequel, I'm looking forward to Cell Count 2: Blood Count, which is now in development.

Cell Count gets 7/10

Check out the trailer below...

Would You Rather (2012)

Iris (Brittany Snow) lives with her ailing brother Raleigh (Logan Miller), who has leukaemia. Struggling to make ends meet as they have no over family, Iris is in desperate need for cash to pay for Raleigh's treatment.

In a meeting with Dr. Barden (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) it seems that her luck might change. She's introduced to Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs) who invites her to enter a "competition." The details he gives are sketchy to say the least, but up for grabs is a lot of money which could not just help out the siblings, but maybe even change their life's.

Iris jumps in the car provided by Lambrick. On the way to the location of the competition, Iris drifts in and out sleep, dreaming about past events with her brother.

Arriving at the grand location, Iris is greeted by the butler, Bevans (Jonny Coyne) and meets her eight fellow contestants.

While each person taking part in the competition come from different backgrounds, they all have the common need for the life changing amount of money available to the winner. As they sit down to eat, their hosts, Lambrick and his son Julian (Robin Taylor) explain the rules. As you can imagine, it's a game of "would you rather," albeit, as it turns out, "EXTREME would you rather."

Lambrick gives one final choice to the group of contestants to take part or walk away before the game begins. They all stay, but when they realise just what's really involved, some of them have second thoughts if they should be there taking part.

Now stuck in a deadly and sadistic game, will Iris' need to help her brother overcome all the obstacles in her way or will she fall short of the mark? Only the strong will survive in this version of would you rather!

The first and only thing that bugged me about this movie was Shepard Lambrick, or rather the actor who played him. I was racking my brain where I'd seen him before. It wasn't till writing this that I realised it is of course, Jeffrey Combs, Mr Re-Animator (1985) himself!

Anyway, I digress, back to the actual film. It starts off pretty slow, following the story of Iris and her brother, but once the game is in full swing, this is where the fun begins. The characters involved in the game aren't given much of a back story, but this is a good thing, as what is revealed makes you think for yourself, creating your own theories.

Although Brittany Snow's performance seems mediocre at first, she really comes into her own towards the end of the film. Combs is sophisticatedly sadistic throughout, supported by the subtlety barbaric Jonny Coyne. The rest of the cast provide solid support.

The ideas of the each round in the game are brilliant and become more extreme and imaginative the further it goes on. It really does put you in film, thinking to yourself "what would I do this situation." The further I got into the movie the more I enjoyed it and with a fantastic twist ending, it has made the film one of my favourites of year so far.

If you want a fun ride with a seriously sick twist to it, then this is a movie worth watching!

Would You Rather gets 8/10

Check out the trailer below...

Antiviral (2012)

In a world obsessed with celebrities, with social media at our finger tips, the paparazzi snapping shots of the rich and famous and to the extreme of stalking, just how far do you think people would go to be close to their favourite celebrity?

Antiviral takes that next step as it's set in a time where the average Joe off the street can feel at one with their idols. The Lucas Clinic provides their clients with the ultimate step in fandon. Along with other clinics, they provide viruses directly collected from your favourite star and inject it into you, for a price!

Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) is a leading technician at The Lucas Clinic and one of the perks of his job, although security is tight, is being able to inject himself, with whatever or whoever he fancies.

He "likes to keep things interesting" as well as extracting and processing the virus (when he gets home) in order to pirate and sell it on to outside parties. One of these parties are a local butcher (of sorts), owned by Arvid (Joe Pingue), that grow stem cells of the celebrity using the virus itself.

Syd finds himself in a situation that work colleague Derek (Reid Morgan) would normally do. The boss, Dorian (Nicholas Campbell), has asked him to go collect a sample from their ill yet beautiful poster girl Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon). Too good to miss the opportunity, Syd high tails to a restroom and injects Hannah's blood directly into his own arm, which makes him rather ill. After passing out for a while, Syd wakes up to the news that Hannah Geist has died from the very virus he has coursing through his body.

On the path to saving himself from imminent death, while being seriously affected by the virus, he gets involved with the Geist family physician, Dr. Abendroth (Malcolm McDowell). Syd now finds himself in the dangerous and viscous web of the virus pirating underworld and big business corporations. But will he find a cure in time and unravel the mystery surrounding Hannah's death?

First of all, if you are squeamish about needles then consider yourselves warned!

Son of David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly, Videodrome) , Brandon Cronenberg makes his feature film debut, in both the writing and direction department. Cronenberg actually re-edited the film after a showing at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival to make it tighter, trimming nearly six minutes out of the film. The revised film was first shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was a co-winner of the festival's Best Canadian First Feature Film award. It's not hard to see why it got an award.

What we have here is a power look at the lengths we might go to worship celebrities. The movie has a very slow pace, certain horror fans may find it boring, but for me it was very interesting and the pacing helped grasp the whole concept.

Delivering a very believable performance throughout was Caleb Landry Jones. His pale slender frame added to the realness of his illness. Although not having a great deal of screen time, Malcolm McDowell plays his character with underlining seriousness, something I haven't seen from him for a while. So it was good to see Cronenberg use him in such a role. The rest of the supporting cast added extra quality to the film, making the script come alive.

With a story that has real world connotations and the fluid direction, it really kept me involved, wanting to know more and connecting me with each character. This thought provoking movie has an air of dark realism and should keep you thinking about the message it delivers. An all round solid effort from David Cronenberg.

Antivirus gets 7/10

Check out the trailer below...

The ABCs of Death (2012)

First up, let's start with the facts - The ABCs of Death "was created by 26 directors from around the world. Each director was given a letter of the alphabet and asked to choose a word.

They then created a short tale of death that related to their chosen word. They had complete artistic freedom regarding the content of their segments."

It says "26 directors," but there were two on one letter, as you'll with the following:

A Is for Apocalypse - Nacho Vigalondo
B Is for Bigfoot - Adrián García Bogliano
C is for Cycle - Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
D Is for Dogfight - Marcel Sarmiento
E is for Exterminate - Angela Bettis
F is for Fart - Noboru Iguchi
G is for Gravity - Andrew Traucki
H is for Hyrdo-Electric Diffusion - Thomas Cappelen Malling
I is for Ingrown - Jorge Michel Grau

J is for Jidai-geki (Samuria Movie) - Yudai Yamaguchi
K is for Klutz - Anders Morgenthaler
L is for Libido - Timo Tjahjanto
M Is for Miscarriage - Ti West
N is for Nuptials - Banjong Pisanthanakun
O is for Orgasm - Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet
P Is for Pressure - Simon Rumley
R Is for Removed - Srdjan Spasojevic
S is for Speed - Jake West
T Is for Toilet - Lee Hardcastle
U Is for Unearthed - Ben Wheatley
V is for Vagitus (The Cry of a Newborn Baby) - Kaare Andrews
W is for WTF? - Jon Schnepp
X Is for XXL - Xavier Gens
Y Is for Youngbuck - Jason Eisener
Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction) - Yoshihiro Nishimura

There really is a fantastic line up here and it reads like the "who's who" of modern horror.

Here's a few of the films by a few of the directors that you should recognise:

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), Penumbra (2011), Dead Sushi (2012), We Are What We Are (2010) (which is has an English remake in production), Tokyo Gore Police (2008), Shutter (2004), Deadgirl (2008), A Serbian Film (2010) (which is the most disturbing film I've seen to date!), Timecrimes (2007), Doghouse (2009), The Innkeepers (2011), Kill List (2011), You're Next (2011) (which we're still waiting for!), May (2002) (the actress who plays May, Angela Bettis, directs a segment), and Frontier(s) (2007).




With the amount of short stories here, it's probably one of the best anthologies you'll ever see. There was only one segment where I thought to myself "MEH!" And that was G is for Gravity. Speaking of the letter G, there's plenty of GORE (see what I did there?!) throughout to keep the blood thirsty types, like myself, very pleased.

It has it's fair share of disturbing stuff too, which surprised me. L is for Libido was probably the most sick and twisted piece, but it was also very original.

As you can imagine, M Is for Miscarriage wasn't very pleasant, although it was very simple and effective.

Y Is for Youngbuck is also worth mentioning with the previous two.


The most fun segments for me were the animated ones, K is for Klutz and T Is for Toilet. Both stories revolve around a toilet and couldn't possibly be made any better with live action and SFX!




It also offers the completely weird and wonderful. Some of it is so far out there that only fans within the genre will appreciate and get it. This includes F is for Fart, H is for Hyrdo-Electric Diffusion, W is for WTF? and Z is for Zetsumetsu.

But what segments stood out the most me? L is for Libido is definitely worth mentioning again, along with R Is for Removed, U Is for Unearthed and X Is for XXL. But there was one other that was really special...

 

For me, D Is for Dogfight stood head and shoulders above the rest. The cinematography, choreography, score and even the sounds, or lack off, made for a visually stunning and original short with a brilliant twist.

Overall, the performaces from all the actors where engaging, the SFX ranged from cheap and cheerful to extravagant, there is a hint of predictability with some of the segments, but this collection of short stories from directors around the globe makes for a very entertaining, clever, fun, bloody, brutal, disturbing and shocking watch. It has some of the most original work I've seen for years. There's certain things featured that I thought I would never see on film, so giving the directors "complete artistic freedom" was a genius idea. This anthology is a must see!

The ABCs of Death gets 9/10

Check out the trailer below...

Citadel (2012)

Tommy (Aneurin Barnard) and Joanne (Amy Shiels) are ready to move out of their crummy apartment in a rundown block. Not even the elevator works correctly. Tommy heads down to load a taxi with their belongings, leaving his pregnant wife standing outside the apartment.

On the way back up, as the elevator reaches his floor the door won't open. looking through the window of the elevator door, Tommy sees three hooded youths walking towards Joanne. He keeps tapping the button to open the door, but to no avail.

Without warning, the trio of hoodies attack Joanne! Now frantically pushing the elevator button, it starts to move back down to the ground floor. When he comes to a stop, Tommy has to force the door open himself. Rushing up the stairs in an attempt to save his wife, he finds he's to late as the gang flees the scene leaving Joanne on the floor, bloody and unconscious with a needle sticking out of her stomach.


Joanne is rushed to hospital, where the baby is delivered, healthy and well, but Joanne is left in a coma. Now living in a house, but in the same area, Tommy is left distraught by the event and develops agoraphobia. The young father is seeking help though, through group therapy and the support of a nurse, Marie (Wunmi Mosaku). The months pass, but Joanne's condition only gets worse and she passes away, leaving Tommy to fend for himself and their daughter. At Joanne's funeral, Tommy is warned by the priest (James Cosmo) to leave the area saying "you know they'll come looking for her."

Tommy has already made arrangements to leave the city. After handing in the keys to the house to the local council, he heads for the bus to take his his daughter away from the horrible area. But he doesn't make it on time and misses the bus!

Now he has to make his way back to the house as it's the only place he knows he can stay for the night. Tommy forces his way in, which means that he can't lock themselves in. As the night draws in, the mysterious hooded gang makes an attempt to take the baby. To Tommy's relief, Marie pays them a visit and seeing the state he is in, she takes father and daughter to stay at her place.

Looking for answers, Tommy goes to see the priest. But the answer he receives is more than he can take in. The priest reveals the true identity of the youths that are attacking people and taking small children and introduces a young boy called Danny (Jake Wilson).

The very next day, Marie decides to help Tommy with his agoraphobia. They head out and walk down an underpass. What happens next forces Tommy to face his fear, with the help of the priest and Danny.

Citadel did the rounds at films festivals last year from the US to as far as South Korea and also picked up a number of awards, one of which was the "Audience Award" at SXSW Film Festival. It's not hard to see why.

This Irish production is a very atmospheric and creepy slow burning movie. The cinematography reflects the mood throughout. The dark feeling of the film is helped brilliantly along by a very believable performance by the lead actor, Aneurin Barnard. The film revolves around his character and the traumatic experience, which means he carries the whole thing on his back with not even a hand full of supporting cast members, but he pulls it off without any doubt.

Ciaran Foy directs from his own script and delivers in both areas. The movie is more than a horror, it also deals with loosing loved ones and tackles the very real condition of agoraphobia in a serious and well represented manner. This all helps you connect with the story and the characters within it.

Citadel is an original, unsettling and harrowing film that has real world application. It will give you something to think about afterwards. And quite frankly, it puts some of the big budget stuff to shame!

Citadel gets 8/10

Check out the trailer below...

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Silent Hill: Revelation picks up 6 years after the events of the first film. The young Sharon is now 18 years old and now known as Heather (Adelaide Clemens). She's been on the run since she was a child with her father Harry (Sean Bean). Heather can't remember what happened to her as a child and suffers with constant dreams of Silent Hill, even though she has no clue as to what these dreams mean.

They have both just moved into a new place and Heather is about to start a new school. But she's not the only one to be the "new kid" in class. Fellow student Vincent (Kit Harington) is also starting his first day and tries to make friends with Heather.

Things are not sitting well with Heather though, as she's being followed by a man she doesn't know. In an attempt to loose the man she heads to a shopping mall and arranges to meet her dad.


But the man catches up to her and reveals himself to be a private detective named Douglas (Martin Donovan) that's been hired to find her. He knows her by the name of Sharon though. He goes on to tell her that the people responsible for hiring her are not to be messed with and warns her to keep running. In the meantime, her Father Harry gets an uninvited guest.

After the ordeal with Douglas she escapes the mall and bumps into Vincent. Heather is now seeing things and fears for her life which is made worse by the fact that she can't get hold of her father. So she heads home with Vincent in toe, only to find that her father is gone and a bloody message with a symbol is left on the wall of the living room. She recognises the symbol and looks for a wooden box the her father kept. The box contains material about Silent Hill.

Heather decides to look for her father with Vincent's help. So they start their journey towards Silent Hill. Stopping at a motel for rest, Vincent has a secret to tell and tries to put off Heather from going to Silent Hill. But the same person who took her father turns up and hours later Heather finds herself waking up in a strange place. It doesn't take her long to realise she's already in Silent Hill! Let the nightmare begin...

Being a fan of the first film I eagerly awaited this sequel. Sadly, that eagerness was met with disappointment. The sequel was rather inept. All of things I liked about the Silent Hill was lacking in it's successor!

OK, it is worth mentioning the SFX work. However, it is the only real redeeming quality the film has. Even though the effects are good and we're introduced to new monsters, some of the creatures we saw in the first film, namely Pyramid Head and the Nurses, don't make the impact that they made in the first movie. They somehow lacked that creep factor. In fact, the movie as a whole lacked that real feel of darkness that is Silent Hill.

The film had some big names in it too. Sean Bean, who returns in the sequel was far below par compared to all his previous work. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix franchise) and Malcolm McDowell (Halloween, Suck, Silent Night) failed to add any vigour to the project. Even Kit Harington, a relative new comer, was way under the standard of acting he's shown in the astounding Game of Thrones. Radha Mitchell makes a very brief and rather pointless appearance. So on top of all that, Adelaide Clemens has to carry the whole film on her back and unfortunately she wasn't quite strong enough.

The worse thing about the movie was the story itself and the direction. The whole thing felt rushed, like Michael J. Bassett tried to throw as much information, including flash backs, into the film as possible instead of developing the plot. It lacked depth, any twists and turns and frights, which makes me thing that this was only made [in 3D] for the effects. Added to this poor combination was the score, or rather, the constant use of the one particular track (which you can find here) that also appears on the soundtrack of the first movie. By the end, it just got annoying!

If you're a fan of the Silent Hill movie then like me, I think you'll dislike the sequel. If you didn't like Silent Hill, then I guess you'll hate this one!

Silent Hill: Revelation gets 4/10

Check out the trailer below...

Gut (2012)

Tom (Jason Vail) seems to be leading a normal life with wife Lily (Sarah Schoofs) and their daughter Katie. He lives the normal nine to five day in an office with fellow work colleague and best friend Dan (Nicholas Wilder) before heading home to have dinner with his family each week night.

While on a lunch break, Tom and Dan head to a local diner for their usual burger and fries. Dan has also taken a shine to a waitress there, Sally (Angie Bullaro). Dan invites Tom round to his place for a horror movie night and some beers like they use to when they were younger. But Tom makes an excuse saying he has plans to take his daughter to the cinema.

This doesn't deter Dan from inviting his best friend around the very next day as he has a mail order film that he found through the Internet.

Tom now agrees, so straight after work they head to Dan's place and sit down to watch the DVD. Both are in utter silence through the short film. When it's finished Dan asked Tom what he thinks of what they just saw.

Completely disgusted by the film's content's and quite freaked out by it, Tom leaves in a hurry! That night Tom can't sleep. Over the next couple of days his home life starts to suffer due to the disturbing film. While at the diner, Dan reveals he has more of these DVDs to watch, which only starts to put a wedge between their friendship.

Now Dan is left to his own devices, becoming more obsessed with the subject matter of the DVDs. As he sits alone in the diner, he finally plucks up the courage to ask Sally out on a date which works out rather well for him, at first! But when Dan starts to miss a lot of work, Tom becomes worried for his friend. Seeking to help Dan, what Tom hears and sees next is more disturbing than he could imagine. Now worried for the safety of his family, he becomes more paranoid and conscious of how the film they shared together is effecting real life. What happens next will effect his life forever!

My initially thoughts after watching this film were only elaborated by writing this review and thinking more in depth about the message it presents.

I'm sure, as horror fans, we've all seen a film that we found disturbing, that maybe we shouldn't have watched or maybe after watching it, we certainly won't be watching it again! And then there's the impression it leaves upon us, whether it's only for a short time after viewing or days and maybe even months after. The film also looks at how friendships can grow apart as we get older and how maybe our interests change in the process of becoming adults and having our own family.

That said, I think the script was well written by Elias which, along with his direction, made for a more realistic horror movie. OK, so this a what we know as a "slow burn" movie, in fact it's very slow throughout as nothing major happens till about fifty minutes in. I can see a lot of people not liking this. Hell, it wasn't till I sat down to start this review that I thought it was a good film! This is the kind of movie that you need to think about. It's not in your face. It does require you to think about what you are seeing. In the process it makes you think how something like this would effect your own life, thus giving it the realistic feel.

As for the acting, at first it seems a bit mediocre, which didn't help the pace of the film at first, but by the end of the film you feel a certain connection to the main characters, whether it be Tom, Dan or Lily. The pace of the film is helped along by a pretty eerie score and the practical effects add to the realism. It is predictable in parts, but it's worth seeing how the characters react to the situation they are in.

However, as I said before, not everyone will like this, but I would recommend this movie to film enthusiasts that have an eclectic taste in horror and that are not just your average horror fan.

Gut gets 7/10

Check out the trailer below...