Bruce McDonald's fever-dream Halloween horror shocker Hellions is probably the most divisive film on my Top 10 list.
It's the last day of 2015 here in South Korea; what better way to ring out the old year and bring in the new than to check out my thoughts on the horror films I loved most this year and the ones that left me unimpressed? Actually you probably have many better ways but if you have time to squeeze in for reading my Gruesome Magazine articles, I would greatly appreciate it!
Happy new year, everyone! I am a bit behind in updating my blog because of the holiday season, but not in reviewing films for the Gruesome Magazine website. Japanese mystery thriller The World of Kanako is well worth seeking out and is definitely one of my top three films of the year. Excellent performances, an intriguing story, and fantastic cinematography are just a few of the reasons why I like this film so much. You can read my full review at http://gruesomemagazine.com/2015/12/01/the-world-of-kanako-2014-lurid-mystery-examines-the-underbelly-of-a-teenage-girls-secret-life/
Koji Yakusho gives a stunning performance in The World of Kanako as a father and former detective who leaves a wake of violence as he searches for his missing daughter.
Nowhere near as impressive but certainly worth a watch is the demonic possession horror movie The Wicked Within, part of the returning 8 Films to Die For series. As possession films go, this one is refreshingly toned down in regard to relying on gross-out shocks, focusing more on the relationships between the characters and the secrets that they hide from each other. You can read more of my thoughts about it at http://gruesomemagazine.com/2015/11/24/the-wicked-within-2015-possession-tale-focuses-on-a-fractured-familys-shortcomings/
Sienna Guillory toplines as a possessed woman who brings dark secrets out in the open in The Wicked Within.
My son Cohen Perry has knocked one out of the park with his final installment in his three-part series for Propeller Magazine covering this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. You can find his article, with links to the first two installments in case you missed them at http://www.propellermag.com/Oct2015/PerryKorea3Oct15.html.
I'm so very proud of my son's writing and I hope you'll take a look to find out why. Thanks!
I have three new reviews that have recently been posted on Gruesome Magazine's website. With a creature feature, a science fiction/horror hybrid, and a cautionary fable with wicked humor, these diverse films have much to offer potential viewers, no matter their preferred choice of chills.
Unnatural, one of this year's Eight Films to Die For series, is a flawed but fun movie about a huge polar bear that has been the subject of DNA-tweaking experiments. Unfortunately a group of people shooting a high-fashion photo spread is staying in a lodge near the laboratory housing the bear --- and the beast has just escaped.
The Conductor is a short film about a young woman who wakes up to find that she is no longer in control of her body and her free will. Science fiction and horror elements blend well in this effort:
The titular character of The Conductor begins his diabolical symphony.
Prolific director Patrick Rea offers up a nifty short film about a wife and mother --- Michelle Davidson in a superb performance --- who would love just one a hour day to herself in The Hourglass Figure:
Wine isn't the only liquid spilled in Chateau Sauvignon: terroir.
Hello! Since I last posted here, I've had four reviews posted in Gruesome Magazine's "Super Scary Shorts Saturday" and each one is a winner. Whether you like a few chuckles with your shocks or are seeking something more straight-ahead in the chills department, one or more of these shorts are sure to please you.
In Tickle, a babysitter learns that sometimes scary bedtime stories come to life:
Pillow Fright sees sorority sisters who dabble in the occult suddenly finding themselves facing killer pillows. Yes, you read that right and it works better than you might think:
If you're in the mood for a tale with a bit of an old-fashioned macabre feeling set in today's modern world, look no further than Chateau Sauvignon: terroir:
I'll have another pair of eerie short films up this Saturday, so keep checking back at Gruesome Magazine's website for those, my full-length-film reviews, and all of the other great content there. Thanks, as always!
My second installment of Gruesome Magazine website's "Super Scary Shorts Saturday" features the creepy, award-winning supernatural effort Shi, about a man having the worst day of his life as a husband and father, and Shattered, a gory dramatic thriller about a grieving mother who wants answers to her young daughter's murder.
As always, thanks for reading, and while you're there, make sure to check out all of the other great content from my friends and colleagues at Gruesome Magazine!
My latest review for the Gruesome Magazine website spotlights "Savageland," an independent American horror offering that looks and feels like an actual documentary film. You can find my article here.
Thirty-three bizarre photos may tell one of the sides of the story of how an entire small town's population was wiped out in one night in "Savageland."
Gruesome Magazine has begun a new weekly feature, "Super Scary Shorts Saturday," which spotlights short horror films. I wrote the inaugural reviews, which focus on two creature features. You can see what I think of Howl of a Good Time and Santahere.
Propeller has just published my son Cohen's second installment in his three-part series about his experiences as a traveler and press member at this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan). Cohen offers a unique take on cultural clashes and similarities between South Korea and the United States, along with reviews of festival films. You can read all about it here. To say that I'm a proud dad is an understatement!
I'm always thrilled when I have the chance to cowrite an article with my son, Cohen. Our most recent tag-team effort appears in the Fall 2015 (#96) edition of Phantom of the Movies' VideoScope magazine, wherein we have a four-page spread about this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea. It should be available at a bookstore near you; if not, you can order a copy (or better yet, a subscription) at videoscopemag.com. Enjoy!
Horror walks the halls of an elementary school in a new short-film version of Stephen King's short story, "Suffer the Little Children." This short has introduced me to Bonfire Films and the company's husband-and-wife team of director Corey Norman and screenwriter Haley Norman, and I'm eager to see the previous efforts from these talented filmmakers.
You can read my full review on the Gruesome Magazine website:
My son Cohen Perry and I had the good fortune to attend our favorite film fest together again this year when we went to the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in July. Hot off the cyber press, here is part one of Cohen's two-part article for the Propeller Magazine site recounting his experiences with the films and as a repeat visitor to South Korea. Excellent work, son!
Writer/director Hunter Adams' independent gothic thriller Dig Two Graves is one of the finest movies that I have seen this year. It has yet to receive wide distribution, but you can learn more about it in my spoiler-free review on the Gruesome Magazine website (http://gruesomemagazine.com/2015/10/09/dig-two-graves-2014-gothic-chiller-serves-up-first-rate-storytelling-and-superb-performances/) and add it to your need-to-see list. While you are at the site, be sure to check out the many other engrossing reviews, news articles, and features on horror cinema.
Ted Levine stars as a small-town sheriff with a mysterious past and a dangerous present in Dig Two Graves.
I'm a bit behind in my posts because I traveled during the Chuseok holidays, which are similar to a Korean version of Thanksgiving. I'll do my best to catch up now because I have a few new items to share with you!
I Survived a Zombie Holocaust
My final podcast report about this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) for Horror News Radio is available at http://www.docrotten.com/2015/09/24/eps-129-cooties-horror-news-radio/. I share my thoughts about two horror comedies, I Survived a Zombie Holocaust (New Zealand) and American Burger (Sweden), and a downbeat horror film from Chile, The Stranger. Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew review the horror comedy Cooties and give you the horror news of the week, with some other nifty items, as well. Enjoy!
This week's episode of the Horror News Radio podcast (www.docrotten.com/2015/09/18/eps-128-the-visit-horror-news-radio) is now available for your listening pleasure! I give my opinions on four films that I caught at this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea: the documentary Why Horror? (Canada), the animated Edgar Allan Poe portmanteau movie Extraordinary Tales (Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, USA), the mind-bending genre mash-up Yakuza Apocalypse (Japan), and the brutal thriller Night Fare (France).
Doc Rotten and the rest of the Grue Crew tackle M. Night Shyamalan's new offering The Visit and discuss the horror news of the week, and guest co-host Christopher G. Moore talks about his experiences at this year's DragonCon. There's plenty of fun and informative listening on tap. Enjoy!
Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com) plans to make "Grue-Believers" out of horror film fans! What makes GM unique is its goal to involve readers in the mix and build a community of people who share their thoughts on the fright flick industry.
Yours truly is pleased to announce that Doc Rotten has invited me to be a writer for the site, along with Doc and his Horror News Radio podcast (docrotten.com) co-hosts, known as the Grue-Crew, and a few other friends of the podcast with whom I am thrilled to work. You can find my inaugural review, for the Chilean horror feature The Stranger, at gruesomemagazine.com/2015/09/15/undying-nihilism-sinks-the-stranger.
I plan to post reviews and articles at least once a week, and you can find scintillating new content on the site pretty much every day. The soft launch is underway now, so I invite you to please get in on the ground floor and watch us grow! We'll be announcing the full launch very soon. Thanks for joining us!
On the current episode of Horror News Radio, I discuss five movies from the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) that didn't move me for one reason or another: Ghoul (Czech Republic), There Are Monsters (Canada), Afterimages (Singapore), Sweet Home (Spain), and House of Shadows (Italy/Ireland). Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew offer their takes on Bloodsucking Bastards and Area 51, dish up the horror news of the week, and offer other fun items, as well. Give this week's HNR a listen at http://www.docrotten.com/2015/09/10/eps-127-bloodsucking-bastards-area-51-horror-news-radio/
One of the less brutal, but quite funny, moments from Deathgasm.
If you enjoy comedy combined with carnage, give a listen to my reviews for the Canadian/New Zealand retro sci-fi flick Turbo Kid and New Zealand heavy metal horror fest Deathgasm in this week's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) report for the Horror News Radio podcast. Headlining this week's HNR episode are Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew's reviews for Final Girl and Cub, along with horror news of the week, another installment of the "Stump the Saint" trivia game, and more!
This week's episode of Horror News Radio has just dropped, and it features my reviews for two of my favorite horror films so far this year, both of which I caught at BiFan: Hellions (above photo), which is Canadian director Bruce McDonald's first horror film since Pontypool, and Local God, Uruguayan director Gustavo Hernandez's follow-up to La Casa Muda (The Silent House). Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew weigh in on Sinister 2, the premiere episode of Fear the Walking Dead, and horror news of the week. It's always a fun listen, so . . . enjoy!
The current episode of the Horror News Radio podcast includes my reviews from BiFan about the wicked Belgian shocker Cub (still photo below) and the creepy Austrian chiller Goodnight, Mommy, along with Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew's reviews of Harbinger Down, horror news of the week, and lots more. Enjoy!
On this week's episode of the Horror News Radio podcast, I look at a couple of entertaining creature features, with a mutating monster on board a fishing vessel in Harbinger Down and skinwalker werewolves in Old West Colorado (made by a UK film cast and crew!) in Blood Moon. Enjoy!
The current issue of Phantom of the Movies' VideoScope magazine --- Summer 2015, volume 24, number 5 --- features my article about this year's Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea. I review the horror films Unfriended, The Nightmare, The Man in the Orange Jacket, and Norway; the Korean psychosexual thriller Trap ; one of my favorite films of the year so far, Guy Maddin's The Forbidden Room; and more genre offerings. Look for it at a shop near you or order it online at http://videoscopemag.com/.
The first of my HNR reports about this year's BiFan festival appears on the show's just-released 122nd episode. You can listen to it, along with Doc Rotten and the Grue Crew's reviews of Dark Was the Night and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, as well as the horror news of the week, at http://www.docrotten.com/2015/08/06/eps-122-dark-was-the-night-mission-impossible-rogue-nation-horror-news-radio/. In this installment, I review the mutant wasp horror comedy Stung and the arty French horror film Horsehead, about a young woman's lucid dreaming during fever states. Enjoy!
Again, I need to wait until Friday night's film award announcements before making my decisions about Sunday's game plan, but in case I have already seen all of the award winners earlier in the week, or in case I'm not interested in the winners that I haven't seen, I have a few options on deck.
I couldn't find a trailer for Japanese suspense thriller Prophecy so I have provided a link with plot information and a poster below. I saw director Nakamura Yoshihiro's impressive The Snow White Murder Case at BiFan last year and expect this to be a solid follow-up.
I semi-promised myself that I would do my best to avoid zombie films this year because there has been such a glut of them during the past several years, but I may make an exception for Israel's JeruZalem, which seems to have more to offer than the average shambling dead tropes.
Egyptian shocker Warda takes a shaky-cam, video-blogging, pseudodocumentary approach to its tale of possession involving a family in the countryside. (Note: it my take longer than usual for the trailer to load at the link below.)
I had mentioned in earlier posts that I plan to watch some films in the press screening room. Most of these will be films that I had to choose between during loaded time slots, but at least one doesn't fit anywhere into my screening schedule, so it is high on my list for a make-up viewing in the press room. New Zealand horror comedies hit it out of the park at last year's BiFan with two of my favorite films of 2014, What We Do in the Shadows and Housebound. This year, besides Turbo Kid (see my Saturday, July 18 schedule post), New Zealanders also offer I Survived a Zombie Holocaust, in which a crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie encounter real members of the living, walking dead on hand.
There are about 200 short-length and full-length films showing at BiFan that I haven't mentioned. If you haven't yet watched We Are Still Here (my favorite fright flick of the year so far) and Spring (my second favorite), both are available on VOD formats and sometimes they show on the big screen like they do here at BiFan, so keep an eye out for those two. If you feel like falling into a rabbit hole of information about new and classic genre films from around the world, have at BiFan's English website, http://www.bifan.kr/eng/.
Three-and-a-half more hours and I'm off to my first BiFan film of 2015! Keep checking back here for updates!
I will see five films today, but I won't know what two of them are until BiFan announces its award winners on Friday night. The festival schedules its award winners for encore screenings on its final Saturday and Sunday. If I have already seen the winners, I will opt for other titles. If I haven't, I'll see what all the hubbub is about. I'll update here when things shake out.
One of the three films that I will definitely see on this day is the Japanese suspense thriller Nowhere Girl, from Ghost in the Shell director Mamuro Oshii. An art school student with a troubled past lets loose with martial arts and machine guns in this trailer, and I'm itching to find out why!
I'm also headed for Sweet Home, a stylish Spanish/Polish horror film that looks to have home invasion and slasher elements. Why the protagonist would want to have a romantic surprise birthday dinner in an abandoned building is beyond me, but hey, it's a fine set-up for a fright flick.
Oh my, I am pumped for Belgian horror movie Cub! I have been waiting for this one since I first heard about it a few months ago. I don't want to know anything more about it going in than this fantastic trailer shows!
I will start the morning with possibly my lightest fare of the festival, the Danish/German family superhero comedy Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury. This sequel to last year's Antboy, which I haven't seen yet, sees the alter ego of the titular character thwarted by the new boy at school, while his heroic half faces a new costumed menace.
For my first afternoon matinee, I'm torn between two films screening at the same time. The first option is Why Horror?, a Canadian documentary that explores the psychology and popularity of horror films in many different countries.
The other option is director Sono (Cold Fish; Suicide Club) Sion's Japanese action horror movie Tag, in which murderous ghosts attack schoolgirls with high-powered weaponry. Sion will make a few guest appearances at the festival to introduce a mini-retrospective of his films.
For the second afternoon feature, I will watch Blood Moon, a UK production set in Colorado of the wild west in the late 1800s that pits gunslingers on both sides of the law against skinwalkers --- shape-shifting monsters spoken of in Native American legends. This looks to be an interesting practical effects creature feature.
My evening offering is Takashi Miike's Japanese action/fantasy/yakuza/vampire mash-up Yakuza Apocalypse. If that sentence doesn't sell you on the movie, I'm not sure what will. Well, perhaps this trailer . . .
After another morning press room screening, it's time for a Taiwanese mash-up of crime thriller and supernatural suspense with The Laundryman, in which a contract killer haunted by the ghosts of his victims seeks the counsel of a psychic.
I absolutely love the haunted house chiller We Are Still Here, one of my favorite spooky films so far this year, which is also screening at BiFan. The trailer for House of Shadows has me hopeful that this Italian/Irish coproduction might be another creepy contender for top fright flick of 2015.
I couldn't find a trailer for the Canadian horror film There Are Monsters, but I did find director Jay Dahl's 2009 short film of the same name.
I will probably start the day with a viewing in the press room (more on those potential choices in a future post), and then settle into some comfy cinema seats for the following three movies.
Bruce (Pontypool) McDonald brings a Halloween-set horror offering to the table, the Canadian feature Hellions, in which a teenager is terrorized by malevolent trick-or-treaters.
Fair warning: I think this trailer contains major spoilers, though I hope I'm wrong. Watch it at your own risk.
Up next is a promising U.S. thriller about a psycho babysitter, Emelie.
Talent from Luxembourg, the United States, Spain, and Belgium all pitched in to create Extraordinary Tales, an animated anthology of Edgar Allan Poe stories. The credit "With the voices of Christopher Lee, Roger Corman, and Bela Lugosi" has me quite intrigued!
I have two films this day, because summer vacation starts and I finish work around noon . . . hooray! So after my 2-hour commute, I will start off with The Santiso Report, an Argentinian suspenser about a reporter searching for his missing daughter. It's difficult to find information about this one, but it seems to be a mystery/sci-fi/thriller hybrid, possibly with supernatural elements.
I'm still undecided for my second Tuesday feature. One option is the Vietnamese ghost movie Hollow, which looks to have more blood than the average specter flick.
My other option is the nutty-looking (in a good way) The Ninja War of Torakage, directed by Nishimura Yoshihiro of Tokyo Gore Police and Helldriver fame.
My summer vacation is almost here, but on this day I still teach a full load of classes, so I will take the subway for almost two hours each way to catch dinner and a movie with my son in Bucheon. Well worth it! On tap tonight is Local God from Uraguay, a horror film in which a three-piece rock band films a music video at an abandoned mine and unwittingly unleash the spirit of a sleeping . . . well, we'll have to wait and see.
I only have 2 films on Sunday because . . . my son arrives in Korea in the evening! After his long flight from the States and a decent night's sleep to help ward off jet lag, we'll start hitting the festival together the next day and working on our second VideoScope magazine article together. I am one excited dad!
Sunday morning starts early with another anthology horror film, this time from Singapore. In Afterimages, five artists burn paper effigy cameras as offerings to the deceased and receive film reels with terrifying contents in return.
French shocker Night Fare promises to show viewers why they should never stiff a taxi driver.
Day 2 kicks into high gear as I have a full plate of 5 films starting at 10:30 a.m.
I'll start the day off with a newly restored version of director Kinji Fukasaku's 1973 yakuza classic, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, which debuted at Cannes this year. This trailer doesn't have English subtitles but it's a fun watch nevertheless.
The crime wave continues with Swedish caper film The Master Plan. BiFan's website description is, "When the uncle of mastermind Charles Ingvar-Johnson gets murdered, [Charles] brings together a league consisting of Sweden's best impostor, an explosives expert, and a burglary specialist to finalize his plan for revenge and perform a complicated heist."
New Zealand/Canada coproduction Turbo Kid looks absolutely nuts! Set in a postapocalyptic 1997, this film looks to combine Mad Max-style visuals with comic book elements and more than a little humor. I have high hopes for this one!
There's an embarrassment of riches for my fourth Saturday slot; I'm still working on putting some puzzle pieces in place so that I can eventually see all of the following three films during my BiFan visit. The contenders follow.
Tales from the Dark #1 is a Hong Kong portmanteau horror film directed by Simon Yam --- who will make special guest appearance at the festival --- Lee Chi-ngai, and Fruit Chan. The emphasis here is on ghosts, and all three tales are based on short stories written by Lilian Lee.
The UK psychological mystery drama The Falling concerns an epidemic of fainting spells at a girls' school in 1969.
French horror offering Horsehead looks to be chock full of surreal imagery as a young girl experiments with lucid dreaming in the bedroom next to her dying grandmother.
Saturday finishes with one of my most anticipated films, American creature feature Harbinger Down, starring Lance Henriksen. According to the filmmakers, this fan-funded production pays homage to Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing using only practical effects for the creatures. I had a blast watching Blood Glacier at BiFan last year, and as a lifelong monster kid, I can't wait to see this one on the big screen.
Each year since I moved from Oregon to South Korea in 2008, I have attended the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan; http://www.bifan.kr/eng/index.asp), which asserts itself to be Asia's largest showcase of genre films. With more than 200 feature-length and short films on offer each July, the fest certainly makes a good case for its claim. Movies range from cutting-edge titles making their world premiere to beloved classics from around the world. There's something for almost everyone as the festival focuses on horror, science fiction, fantasy, dark comedy, thrillers, crime, action and martial arts, and other genres. This year will be my eighth visit to BiFan but, most importantly, it is my fourth visit to BiFan with my son Cohen and our second time to write an article together about the festival for The Phantom of the Movies' VideoScope magazine (http://videoscopemag.com/), with our debut as a father-and-son writing team appearing in the publication's Fall 2013 (#88) edition. The festival opens this coming Thursday, July 16, and I will attend every day beginning the following evening. Besides this being my fourth year of BiFan coverage for VideoScope, it will also be my second year of providing audio reports as the foreign correspondent for the excellent Horror News Radio (HNR) podcast (http://www.docrotten.com/) and as a writer for Horrornews.net (HNN). I will post trailers here for the films I plan to see. Expect to see many trailers, because I hope to check out at least 25 films at BiFan! I will also post links to HNR and HNN when podcasts with my reviews and my online reviews are published, respectively. This is my favorite cinematic time of the year, so I thought now would be the perfect time to kick off my blog. After all of the festival coverage, I will publish links to previous podcast appearances and articles, as well as reviews of films that are exclusive to this blog, trailers and news, and other fun tidbits. Please join me!
BiFan: Friday, July 17
My first film for this year's festival will be the Hong Kong crime thriller Port of Call, written and directed by Philip Yung and starring Aaron Kwok.
Note: the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) was formerly named the Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan). The festival changed the spelling this year to reflect the revised English spelling of the city's name.
