Restoring Creepy Evil to the Indie Movement! “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on April 27, 2015

Meg and Alec Hamilton and their two young children trek out to the English countryside of Yorkshire to inhabit an old mansion to restore to originality for an oversea’s buyer. Unbeknownst to the family, the previous owner has a deadly reputation that involves the occult and the murder of his wife. When Meg stumbles upon a secret room, strange events emerge that strike to tear the family apart and intend to start things over again…from the beginning.

“The Haunting of Radcliffe House,” also known as “Altar,” is nothing new, but the story compels an audience and will tack on decent chills and thrills that will sure to entertainment. However, the Nick Willing TV-directed movie screams to be heavily borrowed from more essential works such as The Shining and The Amityville Horror where the father becomes almost possessed and blood thirsty. Memphis Belle actor Matthew Modine tackles the said father who draws motivation from blank stares that turn full blown possessed. Modine has always impressed on to me as being the relaxed actor to character, but there lies some aggression that was being held back in his previous works and was a sure sign of relief to see something new from Modine.

The Sixth Sense actress Olivia Williams is the counterpart to Modine’s character. Her Meg Hamilton is a tough, independent woman whose hellbent on restoring this house no matter the oddities that pop up around her. Williams fits the role well being the calm head before the storm and with Alec, Modine’s character, almost completely out the picture from being overcome by the house’s allure, the film surrounds around mainly Meg Hamilton and becomes the Meg show.

Even though London born writer-director Nick Willing has a resume mostly compiled of made for TV credits, I’ve seen impressive gloomy and brooding shots from the director that most horror entrenched directors can’t accomplish. Some of the camera worked used and the edited instrumented create effective scares even if the scares kind of come off confusing within the story. The special effects by Ben Ashmore and his team can be put up against the best TV movies.

I mentioned before that some of story doesn’t jive with the plot. There are instances where random ghosts emerge who are not prevalent to the house’s backstory, but these scenes were creepy enough to keep one glued to the screen. The whole meat of the story surrounds a room that has a explanation to it’s use but the device, a large spike suspended above a person as some sort of occult relic, is hung, suspended above a person but we’re no privy to the purpose behind this object. The object drips, what I suspect, is blood and acts as a sort of seeping device, seeping one soul into another through the droplets of blood. Blood becomes a motif especially with Alec and his blood becomes a part of the house and in turn starts to overtake his soul but this is just speculation.

The “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” might not have a hip title, but rather has a overused title, and might not be a new flavor of horror ready to set the world on fire, but the potential for a good scare is shared. There is an appreciation for the minimalistic CGI special effects used and an another appreciation for the beautifully shot moments that stand out amongst the gapped plot. Nick Willing’s film might not be the most flawless piece of work, yet we’re seeing a glimpse from a director who doesn’t have much experience in the horror genre and he brings his melodrama, and a little bit of comedy with the unconventional “ghost whisperer,” take on his a solid ghost story.

Evil Has Fallen Far From the Father Tree. “Auteur” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on April 20, 2015

A failed filmmaker sets forth to claim is stake in fame by creating a documentary about a legendary horror director who disappeared during his latest highly anticipated masterpiece “Demonic.” The filmmaker is hellbent on finding the director and discovering the truth on why the director had a melt down during filming and stole all the film’s footage. After sitting down with various interviewees and finding the long lost director, this film has become notorious for it’s dark background of death that surrounded some of the cast and crew and their families. The notion seems to becomes evident that “Demonic” should have never been made and that some films should never be released or else more peoples’ lives would be in grave danger.

I surely wanted to believe that Cameron Romero had the same masterful skill set as his father George or also I wouldn’t have mind if Cameron went into a total opposite direction of his zombie king father and create a whole new and eloquent horror genre that puts his name on the map. “Auteur” is my first look into Cameron Romero’s work and my hopes hit the highest of ceilings and anxiousness and eagerness helped drive me to pop this disc into the player as soon as able to without interruption. Unfortunately, I found myself glancing through friends’ comment walls on Facebook and watching various PornTube videos because I was so disappointingly bored with the result of “Autuer.”

My heart knew something was amiss when Tom Sizemore headlines a movie and sure enough my heart was right and I should have been more perceptive to it’s warnings. Now, I have a soft side for Sizemore; I enjoy the man’s earlier work in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Relic, and in Saving Private Ryan – all very great material – but Sizemore has lost his knack as of late. Also, Sizemore doesn’t really have anything to do with headlining “Auteur.” His runtime is no more than maybe 15 minutes tops and I swear he’s reading off cue cards in the restaurant scenes with actor/producer BJ Hendricks playing the documentarian who’s trying to make a documentary about “Demonic” in which Tom Sizemore stars in – got that? Sizemore is just a recognizable name to try and sell home entertainment units.

What really hurts “Auteur” is that it’s too much of a talking head movie. Basically, BJ Hendricks drives around searching for Ian Hutton’s character, the great director Charlie Buckwald, and does a number of interviews with cast and crew members along with other interviews with people who met Charlie outside the studio. Not until in the middle of Act three does the film get somewhat appealing with the levitation scene of Madeline Merritt’s character Kate Rivers. There some scare appeal there that would have been nice if implemented perhaps through the rest of the movie.

What also could be construed about “Auteur” that would compare to most of his father work is that Cameron attempts to convey some social commentary about Hollywood and their stressed out, coming to a breaking point actors and directors losing their cool and jumping off the deep end into a psychotic break abyss and that there are directors and producers out in Hollywood that would jump the wagon to try and make a easy dollar by exploiting their downfall. Cameron, hypothetically, turns the table on the exploiter making this ambulance chaser pay with the story being more sinisterly deadly. In that regard and if that has any truth what Cameron was trying to accomplish, then I applaud him on successfully mocking Tinseltown.

No one should certainly take my word on whether one should watch Cameron Romero’s “Auteur” or not, that’s up to them. I only give my humble critique and my overall impression with the film had cold heartedly, but quietly, crushed my hopes in being something I would enjoy from the next generation of Romeros. But hey, Cameron’s father had to start somewhere and build upon that and that is what I suspect Cameron will do as well. It’s great to see that Cameron did give a little nod to his father in the DVD store scene – twice. You can buy “Auteur” from MVDVisual on DVD Home Entertainment on April 21st.

Nudity Report

No nudity 😦

All Evil Needs is Love! “A Cry from Within” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 14, 2015

Jonathan and Cecile live in the New York City hustle and bustle lifestyle with their two children and when they suffer a devastating miscarriage, they decide to move to the slower life of a Long Island rental that was owned by a woman and her catatonic mother. As soon as the family starts to settle in, the daughter Ariel starts to converse with whom she calls Sebastian – a manifestation of a young boy who roams the house. When things start to get worse, Jonathan and Cecile desperately try to unravel the secrets of the house in order to save their family from the supernatural occupant.

So bad it’s good. That’s how I describe my viewing of Deborah Twiss’s “A Cry from Within.” The script penned by Deborah Twiss is solid but the poor execution digs a deep hole of which the film can’t climb out of to save it’s own legacy. Plagued by numerous wacky edits and acting straight out of a Uwe Boll production, “A Cry from Within” needed a slowed pace of production perfection and need to have veteran actor to stop saying “baby” to his wife every other sentence. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Eric Roberts. Best of the Best is still one my favorite martial art films of the late 80’s. As of late, Roberts has been in nearly every damn low budget movie and especially in horror with “A Cry from Within” being just the tip of the iceberg, but his husband role feels more distant and disconnected than the husband should be considering he’s suppose to be the support system to his wife and children.

Speaking of wife, writer-“supervising” director Deborah Twiss plays the wife Cecile. Her melodramatic take on a woman who just had a miscarriage and is living with a malevolent doesn’t speak to the dire situation. You might remember Twiss from her hot for teacher role in Kick-Ass or more notoriously notably her raunchy blowjob scene in the black comedy, not that space film, television series Gravity. Roberts and Twiss don’t ever seem to connect and they’re equally child-like in their reactions to the situations in, what I thought wasn’t possible, separate mannerism. Twiss also casts her very own children, Matthew and Sydney McCann, as her on screen children who are spellbound victims and tormented by this house-spirit.

I also expected a little more from “Cop Land” actress Cathy Moriarty though her role as Alice is more down to earth as a annoyed daughter with a devastating secret. Moriarty has a sinister outlook throughout most of the duration, but her character’s intentions are murky at best. We don’t know if she’s suppose to be a good person or a bad person. The cast rounds out with “Max Payne” voice actor James McCaffrey as Father Thomas who unknowingly shares a secret with Alice. McCaffrey is solid up until the end where, basically, ever character becomes a sobbing mess of hopelessness. Robert Vaughn even makes an appearance very briefly as a doctor and I was sold on the “Battle Beyond the Stars” actor as a silver-foxed medical professional and that was only for a minute worth of screen time.

“A Cry from Within” suffers severely from choppy editing that causes aggravating transitions from scene to scene and this aids in not setting up the film properly for success. I’m still trying to figure out why Deborah Twiss had to be the supervising director over director Zach Miller, maybe because she was one of the stars she had to the right to tell Miller when to cut and when to go into action. Miller seems to be a lame duck in case the film goes south. The Breaking Glass Pictures DVD release, slated for St. Patrick’s Day March 17th, is so bad its good and I’d suggest taking a look because I’m sure you can’t look away.

Nudity Report

Deborah Twiss – Breasts – Twiss briefly shows off her massive chest while in bed with Eric Roberts who aggressively goes straight for the right nipple. I do feel that through the film Twiss wanted you to notice her best assets by wearing low cut shirts that show her deep-as-the-Mariana Trench cleavage. Also, the temperature must have been constantly cold on set resulting in many scenes of stiff nipple outlines. Her one topless scene in “A Cry from Within” is by no means as good as her full nude scene in the television series “Gravity” but Twiss emits a hot mother aura and that’s the possible reason why one can’t turn away from the screen.

Evil Review. DreadOut: an Indonesian Horror

Posted by EvilGamer on March 6, 2015

Oh how I miss the good old days of horror games on the Playstation 1 and 2. Sure we may see the genre coming back this generation but it just doesn’t feel the same. All the classic horror games we have played are either dying, abandon, or just kept from us like how Nintendo is handling the Fatal Frame series. We shall not give up hope though, as there is a game currently out now on steam that is oozing with nostalgic horror goodness!

DreadOut is an Indonesian survival horror game that was developed and published by Digital Happiness. The game is heavily inspired by the Fatal Frame games and is centered around a group of students who are trapped in a cursed and haunted town. DreadOut focuses on real life Indonesian folk lore and ghost stories, much like how Slender: The arrival is based on western folk lore character ”Slender man”.

I was not kidding about how this game oozes nostalgia. The atmosphere of DreadOut feels just like a Fatal Frame game, with it’s dark atmosphere and slow paced gameplay. When it comes to graphics, DreadOut is visually lacking. It’s graphic are very low res and look like what you might see on a playstation 2 or PSP game. Still the graphics have a charm and add to the creepy feel of the game and I love it! The design of the ghosts is what makes this game terrifying, nothing like walking down a pitch black corridor with nothing but your phone’s light on and then suddenly having a ghost based on a real life folk tale scare you! This just makes the game too bad ass.

The gameplay is very simple. It plays pretty much like a Fatal Frame game, it is in a third person perspective and you must use your smart phone to battle ghosts and find hints to solve puzzles. The game does promote exploration since there are collectibles for the player to find in order to unlock achievements. The player can also collect power items that will aid them in boss battles. The game has two endings; both good and bad. So make sure you try to get the true ending on your first play through so things can make a bit of sense.

Difficulty wise this game can be hard for new players. I admit that I died alot during the first boss battle, but this is a good thing since it forces the player to find out what the bosses weakness is and use it against them. Once you know how to defeat the enemies the game is quite easy to play. Unlike classic horror games, this game is not very long and that was kind of a bummer for me. The game is about 4 hours long, even shorter if you rush through it. For me I wished it was longer since I was starting to get so immersed into the story and wanted more.

For music in the game, it was amazing. The soundtrack fits perfectly and sounds so awesome during boss battles. My personal favorite track has to be the cover of Gloomy Sunday by Sarasvat; Which serves as the game’s main theme.

All I can say about DreadOut is that the game is amazing and I hope to god we get a sequel. There is so much unanswered questions to the story and so much content here to make a franchise off of. My personal rating for DreadOut is a 8/10. My only complaint is that the game was way too short but with the story, music, and some pretty cool innovative parts in the game that I wish we saw in other horror games made up for the game’s length.

So if you loved the old Fatal Frames, Silent Hills or even Resident Evil games. Then please go play DreadOut you won’t be disappointed.

DreadOut is available on Steam and Playstation 4 for $14.99

Second Lesson of Evil by Knowing Your ABCs! “The ABCs of Death 2” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 18, 2015

Ready for the second round of ABCs of death? Twenty-six new directors sign, seal, and deliver twenty-six new stories about death and breathe a whole new life into this highly anticipated sequel to the highly popular 2012 anthology. The ABCs of Death 2 attempts to be callous, sick, and offers up more blood and gore than it’s predecessor while the ABCs are very elementary, its the death part that makes then alphabet more complicated.

When one glances the cover and see thats familiar figure of the death eating Grim Reaper holding a story book, one who knew nothing about the anthology would consider The ABCs of the Death to be strictly a horror genre, short story telling series in the same ballpark as “Creepshow,” which ironically enough has a similar, yet cartoony, ghastly Grim Reaper on it’s sophomore sequel DVD cover. That assumption is significantly mistaken. The Grim Reaper is all about the death in every sense of the way and “The ABCs of Death” productions resemble more of the controversial and ultra-violent “Faces of Death” series. If you scour the internet, or just have the entire collection, many of the VHS and DVD editions have a similar Grim Reaper, but again more cartoonish. The content though is all about death gathering home recordings of unspeakable acts of death from suicide, murders, and to accidentals just to name a few.

Yes, there are fantastic horror elements to “The ABCs of the Death” as well making this hybrid of an anthology that more entertaining, but the sequel relies a lot on the human element. The nature of man is cruel and vicious and most of the 26 films are based on this true to form fact. For example, “C is for Capital Punishment” by director Julian Barratt tells the story of a lynch mob trying to justify the disappearance of a village girl, Aharon Keshales “F is for Falling” involves the tautness of a rifle-toting Palestinian boy who discovers a Israeli fighter dangling from her parachute chords stuck in a tree, or Vincenzio Natali’s “U is for Utopia” in where a society made up of thin, good looking people living their lives while the ugly people are hunted down and burned alive.

What I also like about “The ABCs of Death” is the various culturally inspired films. There are directors from all over the glob spanning from Japan, England, France, Argentina and Nigeria just to name a few and all of who incorporate their own culture and style in the mixture. Some introduced comedy while others took a stylish-serious route and others just wanted to scare the pants off you. The couple animated shorts weren’t as rememberable as in the first anthology, but certain “D is for Deloused” by Robert Morgan will at least make you have underlining nightmares.

Some of the more memorable shorts stood out over all the rest. One in particular was Steven Kostanski’s “W is for Wish” which took a late 80’s to early 90’s take on a fantasy toy commercial where two children wished to be a part of and then actually went into the world where it was like nothing they expected. In fact, carnage and chaos (and awkwardly weird and fantastic) was the maelstrom these kids were thrusted into making their fantasy a real and deadly nightmare.

Magnolia Home Entertainment scores big with the sequel to “The ABCs of Death” and I’m sure the company won’t stop at just two. Expect more great films from lesser known directors and more blood and guts than ever. In the meantime, pick up your copy of “The ABCs of Death 2” on DVD or Blu-ray because you never know when you might keel over and die!