PTSD war veteran Nick returns home and meets the love of his life, an eccentric young woman named Kayla. When Nick thinks things are going good, he discovers Kayla in the bathtub with slit wrists and no pulse. Nick’s world is turned upside and the pain of a life without Kayla is too severe and when Nick tries to kill himself by electrocution, he travels to a moment in his and Kayla’s life where words and meaning become clearer. Nick’s friends bring him back to life just in time and Nick realizes that her suicide might actually not be a suicide at all, but a murder. Now Nick must kill himself over and over and be brought back over and over to uncover the truth about Kayla’s fate.
“Memory Lane” has a premise that sounds like an ambitious and captivating suspenseful thriller; a synopsis that urges you to watch and a synopsis that is compared to the likes of “Memento” and “Primer.” In reality, “Memory Lane” is more like “Flatliners,” as also compared, but the execution, pun intended, by first time director Shawn Holmes doesn’t quite come out right. Forsaken by too many plot holes, convoluted editing, and a series of heart stopping methods that seem kind of hokey put a damper on the film’s integrity. Kayla’s death, explained at the end of act three, fairs to be the best portion in the film because the foreshadowing of events leading up to her death are so minor and well-kept from public perspective resulting in a not expecting moment.
I’m not too sold on all the actors either except for Meg Braden as Kayla. Her wild eyes, unique chin, and hot bod make her striking physically, but Braden plays a consistent internally struggled and troubled young woman very well. Michael Guy Allen as the PTSD-plagued Nick character could have perfected his struggles with his war time past; Nick, seamlessly and without hardship, eases his way back into the normal life and without any effort scores big with a hottie like Kayla. Seems too perfect without any real challenge or conquering on Nick’s part.
The Wild Eye Releasing DVD has some audio inconsistencies. The dialogue drowns out at times and background noise overtakes a few of the beginning scenes. The video also noises at random scenes as well. “Memory Lane” is a $300 low key Sci-Fi thriller that surely shows being low key in result. I’m a huge fan of Wild Eye Releasing, but “Memory Lane” just doesn’t seem to fit the bill for the company.
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Evil Review. DreadOut: an Indonesian Horror
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!
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!
Pornstar Priya Rai Couldn’t Erect this Evil! “Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” review!
King Osiris and his black magic queen Isis rule ancient Egypt and were beloved by all. All except Osiris’s brother Set whose envy led to the murderous slain of Osiris. Isis, heartbroken and vengeful, tries to use her black magic to rise Osiris from the grave and seek revenge on all who wished their demise. In the middle of Isis’s ritual, Set interrupts and decides to dismember his brother’s body in order for the ritual not come to fruition and snaps Isis’s neck to ensure his will, but Isis’s vow to return and curse anyone who stands in her way. Present day, a college research group along side an Egyptian historian stay overnight at a closed history museum to study closely lost Egyptian artifacts. Isis’s spirit is accidentally released from her sarcophagus and seeks to finish what she began by taking the body parts from the research students in order to reconstruct the body her love Osiris and put the world into an eternal damnation.
“Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” resembles the much loved late night Cinemax skin flicks without any of the nudity or the sex. All the elements are there: busty women, bad acting, and the underlined plot that is overshadowed by the soft core love scenes. From the DVD cover and the two well established porno industry actors in this film, one would, without a doubt, conclude that “Isis Rising” would fall right into the middle of that sleazy category. What the Lisa Palenica directed film is is a C-movie production that attempts to take itself seriously in the horror genre with completed results that are whole-heartedly felt in micro-budget, non-horrific, and non-stimulating, efforts.
Priya Rai is a big busted porn star of Indian background and she headlines the film as the vengeful Isis and while Priya isn’t riding the big Egyptian camel hump, her role is severely limited in dialogue and in on screen appearances. Isis’s powers include turning into a digestible body inhabiting mist, fireball conjuring, and teleportation, but Isis’s real threats are her massive chest bombs – bigger and pointier than the great Egyptian pyramids themselves. To be technical about the film’s title, Isis isn’t even a mummy. Yet the film’s subtitle is “Curse of the Lady Mummy.” The definition of mummy is the preservation of the body by removing internal organs and treat the body with resins and wraps. Isis is more like a spiritual demon and this oil should ought to be bettered labeled and regarded as “Curse of the Lady Egyptian” rather than “Curse of the Lady Mummy.” That is, if you wanted to be technical.
James Bartholet, mainly a supporting actor in all those XXX parody movies, makes his presence felt as the bumbling and perverted security guard Harry. The rest of the cast is rounded out with relatively unknowns with minor film credits to their names. Director Lisa Palenica also had a role in the film as Felicia, the goth girl who probably received one of the better death scenes in the movie. The characters are a rather stereotypical horror ensemble. There is the jock, the nerd, the hot chick, her goth-hipster friend, the nerdy asian girl, and pot head who ends up smoking the resurrection essence that awakens Isis from her slumber dooming all to savagry, as well as seductively, of detaching limbs and heads from the characters’ bodies. The only character that has girth and background value is Isis with her tragic backstory filled with treachery and black magic. Killing off characters is a lot more understandable when there is a motive.
The special effects are truly shameful, especially in a time where CGI has been perfected to the point where anybody with a Mac computer can create stunning effects. “Isis Risings” doesn’t even seem to try by implementing seriously awkward post-CGI effects, Halloween prop store plastic severed limbs, and even going as far as adding in fake exhaled smoke from our essence-high smokers. Some of the Egyptian scenes in the beginning reminded me of how Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 looked on a Sega Genesis console with the still background and the engaged, superimposed fighters. Some of the more practical effects where encouraging, but only a few scenes had those types of effects.
“Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” resurrects another disappointment in the ever-failing Egyptian related horror genre. When will Brendan Frasier’s “The Mummy” ever be dethroned? Perhaps Alexandre Aja’s “The Pyramid” will be the next ruler of such said genre. Tom Cat Films, a production company much like Asylum Entertainment, develops the film into reality but “Isis” fails to wrap itself into a neat little mummified package of terror. I would rather have seen more of Priya Rai conducting ominously seductive measures in her quest of blood and resurrection and a little more effort in the effects, because if you’re going to have a porn star headline your film, you might as well go all Sasha Grey-out and make the experience worth wild. But don’t take my word for it and judge for yourself by heading over to MVDVisual and purchasing “Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy.”
Ancient Evil: “The Other” review!
Niles and Holland Perry are close twin siblings who live on a countryside farm in the early 20th century. Their family has been plagued by past personal tragedy that has mentally paralyzed their mother. When everything starts to feel normal again, death returns to the farmhouse and nobody suspects that the two boys, the twins, because who would imagine that one boy would be good and the other would be pure evil?
“The Other” a 1972 gothic gem from the “To Kill A Mockingbird” director Robert Mulligan brought back to DVD in the UK by Eureka Entertainment. The ageless story of uncomfortable fear toward the yin and yang characters with a good twist that doesn’t happen at the end of the movie but rather lands right in the middle of the climax. The finale saves the best, or the most tragic, for last with a moment that will shock even those born in the 21st century. Even when you know, from your extensive movie knowledge, what to expect you can’t believe the stunning outcome written by Tom Tryon who also penned the novel with the same title.
The twins are played by real life twins Chris and Martin Udvarnoky and this throws us for a loop because you rarely see the twins sharing the same scene. Right there, you know something is up. The Perry boys are characters that are active, like any other nine or ten year old boys, and seemingly innocent enough boys with the usual boys will be boys touch. Their knack for fishing, hide-n-go seek, and swimming try to pull our attention away from one of the boy’s true mischievous nature.
Along side Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, German stage actress Uta Hagen plays the boys’ Russian grandmother who becomes the matriarch when their mother becomes almost catatonic. Another supporting cast member is a young John Ritter in one of his first films and a striking Diana Muldaur who looks almost unrecognizable from her role as Doctor Pulaski from the sci-fi TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Eureka Entertainment’s dual format (DVD & Blu-ray) of “The Other” has beautiful 1080p even off a cheap DVD player as long as you have a decent high definition TV (my personal TV is a Vizio LED M series). The extras only include the theatrical trailer, but I believe the film will speak for itself and you can judge for yourself on the film’s February 23rd release date in the UK.
It's Bloggin Evil! 