THE VOICES ** USA 2020 Dir: Nathaniel Nuon. 108 mins It’s tough watching a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It can also be hard to watch a film that seems to have elements attached to it to give it meaning. Working the rich vein of birth horror and the terror of everyday events you have the non-horror, monstrously long film THE VOICES (2020). Nathaniel Nuon’s feature debut works well technically, it is, after all, wonderfully photographed. Unfortunately, it dissolves into clichéd characters, muddled multi-timelines and poor one note acting. The story concerns Lilly (Valerie Jane Parker),…
Author: Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood Born in Ottawa Ontario, Canada; Terry is a "Monster kid ', film fan and popular culture person. Once worked in television as a commercial writer/ Director. Writer of the SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET site covering aspects of the Horror Genre from Books, Comics, to Film old and new. He has previously written for WE BELONG DEAD and MONSTERMANIA magazines, The Spooky Isle UK website, Horror hound and Turner Classic Movies. Published Book of own writings titled SCREEN AND SCREEN AGAIN: ESSAYS ON THE HORROR FILM on amazon world wide plus contributed to other genre books. Chaired numerous convention panel discussions on Horror and Comics Terry is member of The Horror Writers Association and Dracula Society in U.K.
REPTILICUS ** Denmark 1961 Dir: Sidney W. Pink (English version). 81 mins Monsters – even giant ones – can be comforting friends to watch on Saturday matinees. Stuff yourself with ridiculously over salted popcorn and a soft drink, stare wide eyed as some beast smashes a city to ruin. You watch the adults run, you see the military fire weapons with no effect. Then some lantern jawed male hero, coupled with a lovely but taciturn female scientist, reporter or simply local gal, saves the day with an obscure fact or idea. The solution is fired into, sprayed onto, lured to,…
OCCUPATION: RAINFALL * Australia 2020 Dir: Luke Sparke. 128 mins The battle for Earth and the anticipated enslavement of humans. Why in our species like privileged existence should we care? OCCUPATION: RAINFALL (2020) reeks of MAD MAX, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, PREDATOR, GI JOE and practically any militaristic science fiction film around. Weapons blast, vehicles drive fast, explosive CGI flybys and dog fights in the air; all interspersed with clichéd, ridiculous character moments that endeavor to humanize the cardboard walking round as people. OCCUPATION: RAINFALL (2020) is visually unpleasant viewing from start to finish, with the same dark sets, battle-weary people, who…
CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER *** USA 2019 Dir: Mickey Reece. 82 mins The Vampire in film has changed from the Gothic into the killing machine, partying teenager, and now, mysterious adults bent on befuddling their friends. Returning to destroy the one that loves you is a recurrent theme in all vampire literature and film. Mickey Reece’s CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER (2019) takes that motif a step further with his splendid, talky homage to the Undead “Big Chill.” Two sisters, Alma (Ginger Gilmartin) and Elizabeth (Mary Buss), along with their dog that they call a “philosopher,’ have come to a remote…
BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD ** USA 2021 Dir: Andre Alfa. 80 mins Southern Noir has been a genre unto itself; along, perhaps, with Southern Horror. Those goings on in the swamps, plantations, roads, hidden cabins and police jails transplant urban fears to a section of the country. BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD (2021) is an odd film for me since it mixes social messages with standard rising dead killings. The story is not the creatures but the people that are caught in the events. The film chooses to make them clichés of Southern people with little in the way of interesting virtues. BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD (2021)…