Operazione paura: halloween special.

 Yup it's that time of the year when I share those pesky (patented) Arena of The Unwell Halloween party mixes.....enjoy!

meet is murder.

Saw and reviewed this not long after its original release 5 years back and am pretty shocked that no-one else seems to have ever seen it because it's quite brilliant.

No idea what it's doing here then.

Meet Me There (2014).
Dir: Lex Lybrand.
Cast: Lisa Friedrich, Micheal Foulk, Jill Thompson and Dustin Runnels.

When Ada's (Friedrich, looking for all the world like a perfect splicing between Gaylen Ross and Sarah Polley which, trust me, is a good thing) deep seated sexual anxieties begin to impact on her relationship with her loving boyfriend, Calvin (Foulk, sans Hobbes), the cutesy couple decide to attend counseling sessions where it becomes worryingly clear that Ada has almost totally forgotten anything related to her childhood.

Concerned that she may have suffered some kind of filthy fiddling as a child her counselor suggests that the best way of overcoming the intimacy- based issues is trying to re-connect with her past.


Which is much better than the "kill the whores to save yourself" advice that my counselor gave me.

And much less messy.

Being a thoroughly nice bloke, Calvin offers to take Ada on a cross state road trip to her home town of Sheol (think the West Midlands with a shallower gene pool and cheaper trousers) in the hope that it may trigger some memory that will help Ada overcome her fears and enable Calvin to finally come over her.

Sorry that was uncalled for.

Anyway after a creepy run in with a boss-eyed petrol station attendant things go from bad to Lynch upon arrival in the town, firstly Calvin is threatened with a shooting for attempting to buy bottled water and when they finally get to the location of Ada's childhood home all that they find is a tree.

True enough, it's a very nice tree but not the place you can imagine anyone raising a family.

Unless they were Ewoks obviously.

"You did WHAT in your cup?"

Making the best of a bad situation they decide to visit Ada's slightly sinister Aunt Lindsay (a fantastic turn from comics scribe Thompson) in the hope of spending the night - reckoning it'd be safer than spending it in the car - but fail to reckon with her overwhelming love of God and her overblown loathing of tattoos.

This obviously leads to an oh so slightly uncomfortable evening made worse after bedtime when the couple are kept awake by Lindsay and her hubbie shouting abuse at each other.

A wee bit like when I go home to visit.*

Waking bright and early the next morn the couple decide to take advantage of the sunshine and take a leisurely walk around the town, partly to see if they can actually find Ada's old home but mainly to see if there are any normal people around.

Or at least ones that aren't related to each other.

Or have the right number of toes.

Yup, it's definitely like my home town.

It's not too long (it's a short movie) before they come across (not in that way but judging by Calvin's frustrated demeanour it wont be long before he can help himself) the local church and it's even more local Preacher, Edward Woodward (A genuinely unsettling performance from ex-wrestler Runnels) who, after inviting them inside for a chat and a chocolate Hob Nob calmly suggests that they should both kill themselves.

Which is a wee bit unexpected.

Mulder and Scully....the hairy years.

Between this, the trigger-happy locals and Aunt Lindsay's warts The pair decide that it'd probably be for the best if they just grab their stuff and head home now (which seeing as they're from Texas gives you some idea of how fucked up the place is) unbeknown to them tho' Ada's mad uncle has torched their car leaving them no choice but to attempt to fight their way back  home.

It seems that the locals take the story that people only visit Sheol when they're ready to die very seriously indeed.

Similar in style to Jay Dahl's fantastic There Are Monsters, director Lex Lybrand alongside writers Brandon Stroud and Destiny D Talley - on who’s personal experiences the film is based, spookily and allegedly) is that rare beast that takes a much used horror cliché - this time the stranger-baiting small town - yet delivers something unique and unexpected despite - or because of - this oft-used formula.

In a rare and somewhat bold move, the majority of the films running time is taken up with exploring the characters of Ada and Calvin and their relationship with each other  before suddenly dropping us - and them - into the terrifyingly real threat that the townsfolk pose.
And what of our lovelorn leads?

Well Lybrand seems less concerned with the acting skills of Friedrich and Foulk and more about keeping their reactions real and it's credit to the pair that the approach works so well.

The entire film hinges on the believability of their relationship and both pull this off with aplomb.

I've not been this worried about a characters fate since Andrew Sensenig's sensitive performance as a grieving dad in the sublime We Are Still Here and thinking about it you can see this movie as a kinda punky, art school little brother to that.

Intense, unsettling and strangely compelling, Meet Me There is everything you could want from a low budget movie and shows that you don't need to splash out the cash to dole out the scares.

A little gem.

Shit, I better find something awful to watch soon before folk start to think I've gone soft in my old age.....










































*Or at least it used to be seeing as last time I went down to visit it turned out that my folks had sold the house and not told me....had to spend 3 days sleeping in the new owners shed.

caribbean queen.

The best thing about the whole 31 days of horror thing is to be able to go back and re-review (slightly) stuff that's been sitting about unloved here for years.

A wee bit like your mum.

Plus let's be honest it wouldn't be the same without a Sirpa Lane movie.

Enjoy.

Papaya Of The Caribbean (AKA Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals, Die of Pleasure, Fruta sexual del Caribe, 1978).
Director: Lord Joe of D'Amato.
Starring: Sirpa Lane, Melissa Chimenti, Maurice Poli and some other people.

Papaya: My name is Papaya.
Sara: Papaya? What a funny name!
Papaya: And what's your name?
Sara: Me? Sara!
Papaya: Oh! What a funny name!

Our tale opens on the sun kissed beach in a scenic resort island somewhere hot, exotic and most importantly dirt cheap to film, where the dusky and mysterious beauty known only as Papaya (Chimenti from Revelations of a Psychiatrist on the World of Sexual Perversion - obviously Laura Gemser was busy, or in rehab) is hard at work rubbing out of date fruit over a sweaty mans chest whilst giving him the 'oral pleasure'.

And if you're not sure what I mean, just ask your sister.

This may seem a great way to spend your vacation you may be thinking to yourself and I'd have to agree, until when, at the moment of Climax, pervy Papaya bites off his penis, gobbling away like a really hungry hippo as he writhes about screaming like your nan when she got he breast caught in the blender.

"It's CCCHHHHRRRRIIISSSTTTMMMAAASSSS!"

But that's not all that's amiss in paradise.

Plans are afoot to build a brand spanking (as opposed to arse spanking  tho' with Joe D'Amato's involvement I wouldn't be so sure) new atomic power plant on the island, whether the natives agree or not.

It's no wonder tho' that with all this cock biting going on that work on the project is behind schedule meaning that the ruggedly sexy (and scarily hairy) company engineer Vincent (Rabid Dogs' Poli channeling Crossroads very own David Hunter himself the late great Ronald Allen) is sent to investigate.

Arriving on the island our pensionable aged professional soon comes across (in more ways than one) ace investigative journalist and 'old friend' Sara (Lane, harsh faced star of Walerian Borowczyk's furry suited shagfest La Bette and the scifi classic The Beast In Space) and is soon indulging in some atomic reactions of his own.

By that I mean he has sex with her.

Twice.

Honestly the sheer animalistic intensity of the intercourse being indulged in here would be enough to supply the entire island with energy without the power station and the only thing that cools down their ardour is the discovery of a mutilated corpse of one of the plant workers in their hotel room.

And to be honest I'm surprised they don't just roll on top of him and use his putrefying juices as lube.

It's not just the bath water that's dirty. Or smelling of shit.

Anyway, after a wee bit more shagging followed by a bit of flirty bantz the pair discover that yet another worker has been found dead - and cockless - giving Vincent the idea that these deaths may be related.

Hmmm...you think so?

Deciding to take Sara on a trip to the power plant (as opposed to say, up the arse) to hunt for clues the pair rent a jeep  - as opposed to a whore - and begin their journey only to be accosted on the way by the aforementioned Papaya, who is hitch-hiking into town to buy lemons.

Much chat and even more flirty banter ensues as Papaya persuades the pair that rather than investigate the murders their time would be better spent indulging in some three-way sex action instead.

Vincent, obviously eager to get as many STD's as possible over one weekend is more than happy to oblige.

Easy tiger.

What your mum and auntie get up to when they say they're at the bingo.

Fear not fright fans because it's not all saucy threesomes, groovy girl on girl action, onanism and water sports because Papaya - realizing that any movie of this type worth its ilk needs a wee bit of animal harm - also invites the couple to an island 'celebration' involving the slaughtering of a couple of defenceless pigs (real footage, cheers Joe), followed by a couple of hallucinogenic cocktails and, of course copious amounts of naked dancing to a stunningly sexy Stelvio Cipriani disco beat.

And let's be honest, would you have it any other way?

"Put it in me!"

But as is always the way with these things, the party can't last forever and the very next morning Vincent wakes to not only find a cluster of red lumps on his scrotum but that Sara has been kidnapped by Papaya's crazed followers.

Will our humping hero suffer the same fate as the other unfortunate plant workers and what does Papaya have in store for the man-chinned, 70's breasted Sara?

More importantly tho' will it involve any more soft focus, slow motion lady love culminating in saucy Sirpa biting her lip in her trademark erotic fashion?

Look I'm easily pleased obviously.

From the mightily mucky mind of the late great Joe D'Amato (AKA Aristide Massaccesi), Papaya Of The Caribbean is another of the great mans forays into - as we in the know call it - the 'sexy horror', sitting (or standing) proudly alongside the frankly wonderful Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals, Orgasmo Nero, Erotic Nights of The Living Dead and the subtly titled Porno Holocaust.

The latter more famous for not actually featuring a 'Porno Holocaust' in any shape of form preferring as it does to concentrate solely on actor Mark Shannon's weirdly warty balls.

Obviously that wouldn't have made half as good a title tho.

Unfortunately Papaya (the movie that is not the fruit which is quite tasty) lacks the humour (both intentional and otherwise) of Erotic Nights and is just nowhere near as bizarre as the genuinely wacky Last Cannibals.

It also lacks enough gore or shocks to be a bona fide horror movie and, if I'm honest isn't really that sexy, due in part to the usually luscious Lane deciding to spend the entire movie staring into the middle distance in the vaguely frowny, nonplussed manner of someone trying to ignore a bad smell which for a so called 'erotic' movie is a wee bit of a non starter

Surely Maurice Poli's recurring yeast infection wasn't that bad?

In its favour there are - tho' usually by accident rather than design when it comes to a Big Joe production -  actually a few genuinely spooky scenes on show - mostly those involving Vincent and Sarah exploring a deserted ghost town - tho' any tension they may have helped to build up is soon dispelled by the sheer amount of floppy cocks that appear at frighteningly regular intervals throughout the film.

I feel I now know Maurice Poli's better than my own.

Or your dads.

whispering grass.

Been an odd sort of week here at Unwell Towers so took a day out today to recharge and ended up watching something brand spanking new for the whole 31 days of horror thing.

Apologies for the brevity of the review but it's Friday night and I'd like you all to imagine I have a life.

In The Tall Grass (2019).
Dir: Vincenzo Natali.
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Harrison Gilbertson, Laysla De Oliveira, Avery Whitted, Will Buie Jr. and Rachel Wilson.

"Don't you want to touch the rock?"

Big-binned Cal DeMuth (The Vanishing of Sidney Hall's Whitted - looking for all the world like the terrifying lovechild of Jon Cryer and John Favreau) and his bun in the ovened baby sister Becky (De Oliveira, who was in iZombie once) are traveling to San Fransisco in order to give her baby to a childless couple as she feels too young and ill-prepared for parenthood since her lank haired beau Travis (Picnic at Hanging Rock's Gilbertson) dumped her due to commitment issues and an argument over who got custody of the shampoo.

Stopping on a lonely Midwestern road to allow Becky to vomit (as pregnant ladies are known to do) she's shocked to hear a small boy screaming for help in the distance.

The cries seem to be coming from a huge field of tall overgrown grass next to the road.

Well obviously they're coming from his mouth but you know what I mean.

Cal makes his way into the grass to see if he can help with Becky soon following  but soon lose sight of each other as they move ever deeper into the field.

"You ain't seen me right?"

Jumping and shouting for a bit in the hope of re-uniting with his sister Cal soon comes across (not literally, I don't even think Netflix would have the balls for that) the helpless boy, covered in snottery shite, crying and with a haircut that'd make Dario Argento balk.

Tobin (Will Buie Jr. best known as Finn Sawyer from Disney's Bunk'd) - for that's his name - explains that he got lost in the grass whilst chasing his dog and that his parents Natalie (Rachel Wilson, who played Tina in the 1991 TV version of Marvel's Power Pack) and Ross (Ed Warren himself, the scenery destroying Patrick Wilson) are also lost somewhere within the grass after coming to his aid.

But being a Stephen King adaptation he relays all this information in a very sinister manner.

Cue more scenes of Cal jumping up and down whilst shouting for his sister before stumbling across a dead dog then jumping and shouting a wee bit more.

Realising that although this will no doubt keep the cast fit, it's not really going to hold the viewers attention for 90 minutes, Becky soon finds Tobin's dad Ross who comes across as so nice and caring you'd be surprised if anyone but him ended up as the mad mental protagonist and after a quick introduction the pair head off to find everyone else.

Meanwhile Cal has been taken into a clearing in order for Torbin to show him a massive, rune covered rock he's found that, if you touch it grants you mystical powers of foresight or something but Cal's touchy feely session is cut short when he hears his sisters screams.
 

"Leaf me alone!"

There's no time to mourn Becky tho' as we're off to meet the ex, Travis who's currently driving cross country with a picture of his girl glued to his dashboard.

It's not long before he too is lost in the long grass where it soon becomes apparent that not only does all that green stuff harness a dark power capable of bending time and space but that the scriptwriters have spent way too much time reading (and literally copying) HP Lovecraft's The Festival whilst skipping any writing classes that deal with the intricacies of having a time travel plot.....

Will Travis be re-united with his ex-girlfriend?

And will she be dead or alive when he is?

Will previously nice but intense dad Ross go full mental Christian zealot renta-villain with hitherto unseen super strength that enables him to crush his wifes head like a (badly rendered CGI) melon?

Will Cal go from geeky big brother to sister shagging obsessed murder bitch for no other reason than 'just because' and will this plot thread get ignored at the movies end so as to wrap everything up as neatly as possible?

go on, guess.

"Look at the dog!"

 

Taking as it's basis the horror short written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill that was originally published in Esquire magazine back in 2012, Vincenzo Natali's screenplay stretches the genuinely scary short story to feature length by adding shedloads of CGI birds and (grass) blades, an incest subplots, naked men with freshly mowed grass faces and a bowling trip before making the originally unseen ex-boyfriend the hero and neatly wrapping everything up in a junior Steven Moffatt style coda that's as infuriating as it is cloying.

"Can you smell petrol?"

It's almost as if Natali loved the original story so much he just didn't know when to stop, adding more and more increasingly bizarre side notes and twists to what is fundamentally a basic scare story in The Twilight Zone vein until it almost collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

That's not to say it isn't enjoyable in its own - very - silly way because it is.

Unfortunately tho' it's just not scary.

Unless you suffer from Agrostophobia obviously.*























































*Or even maybe Genuphobia at a push.

mummy's boy.

Our local pound shop has become a veritable Mecca when it comes to top quality movies for the whole 31 days of horror thing.

And I bet they're all really good too.  

Especially this one.

Resurrection of The Mummy (2014).
Dir: Patrick McManus.
Cast: Stuart Rigby, Lauren Bronleewe, Bailey Gaddis, Sarah Schreiber, Alena Savostikova, Elizabeth Friedman and Jessie Paddock.

"He's my Dad!"

“let’s hope so. You can never really know for sure who anybody is.”

Somewhere in a disused quarry quite near to director Patrick (birthday parties a speciality) McManus' house, gangle-limbed amateur tomb raider cum part-time arse bandit Professor Terry Tralane (Rigby from Meet the Spartans) is taking time out of his busy schedule to admire a plastic scarab brooch he's just gotten out of one of those lucky dip machines you find in- supermarkets.

Unfortunately this tour de force of teeth baring brilliance is cut short when our poor professor suddenly begins to cough up some badly rendered CGI stones that soon whip up a scary sandstorm that engulfs the guy whole.

Which is nice.

Meanwhile in Egypt (or thereabouts) his ball-faced beauty of a daughter Maggie (BBQ Pitmasters star Bronleewe) is excitedly awaiting her fathers arrival so that she and her toothy team of airhead archaeologists can get down to the business of excavating the infamous Tomb of The Nameless One.

Or Anankotep as the Professor keeps referring to him.

Mousy.

It's not gonna be all fun and games tho' as their official government guide Mr. Walter Madu has also turned up with some grave news.

It seems that due to a general air of badness at the dig site he's decided to revoke the parties work permit (but not alas their Equity cards) and refuse to take them anywhere.

Not even up the casino.

Which by the look on Tralane's face is the most upsetting part of the story.

Luckily tho' our creepy archaeologist has other ideas and just before settling down for a night of tearful masturbation and copious Pot Noodles he mutters a few bizarre incantations which cause poor Mr. Madu to stab himself to death with his car keys.

Ouch.

So the next day and with a group of swarthy Arab types in tow (well in nightshirts and their mum's tea towels on their heads but you get the idea) Tralane and the girls - armed only with some cut off shorts and a couple of flasks, no spades or shovels for them! - head off to find the infamous tomb.

Seeing as the films running time is just shy of 75 minutes they do this fairly quickly which means we get a wee bit of extra time to not only learn more about the characters (Kelly - horse faced, nice ponytail, Ronnie - human/chipmunk hybrid, Sara - hieroglyphics expert and council estate Jane March and Grant - distinguishing characteristics include a big face and a pink t-shirt that reads, “I run like a girl – try to keep up” in big shiny letters) but also wonder what excuse Russian 'super' model Alena Savostikova - as pot-headed pixie Daw - had for being so late for shooting the movie.

You see up until this point she hasn't appeared in any single scene or even had anyone speak to her out of shot.

She literally just appears from nowhere and starts handing out drugs whilst complaining about Croatian death squads.

Looking back in the cold harsh light of day there may in fact be one more but I'm fucked if I know for sure.

If I've missed anyone out I'm sorry.

But thinking about it you've probably had a lucky escape.

Savostikova: Somewhere to park your bike.

Anyway back to the 'plot' where Maggie, using her incredible powers of deduction has figured out that the frustratinglyy complex and confusing locking system sealing the tomb door can be bypassed by sticking your fingers gingerly into a paper-mache beetle, which would be cause for celebration if a group of evil Libyan soldiers hadn't just turned up and shot the guides leaving our merry band no alternative but to hide inside the tomb, shutting the door behind them.

Can you see the major flaw in this plan?

Trapped inside an ancient Egyptian cupboard (well it's either that or this Anankotep bloke really tiny) and with no hope of rescue - for them or us - Tralane decides to have a little scout around (easy tiger) and almost instantly comes across  a small passageway (which lets be honest, is much more preferable to firing your muck over any of the cast - except maybe Elizabeth Friedman but only if she kept the hat on) which he heads off to investigate.

Sara, either bored with the constant complaining or just fancying a wee bit of rough goes with him and the pair soon uncover the fabled sarcophagus of Anankotep and excitedly open it.

I foresee bad things happening.

"Tonight Matthew I'm going to be hung from my testicles and beaten like a dog...."

But before that there's just time for an excruciatingly awful - and hellishly misplaced - pot-induced soliloquy about the trials and tribulations surrounding being a child in Eastern Europe.

Suffice to say there won't be any acting plaudits heading Alena Savostikova's way any time soon.

Tho' judging by the pic below there might be some casting calls for dog food ads.

"Look at the dog!"

As we all know tho' drugs are for mugs and Kelly after only one suck on Daw's massive blunt begins to experience vision of a ghostly Anubis-like figure in the distance.

Which if I'm honest is much better than enduring Nigel Wingrove's nun-centric Visions of Ecstasy.

But not much.

Frightened by such a chillingly realistic representation of the Egyptian God of The Underworld Kelly runs screaming into the tunnels where she's promptly squashed by some bits of polystyrene.

Which isn't as bad as it seems as it leaves Tralane and Sara to examine the burial chamber whilst Maggie and Ronnie  race towards (well take a leisurely stroll - the sets not that big) the sound of Kelly’s screams which culminates in a scene which gives us the treat of seeing a well-manicured hand covered in jam.

Tom Savini, no doubt, is currently on suicide watch.

Heading back to Tralane and Sara, the delectable duo discover that the passageway has been mysteriously sealed so attempt to break it down with a toffee hammer one of them had in their bag.

Unbeknown to them the Professor has begun mumbling something slight and incomprehensible under his breath whilst Sara looks on in the manner of a pound shop nodding dog.

Albeit one with frankly stunning thighs.

"Here....I found your talent down the back of the sofa..."

I must admit that at this point I popped out for a vape so could only view the next couple of scenes thru' a rain-lashed window (no I didn't pause it....do you think I'm fucking insane?) but did get to see what I think was Ronnie being overcome by an Atari 800 quality mummies bad breath before coughing up some Marmite and poor Sara attacked by some bandages  that gives the director the chance of sneakily showing her cleavage as a piece of oily rag snakes up her shirt.

I wont slag it off too much but let's just say I'm glad it was raining as otherwise nothing would have cooled my ardor.

With only Maggie, Grant and Daw left alive (well they're opening and closing their mouths whilst moving about) our terrific trio have soon found an escape route and stumble out into the sunlight only for Maggie and Grant to decide to head back inside to rescue the Professor.

Daw being a cowardly foreigner elects to sit on a rock and get shit-faced.

Which all things considered is a fairly sound plan.

Or it would be if minutes later she isn't mysteriously transported back into the tomb before having her soul sucked out leaving her  dead-eyed and used up only fit for smizing blankly on catwalks whilst parading around in more and more outrageous outfits. 

So no change really.

"I am not a number I am a Friedman!"

Things look even grimmer for Grant tho' (if that were possible) when she falls into a hole before being buried alive by a group of stagehands frantically emptying the contents of a kids sandpit onto her  leaving only Maggie standing.

Probably on a box to keep her in shot with her dad.

Will our chubby cheeked heroine save her dad and beat the undead despots curse?

Will previously dead cast members re-appear at some point to get stabbed in the face?

Will anyone outside the directors close family care?

"Cotton wool in mah mooth!"

From the diseased mind of writer/director/icon defiler Patrick McManus, the man who gave us 2012's Dracula Reborn comes this second chapter in his magnificent cinematic assault on the Universal Monsters back catalogue.

"You ain't seen me right?"

With a poster stolen from Brendan Fraser, a cast kidnapped from the checkouts at Aldi, a plot stolen from The Pyramid and special effects supplied by a hook-handed child on a ZX Spectrum, Resurrection of The Mummy is less a triumph of ideas over budget but more like a thinly veiled attempt to introduce a new form of torture on the world.

Pixelated grey squares stand in for empty casing ejecting from machine guns as a variety of animated flame GiFs are substituted for the gunshots, hastily painted woodchip wallpaper stands in for the walls of a centuries old tomb and characters change height and positioning depending on how the director was feeling that day.

For all it's faults (and they were legion) at least Dracula Reborn had Victoria Summer* in it.

And for that I can forgive it most of its sins.

Summer: Lovin'.

True, it's great to see folk producing a feature on such a slight budget but not when they show so much contempt for those watching. 

No time, no talent and no mercy, Resurrection of The Mummy is the cinematic equivalent of a bored, back alley handjob, ultimately pleased with itself for just being there with no interest at all in the viewers pleasure.

A wee bit like your mum.















































*Who bizarrely went on to play Julie Andrews in Saving Mr. Banks, a 2013 film about the making of Mary Poppins.

Victoria Summer: Just because.

stage shite.

Another 31 Days of Horror and the first, of many no doubt, found footage shocker.

But will this deliver the goods or just leave us hanging?

The Gallows (2015).
Dir: Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff.
Cast: Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, John Tanksly and Cassidy Gifford.

"Don't say his name!"

There's nothing like throwing the viewer in at the deep end so we begin way back in 1993, slap bang in the middle - well possibly nearer the climax but who really cares? - of a hellish high school production of The Gallows, a kinda sub-Scarlet Letter/Crucible rip-off only with half the charm and an abundance of substandard Shakespearean dialogue delivered in that cringing mockney tone that Americans seem to think is a true representation of an 'English' accent.

In the stalls the proud parents of fright-wigged freak teen Charlie Grimille are busy recording the play for posterity as they admire their son's plumb-mouthed performance.

If I'd have known by this point that this grainy home movie footage was a good as the film got I would have given up now.

It's not all arsed-up accents and wonky wigs tho' because as the play lurches toward its climax - which features Charlie's character being hung from the aforementioned gallows - tragedy (or good taste, take your pick) strikes when the door beneath him opens accidentally hanging him in front of the entire school.


Which if I'm honest is really raising the bar for whoever takes the drama class the year after.

I mean how the fuck would you follow that?

A musical version of Salo?

That typesetting is off.

Jump forward to the present day, where the school (for some reason known only to the parent council and woefully incompetent script writers) have decided the time is right to restage the play - with the same costumes, prop gallows and everything.

Surely that'd be like Columbine deciding to stage a version of Gus Van Sant's Elephant using the shooters actual guns as props?

But I'm not American so what do I know?

There's no time to dwell on such matters tho' as we're quickly (come on the running time is only 81 minutes) introduced to the frighteningly horse faced Ryan (Ryan Gosling via a drunken police photofit Shoos), an arrogant arsehole who's main interest seems to be baying at his own jokes in the manner of an idiot manchild who's just discovered the power of speech.

Waving his camera around like an easily amused monkey playing with their own shit, Ryan is busying himself filming his best friend Reese's (Youthful Daze's Randy Milhouse, Mishler) woeful attempts at acting whilst looking good in tights.

It appears that he's playing the same character Charlie played last time around but luckily for him the brain-power it seems to take to enable him to walk and talk at the same time leaves him precious little to worry about the whole hanging thing with.

To be honest he seems more concerned with having to share an onstage kiss with the doll-like - albeit one with a massive head - lead actress Pfeifer (Brown, a kinda more homely Danielle Harris).

This is because he loves her don't you know.

I just look at this picture and it makes me too angry to even consider writing a vaguely amusing caption. Sorry.

After several minutes (that'll I'll never, ever get back you bastards) of watching Ryan following Reese around - in between taking the piss out of all the geeky students and interviewing a group of woman who witnessed Charlie's death in a vague hope of keeping our interest - our fowl-faced friend finds a door with a broken lock, which gives him the idea of sabotaging the sets and saving Reese the agony of looking like a complete tit onstage.

Ryan's button-nosed girlfriend Cassidy (Gifford, daughter of Barry and Kathie Lee, possibly) agrees the this would probably be a good idea and the pals agree to meet up that night to put the plan into operation.

And before you ask the school obviously has no alarms.

Or CCTV.

Even before that tho' we have to have a scene where Reese's manly as fuck dad Rick (Tanksly, last seen leaving your mums bed early yesterday morning) shouting at his son in an almost predatory manner whilst telling him not to do the play.

This may become important later.

After this fantastic scene of parental concern cum character building the toothsome trio quickly head over to the school and are soon channeling their rebellious nature by violently kicking over a few plant pots and smashing some bottles before settling down to unscrewing the stairs leading to the gallows.

Right on.

The fun(?) is bought to a sudden end tho' when Pfeifer pops up out of the shadows after claiming to have seen Reese's car in the car park.

No idea how tho'....perhaps she carries a ladder around with her.

Anyway, this being a found footage gig Ryan blatantly leaves the camera recording as Reese uncomfortably tries explain to Pfeifer why they're sneaking around the school late at night, luckily for him (and us) he's interrupted by a series of loud thumps (as in the noise, not ones to his head unfortunately) and what sounds like a bell ringing.

Perhaps it only rings when the script hits a certain cliché level in order to warn the audience to leave?

The only spirit haunting these poor fuckers is the ghost of Showgirls.

Never having heard a bell in a school before the  kids get a wee bit spooked and decide it'd be best if they just went home and forget about the whole thing but try as they will the broken door is now locked.

If that wasn't creepy enough they soon discover that none of their phones are working  meaning that they've no way of calling for help or saving the audience from even more tedious out of focus "he's behind you" shenanigans.

Frustrated by the obscene amounts of horror tropes on show Cassidy confesses all to Pfeifer (well not all, I mean she doesn't go into detail about the nude romp with Jenny (Mackie Burt) from the cheer leading squad or show the pictures of her pleasuring herself with Ryan's massive chin but we can dream), causing poor Pfeifer to angrily stomp off into the darkness.

I assume it's anger tho' it may have been a case of slight constipation.

Burt: Nude cheerleading.

Gingerly (and you don't often get to use that word in a horror review) exploring the school for a way out the group soon come across a hidden door in a storeroom that leads them to a document filled cupboard where an old TV is playing looped footage of the local news report of Charlie's death.

Just in case we'd forgotten why we are here obviously.

That's not all tho' as the screen is soon filled (well as filled as one of those old 4:3 screens can be) with Charlie's folks footage of the accident (obviously You've Been Framed rejected it due to the focusing issues) as well as an interview with Charlie's girlfriend (then not now obviously), who just happened to be one of the women that was watching the rehearsals earlier that day.

What are the chances?

It turns out that Charlie was the understudy for role and only took over when the original student called in sick due to painful hemorrhoids caused by spending too much time sitting on the cold stage.

At this point Reese makes a noise like a startled mouse and runs off in the direction of the school's 'Gallows' memorial display.

Grabbing the cast photo from the case Reese is shocked to discover that the original actor cast was his dad Rick.

Again, what are the chances?

Pretty high if your script writing skills are this lazy obviously.

"Hello French polishers? You may just have saved my life!"

Trapped in the school with no means of escape our scared students begin to realize that something supernatural may be afoot and Charlie may have returned from beyond the grave to extract an ill-conceived and poorly thought out revenge plan that, upon closer inspection (well any inspection if I'm honest) makes no sense whatsoever.

Will our heroes survive?

Will anything remotely original happen?

Will one of the characters be revealed to be a hitherto unmentioned child of Charlie's?

Will the film end with a clunkily added coda that attempts to set up the villain as a new horror icon only to leave you giggling like a French schoolgirl?

And is it wrong to find myself more and more attracted to Pfeifer Brown the sweatier and more shot to fuck she becomes?

Scraping the bottom of the cinematic barrel (probably the same one that Josh put Megan in) comes a film so contrived and with so little respect for it's audiences intelligence that one can only assume that it was greenlit as some kind of bizarre post-modern experiment in using cinema to cause atrophy in brain tissue.

I never usually say this but spoilers/plot holes ahead for anyone brave enough to risk viewing it:

After such a tragic accident, would a school (any school, the one I went to excepted) actually restage a play that resulted in the death of a student and use the same prop?

Would no-one (teachers, parents etc.) not mention the fact that the lead actor was the son of the original lead? I mean his photo is in the schools main lobby....did no-one bother to look?

And does the school not keep pupil records?

You see it turns out that Pfeifer is the daughter of Charlie's ex girlfriend, born a few months after his death....and it was her that lobbied to get the school to restage the play....did no-one think this a wee bit odd?

Everyone appears to know that the stage door is broken, did the schoolboard think "Fuck it, we can't afford a padlock, it's not like anyone ever breaks into schools"?

And that's just the ones I made a note of before I started dribbling and trying to spoon out my eyes.

Good job I didn't tho' as the  joint writing/directing team of Lofing and Cluff do manage to deliver a couple of nicely creepy set pieces, it's just unfortunate that they're quickly smothered by the sea of warmed up shite that surrounds them.

Honestly there's the bare bones of a nice little mocumentary/found footage chiller lurking beneath the mess, it just needs a wee tweak to make it work.

For example, up the age of the students slightly and have them discover the whole gallows tale online, deciding to do their film studies final project around it they travel across State to interview folk involved and finally discover the prop still exists....rebuilding it to stage a 'true-drama' re-enactment for the projects climax.

Plus by moving the location - and altering the timeline to make the incident happen a few decades earlier as opposed to a few years eliminates the majority of the plot holes.

Pfeifer could be the grandchild not child, which also gives a creepy "You look a wee bit like Charlie" vibe to the whole thing that would leave you guessing is it possession or revenge?

You're welcome.

"Bunions!"

The thing that makes me the saddest tho' is that regardless of how badly written and generally cack handed the whole thing is is the fact that the relatively inexperienced cast are all fantastic, bravely doing their best with material that by rights shouldn't even been given a second thought let alone typed up and made.

Ryan Shoos is perfectly punchable without ever drifting into parody as the bullying jock whilst Reese Mishler performs the difficult act of balancing put upon pal with a kind of shy pathos that really makes you believe in his character, I just wanted to give him a hug and reassure him that everything was alright around the halfway point.

Mainly due to him having to be in such an awful movie but still.

Pfeifer Brown is fabulous too, going from crying cutey to spooky psycho on the spin of a coin and fair play to Cassidy Gifford who draws the short straw (and even shorter shorts) by managing to make a character whose main traits seem to be stating the obvious and screaming actually watchable.

They - and us - deserve better.

But in our case not much.

(pre) video tasties.

In those heady days before VHS - between 1961 and 1966 to be precise - those groovy Italians created the next best thing for rthose of us wanting to relive our favourite horror movies; the fantastic foto magazine Malìa.

Each issue retold a movies story in crisp B & W photo form over 60 pages and the series itself covered a remarkable array of horror films from across the globe taking in Italy, Mexico, Spain, dear old Blighty and the USA.

Enjoy!