January 2009
** = Monthly Favourites
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SANTA’S SLAY (2005)
David Steiman
Jolly old Saint Nick goes from the nice list to the naughty list when an old wager runs up and his promise to be nice takes a backseat to his murderous impulses in this comic tale of terror
**ALIEN RAIDERS (2008)
Ben Rock
A small town supermarket serves as the setting for this suspenseful sci-fi thriller about a malevolent alien seeking to take over the human race
SCARCE (2008)
Jesse T. Cook & John Geddes
Scarce depicts the gruesome fate of three lost snowboarders trapped at an isolated forest cabin owned by two menacing locals who harvest human flesh
MAN ON WIRE (2008)
James Marsh
A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974
**BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (1976)
Joel M. Reed (Night of the Zombies)
A theater director and his assistant (Ralphus) torture naked women on stage. The audience thinks it's "great special effects", but little do they know that it's all real!
**RUNNING SCARED (2006)
Wayne Kramer (The Cooler)
A minor crook finds himself in major peril when a "hot" weapon goes missing in this violent crime thriller
**MIDNIGHT MOVIE (2008)
Jack Messitt
A midnight screening of a 1970s cult horror film becomes a wholesale bloodbath after the members of the audience see one of their friends butchered on the big screen
**DEAD SET (2008)
Charlie Brooker
During a fictional series of Big Brother, a zombie outbreak occurs, but the house-mates are unaware of the impending doom outside of the Big Brother House
**THE OTHER SIDE (2006)
Gregg Bishop (Dance of the Dead)
A young man returns from a brush with death to discover some very powerful forces don't want him to survive
JUST BURIED (2007)
Chaz Thorne
The young heir to a family funeral home discovers that death can be quite a tricky business in this blackly comic tale of fate and formaldehyde
SAW V UNRATED (2008)
David Hackl
Detective Hoffman and Agent Strahm clash as they each investigate the apparent continuation of the Jigsaw murders
REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA (2008)
Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2, 3 and 4)
Futuristic shocker detailing a terrifying epidemic of organ failures in this ‘musical’ gorefest
**REEFER MADNESS: THE MOVIE MUSICAL (2005)
Andy Fickman
This made-for-cable musical satire is based on the award-winning play of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the notorious -- and deliciously awful -- 1936 anti-marijuana film originally titled Tell Your Children
ROCKNROLLA (2008)
Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels, Snatch)
Hyperkinetic crime comedy concerning a shady land deal that leaves every schemer in the city determined to get rich or die trying
**MASK OF SATAN aka Black Sunday (1960)
Mario Bava (Bloodbath, Black Sabbath)
Generally considered to be the foremost example of Italian Gothic horror, this darkly atmospheric black-and-white chiller put director Mario Bava on the international map and made the bewitching Barbara Steele a star
FLASHBACK (2000)
Michael Karen
Jeanette survives a brutal serial killers attack but her parents don’t. When she is eventually released from a mental institution the attacks seem to begin again
**HOUSE OF BLOOD aka Chain Reaction (2006)
Olaf Ittenbach (Black Past, Burning Moon etc)
Four ruthless escaped convicts looking for a safe place to hide out from the law with their terrified hostage stumble across an isolated hunting lodge, only to fall into the deadly grip of an ancient curse in a blood-spattered satanic shocker
**BIG MEAT EATER (1982)
Chris Windsor
Deranged, low-budget, comedy, sci-fi, horror musical – worth watching just for the hilarious Chemical Song!
BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)
Bob Clark (Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Dead of Night, Porkys)
A dangerous psychopath hiding out in the attic of a sorority house torments a small group of pretty young sisters
**QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC (1979)
Liliek Sudjio
Hilariously demented and gory Indonesian flick about betrayal, revenge & casting spells that make heads explode & bees go bad!!
ASIAN LANGUAGE
**ATTACK GIRLS SWIM TEAM vs THE UNDEAD (2007)
Koji Kawano
Japanese schoolgirls in swimsuits are immune to the zombiefying virus & must save the school. Lots of cheap gore & soft-core lesbianism
**ZOMBIE SELF DEFENSE FORCE (2006)
Naoyuki Tomomatsu (Eat the Schoolgirl, Stacy)
A flying saucer crashes on Earth & the radiation turns dead people into hungry zombies. Very low budget, very gory & very funny!
****TOKYO GORE POLICE (2008)
Yoshihiro Nishimura
Completely bonkers movie where blood spurts like a power-shower of gore. ‘Engineers’ can grow weapons to replace severed limbs & must be stopped by Ruka’s samurai sword of revenge
THREE EXTREMES 2 (2002)
Peter Chan, Ji-Woon Kim, Nonzee Nimibutr
Three horror shorts by three different directors
TRIANGLE (2007)
Ringo Lam, Johnny To & Tsui Hark
The film is a palpable thrill-ride, with an air of unmistakable cool and sheer brassiness of style. With scarcely time to slow-down, the silly and initially confusing but heavily entertaining and ultimately straightforward plot runs through a hundred twists and turns on its way to the seat-gripping finale that is the last third of the film
ONE MISSED CALL 2 (2005)
Renpei Tsukamoto
Creepy horror sequel about more death predicting mobile phone calls
**SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983)
Chuan Yang
A Hong Kong taxi driver suffers after being cursed by a sorcerer he accidentally hit with his cab. After the driver's wife is raped and killed by teenage hooligans, he pleads with the sorcerer to lift the hex and restore his wife to the land of the living. Otherworldly zombie chaos ensues
OTHER LANGUAGES
DANTE 01 (2008)
Marc Caro (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children)
A man arrives at a colony circling the fiery planet Dante, his name and history unknown. The ship is a base for psychiatric research on a handful of criminals, held as guinea-pigs and cut off from outside contact. The new man is seen as a messiah by some of the convicts, a trouble-maker by others, as the psychiatrists carry out routine and risky genetic experiments with their DNA
**BLACK PAST (1989)
Olaf Ittenbach (Beyond the Limits, Garden of Love)
Cult classic gorefest from Germany. Very low budget, home made video movie with bad acting but superb gore effects. Incredibly bloody.
BURNING MOON (1992)
Olaf Ittenbach (Legion of the Dead, Premutos)
The Burning Moon centers on two bedtime stories that a delinquent brother reads his kid sister. These disturbingly morbid stories focus on a serial killing blind date and a murderous, psychotic priest. The ending of this film is one of the goriest set pieces ever filmed.