Kanpong Banjongpinit co-wrote and directed Night of the Killer Bears. The story follows five teenage friends who live in Bangkok—a long time has passed since they’d seen each other. They decide to vacation together at a quiet, low-end retreat isolated from the city.
Matters turn dark because each friend has a secret, which becomes revealed while someone outside the group watches them.
The brutal murder of one friend motivates the survivors to accuse each other of being the murderer. Yet they consider the possibility that the murderer is not one of them. Someone else in their midst, observing them. If that is the case, they all are in danger.
Killers in bear costumes swing sabers and bisect teenagers while slashing off heads with vicious slices. It’s a bloody mess.
Possibly Banjonginit movie is a play on the franchise horror slasher Scream.
It’s funny but too campy for my taste. With the English subtitles, you’ll get by with the simple and sparse dialogue.
The cast includes Sananthachat Thanapatpisal as Aim, Patchata Jan-Ngern as Win, Khemanit Jamikorn as Som, and Chanagun Apornsutinan as Tony.
Dark Sky Films releases the long-awaited UHD release of the 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the groundbreaking thriller that has often been imitated but has yet to equal. The film arrives in the 4K restored version, complemented by a frightening array of bonus materials.
Directed by Tobe Hooper, Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a classic horror film released in 1974. The film follows a group of friends, played by Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail and Teri McMinn, on a road trip through rural Texas. They stumble upon a family of cannibalistic psychopaths.
The film has a low-budget, gritty style and extreme gore and violence, which boosted its popularity since we’ve had horror films like The Blair Witch Project, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Night of the Living Dead.
The group of friends intends to visit an old family homestead. On their journey, they pick up a hitchhiker who manifests strange behavior. The stranger eventually turns on them, attacking them, which leads to a harrowing chase through the Texas countryside.
They arrive at a farmhouse and meet cannibalistic killers, including the iconic Leatherface with a mask of human skin and a wielding chainsaw. Michael Myers copied the masking technique so beautifully on Halloween.
The horror film was controversial during its release because of its graphic violence, which doesn’t compare to Coen Bros. films or the SAW franchise. Subsequently, the Texas Chain Saw Massacre shines as a cult classic and the most influential horror movie of the genre.
It generated many sequels and remakes, influencing countless horror films that tried to deem worthy.
Disc 1 holds the 4K UHD feature film and four commentary tracks:
Writer-producer-director Tobe Hooper, actor Gunnar Hansen and cinematographer Daniel Pearl
Actors Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger and Paul A. Partain, with production designer Robert Burns
Tobe Hooper solo
Daniel Pearl, editor J. Larry Carroll and sound recordist Ted Nicolaou
Disc 2, a Blu-ray, contains the new, never-before-seen feature-length documentary The Legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and several featurettes. These include “The Cinefamily Presents FRIEDKIN/HOOPER,” a conversation about the film between Tobe Hooper and The Exorcist director William Friedkin; “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Shocking Truth”; “Flesh Wounds: Seven Stories of the Saw”; a tour of the TCSM house with Gunnar Hansen; “Off the Hook with Teri McMinn”; and “The Business of Chain Saw: An Interview with Production Manager Ron Bozman.”
The generous package I enjoy the most. It has deleted scenes and outtakes, a blooper reel, trailers, vintage TV and radio spots, and much more to thrill fans, old and new.
British actor Julian Sands stars in The Ghosts of Monday, directed by Francesco Cinquemani, known for Eye for an Eye.
Sands starred in the classic films, The Room With a View and The Killing Fields.
The movie trailer is a jumble of shots from the movie, but it hardly shows the unnerving quality of the horror film experience.
The profusion of suspense and scares is frightening.
The film begins with Mark Huberman, played by Vikings Valhalla, who stars as a television director. He becomes embroiled in a supernatural conspiracy after traveling to Cyprus to make a tv pilot about a haunted hotel.
The cast includes Marianna Rosset, Elva Trill and Anthony Skordi.
Based on James Cullen Bressack’s story, Brandon Slagle directed Frost, and Robert Thompson penned the screenplay.
Vernon Wells and Devanny Pinn are solid in the story about a young pregnant woman and her father fighting for their lives.
After their car swerves off the road, they become stranded on a remote mountainside during a hellacious storm. The story sets up gore and shock here, where the movie takes place in one location. But the screenplay lacks character development, so the audience can care for the young woman trapped in a car about to have a baby.
More detail about the strained relationship between Abby, played by Wells, and her father, played by Pinn, would have given more substance to the story. I would have cared more about the outcome.
Grant, her father, leaves Abby in the car so that he can find help. They make exchanges over walkie-talkies, which is the only father-daughter bonding in the movie.
However, they never discuss Grant’s drinking or her mother’s passing, and they haven’t seen each other in five years. Had these obvious flaws developed more into the screenplay, it might have kept the interest higher.
Because the relationship between Abby and Grant never bonds, there is no emotional tie to build up from the shock at the end.
Thank you, Film Threat, for the additional information.
Brand-new 4K restoration, written and directed by Ivan Zulueta, 1979 feature Arrebato’s is a popular Spanish cult horror movie. Some consider the film a dimension-shattering blend of heroin, sex, and Super-8 as a final word on Cinemania.
Arrebato follows horror movie director José Sirgado, played by Eusebio Poncela, adrift in a sea of doubt and drugs. As his belated second feature nears completion, two situations pop his reclusive bubble.
First, there is a sudden reappearance from an ex-girlfriend, played by Cecilia Roth. Second, a package arrives from past acquaintance Pedro, played by Will More. It contains a reel of Super-8 film, an audiotape and a door key.
From there, the boundaries of time, space and sexuality disappear as José is once more absorbed into Pedro’s vampiric orbit — a vampire camera that sucks up people, and they disappear.
Together, they attempt the ultimate hallucinogenic catharsis through a twisted strip of filming and being filmed.
The horror movie offers beauty, clearly describing a dark state of living — angst and joy of living with dangerous drugs, alcohol and sex and the love of making movies.
Special Features:
• Region Free Blu-ray
• Commentary Track with Mike White of The Projection Booth
As a dark comedy of heavy-handed and trashy entertainment, this Christmas horror movie may make you wonder if some of its laughs are intentional or a bit off the rocker. You’ll see buckets of blood, along with bellies full of laughter.
Filmed on location in South Lake Tahoe for just 13 days, the low-budget production comes through with a talented cast that’s stiff and nightmarish.
Written and directed by Sean Nichols, Red Snow follows Olivia Romo, played by Dennice Cisneros, as a struggling vampire romance novelist holed up in South Lake Tahoe. Here, she’s forced to defend herself against real-life vampires during the holidays.
It all starts with an injured bat named Luke, played by Nico Bellamy, who becomes a handsome vampire after slamming into her living room window.
Unbeknownst to Olivia, she takes pity on the wounded animal and places it in her garage. She nurses the bat a bit, and the next day, the little creature transforms into a real-life Edward, a full-size vampire.
Olivia knows when opportunity knocks, so she makes a deal with Luke. Read her unpublished manuscript, and he can stay a few days in the garage to heal from an unpleasant wooden stake injury. She keeps him satisfied with microwaved pig blood in a mug. In return, he gives his feedback on the manuscript.
Luke is your typical vampire, but he takes a liking to Olivia. Their relationship barely flourishes when Olivia’s suspicion of Luke’s true intentions surfaces as his deadly past catches up with him.
The humor takes hold with a rather odd private detective, played by Vernon Wells, who acts more like a voyeur, spying on her and rummaging through her garage.
The evenings become sinister with pale figures dressed in black visiting the cabin, who turn out to be Luke’s vampire friends, played by Laura Kennon and Alan Silva. They want Luke to return to their brood, of course, after they help themselves to the blood of Olivia.
More romance and less terror, sticking with the Edward and Bella theme, might have saved the movie in the long run.
Thank you, The Guardian, for the information about the movie.
Directed by Terence Young, Corridor of Mirrors is a 1948 film based on a book by Chris Massie. It appears Massie may be best known for his novel “Pity My Simplicity,” which was also adapted into a 1945 movie, Love Letters, starring Jennifer Jones.
Corridor of Mirrors is Young’s directorial debut. He’s best known for kicking off the James Bond franchise by directing the first two Bond movies, Dr. No and From Russia with Love. His last Bond movie was Thunderball. Additionally, he directed Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna in Wait Until Dark.
Edana Romney and Rudolph Cartier adapted Massie’s book for the screen. The script was a vehicle to showcase Romney’s talent and launch her career, which never took off, though she spent her later years writing a screenplay about the life of Richard Burton.
On the other hand, Eric Portman as Paul Mangin is impressive. His movie credits include A Canterbury Tales, The Golden Mask and The Bedford Incident. If you’re a Prisoner fan, he played Number Two.
With Young’s gothic horror, romantic melodrama and film noir, the movie held my attention despite the weak storyline. In fact, the remastered quality of the Cohen Film Collection’s Blu-ray makes the cinematic images fascinating. Watching Young’s camera work with low then high angles that include the striking contrast of the cinematography of Andre Thomas was a marvel.
The story follows Mangin as a contemporary artist obsessed with the Renaissance lifestyle and art. He wears clothes from the era and rides around in a hansom cab. He meets the stunning Mifanwy, and they become lovers. Even though she is married, Mangin becomes possessed with the idea that the two of them are past life lovers from the Renaissance. In their past life, they were married, but the relationship ended tragically. Mifanwy is mesmerized into thinking his fantasy is accurate, and she goes behind the corridor of mirrors in his mansion, where the fantasy begins. She dresses up in Renaissance gowns made by Mangin.
The fundamental problem with this movie is visualizing spiritual connections because such an occurrence is invisible to the naked eye. Though Young uses mirrors, angles and melodrama to help, it’s a challenging subject to film. Kenneth Branagh mastered it in his 1991 Dead Again with a clever twist at the end. As a matter of fact, Albert Lewin tried an earlier film in 1950 withPandora and the Flying Dutchman, which bettered Corridor of Mirrors.
The movie is worth seeing for those who’d like to see a suspense thriller that borderlines horror. Note that this movie is Christopher Lee’s film debut, playing Charles.
Thank you, Blu-ray Down Low, IMDB and Theater Byte, Good Reads, for providing information.
Written and directed by Nicholas Winter, A Dark Path follows sisters Abi and Lily on their way home from a party in eastern Europe. They get lost. With no signal and an unreliable GPS, they try to navigate their way out using road signs. Their front tire suddenly blows out along a narrow road through a deep forest.
They find themselves completely cut off from the outside world with no spare tire or cell service. Soon they discover that this is no ordinary forest. They understand why no cars come here because the locals know what lives in the woods. They’ve woken it, and there is nowhere to run.
The movie lacks a lot of essential elements. All the reviews I saw were negative.
I used to volunteer a lot of my time for the Citizen Commission on Human Rights, documenting, exposing, and disseminating psychiatric abuse. Today, I still volunteer, though not as much. Therefore, I feel qualified to say Killer Therapy into the making of a psycho killer.
Co-written and directed by Barry Jay, Killer Therapy follows a young man named Brain, played skillfully by Jonathan Taylor, who looks for help in his therapists, because he has issues with his father, mother, and adopted sister.
His life becomes lost in the mental health system, bouncing around from therapist after therapist, growing up into a young man, also played skillfully by Skyler Caleb, who is worse off than when he started going to the therapists. He still has anger issues, but it’s all twisted and confused from his psychotherapy.
When his life eventually hits rock bottom and falls apart, he correctly blames his therapists, embarking on the dark revenge of everyone who ever wronged him.
One-by-one, he kills his former therapists, then finally he comes to terms with the fact that that system doesn’t work, and he must accept his shortcomings by helping himself get better.
Killer Therapy is a horror, slasher movie, but not like the usual. Here you get the killers backstory, finding out that his therapists contributed to the making of a psycho slasher. It’s driven but a disjointed view that offers insight into the importance of reforming the mental health system.
The rest of the cast includes Elizabeth Keener, Thom Mathews, PJ Soles, Adrienne King, Daeg Faerch, Javon Johnson, and Ivy George.
Here is the only clip available, interviews with the actors and director.
Written and directed by Padraig Reynolds, Open 24 Hours follows a paranoid delusional woman, Mary White, played by Vanessa Grasse. Recently released from a mental hospital, the poor woman was smart enough to get out of that place. Making matters worse, she sets her serial killer boyfriend on fire.
Because of the abuse of the mental hospital, Mary suffers from severe paranoia and hallucinations. Her boyfriend, James Lincoln Fields, played by Cole Vigue, is a brutal serial killer known as The Rain Ripper. He enjoyed murdering people and making Mary watch.
The moment after being released from the hospital, Mary’s vulnerable demeanor aids her in obtaining employment at an all-night gas station. However, left alone to her own devices, her paranoia and hallucinations return with furious consequences. This is where the most gruesome images play out on film.
If you are into horrific stuff like hammering heads and such, then these things take a gruesome turn when customers and friends suddenly start turning up dead and mutilated all around her. It a tough movie to watch and enjoy.
Reynold’s inspiration for this movie came to him while filming Rites of Spring in Mississippi. “We were scouting locations for the movie and came across this time-worn Gas Station on a lonely rural road. This gas station was a character in itself, and I knew that it would make a great self-contained horror movie.”
The idea would not leave his mind, “I went back to my hotel room and began writing the script. I knew I wanted a strong female protagonist to be as lonely as our main location. Mary is a damaged doll in a thrift store dress. She is desperately trying to put her life back together after years of abuse from her serial killer boyfriend who made her watch while killing people. She gets a job and feels that her haunted past is finally behind her. But on a cold rainy night, the past returns with a vengeance.”
The rest of the cast includes Brendan Fletcher as Bobby, Emily Tennant as Debbie and Daniel O’Meara as Tom Doogan.
