The Innkeepers - Things That Go Bump In The Night

Ti West is a film-maker that you can count on. He loves to place characterisation first, and when making horror movies, this ensures you care about the characters. He loves to play it old school too, and never needs to cheat when developing his scares, like when some directors have things jump from just out of shot when the characters would have been able to see them already. The Innkeepers ticks all the right boxes.

Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are the two remaining employees of a hotel about to be shut down - the Yankee Pedlar Inn, reported site of Madeline O'Malley's suicide in the 1800s after her husband abandoned her on their wedding day. Both ghost hunting enthusiasts, they spend their last few days trying to contact O'Malley's spirit with only a couple of guests still staying in the inn. Unexpectedly, Claire begins to yield some results when the piano starts playing itself at night, but a clairvoyant guest warns her to steer clear of the basement where they supposedly stashed Madeline's body to save the reputation of the inn. Naturally, the haunting builds in intensity, and when something happens to one of the two remaining guests, it all spirals out of control culminating in a trip to the very same basement that they were warned about so vehemently...



Kudos must go to Eliot Rocket the cinematographer, whose camera swoops and dollies energetically to create some properly thrilling moments, almost like an action-horror hybrid. Sara Paxton too does a brilliantly natural job as Claire - we care about her as a character because she seems genuinely likeable and curious, and always eager to help out her mate Luke. The cast are helped by West's very flowing dialogue, which builds from light-hearted comedy in the first half to some intense arguments throughout the second. Final props must go to Jeff Grace, the composer. From the opening strings over the credits to the eerie piano rolls throughout the initial haunting and the final orchestra explosion, the 'avant-garde' musician nails the tone of the film beautifully.

Here's what Esteban had to say about this 2011 effort:
I want to tell you of a story of a family I once be haved in. It was many a year ago, back in my hometown of Peru. We once went on a holiday, and walked to the next village to enjoy the lovely tree and coffee beans. We stayed inside an inn. In the in we were staying in was a man who had grey hair and overalls. He would carry bread roll in his pockets which was a scary theme. The story is about this because he still was not as scary as the movie film which was pretty scary in my frankly opinion. My least favourite part was when the character drank the beer. Thank you.

Okay, so some modern viewers may consider the film a little generic or even a little slow - but I liked that about it. It's an homage to earlier days of horror when gore wasn't the first priority, and it serves this purpose pretty well. As always, I hope the West can return to this form after the slight misstep that was his segment in V/H/S - I'm giving it 3 out of 4 hanged brides.

One To Watch - Stoker

Simply put, Stoker boasts one of the best trailers that I have seen in my entire life - it's attention grabbing, informative plot-wise, stylish as hell, stunningly paced and what's more, the crew behind the lens appear to be more than qualified for the job.

The English debut of Korean film-maker Park Chan-Wook (who also directed the reportedly phenomenal Oldboy, soon to be remade by Spike Lee), Stoker is allegedly a horror film, family drama and psychological thriller. The writer - Wentworth Miller III (that's right, one of the two bald guys from Prison Break) - has attracted some major talent, from Chan-Wook in the director's chair and the Scott brothers producing to Clint Mansell scoring (probably my favourite film composer) and Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Jacki Weaver acting up a storm (great to see 3 out of the top 4 billings are Aussie exports!).

I am super excited for Stoker, and I hope you are too (make sure you watch the trailer in at least 720p - it really packs a punch right from Kidman's brilliant opening line to the frenetic montages of gorgeous images throughout).

Updates - Carrie, Evil Dead

As some of you may have seen, this last couple of weeks have seen the release of some serious teasers for two of the films I have labelled as ones to watch. First of all is Carrie, which is impressive in its ambitious scope, and let's be honest - who doesn't love a bit of an extended dolly through a ravaged town...

Next, we have the initial teaser for Evil Dead. And it looks demonic. Utterly devoid of the humour that so marked the original trilogy, the remake looks downright gory and pretty filthy. That said, I'm glad to see flashes of the ol' 'Rape Tree' and rushes through the woods - but be warned, it's not a trailer for the faint of heart, and the last shot is one of the most disgusting I have honestly ever encountered.

So take a look, but prepare for some graphic graphics. Personally, these teasers really hit the spot, and I'm even more hopeful now that these films are going to blow some minds.

The Mist - You'd Better Not Go In The Mist Today...

I'd read the Stephen King novella that this was based on before watching the film, so I had some idea of the events to come. However, seeing them played out like this is an incredibly different experience to reading words on page, and while The Mist could certainly have benefited from a budget deserved of its 'unspeakable terrors in the mist' premise, writer/director Frank Darabont examines the human side of the apocalypse with tact and genuine emotion.

After a vicious thunderstorm damages his home, David Drayton leaves his wife to head into town with his son and pick up some supplies. While in the local supermarket with many other grocery seeking residents, an all-encompassing mist rolls over the town, and when a man runs in terrified and shouting about 'things in the mist', people get a little tense. When it's established beyond a reasonable doubt that there are indeed deadly, other-worldy creatures hidden in the dense fog with a knack for butchering the human race, relationships in the supermarket get strained. Camps develop, representing the extreme religious response to the end of days, our more realistic protagonist and his survival focused friends and finally those in utter denial of their reality. As the body count rises, those in the supermarket begin losing their minds and our hero has to find a way to survive the ordeal with his family together.


Thomas Jane owns the show here as Drayton - a man out of his depth who has to maintain appearances for his son, and somewhat for his own sanity. He's fiercely protective but incredibly tender towards his son, and his role is written particularly well. Darabont's script is spot on in its characters and their development - the political camps that form play off each other nicely, and particularly affecting is the local mechanic Jim's transformation from hard man to religious convert following his traumatic experiences. The camera is another highlight - the movement seems to pre-guess everything that the viewer wants and adapt to it, and also manages to capture some properly horrifying stuff, like the overhead tracking of the military Private as he's dragged out into the mist by the fanatics.

With everything in the film considered, it's the ending that still manages to haunt most of all. While very different to the book, it's so damn bleak that you can't help but decay inside at the horrors displayed. While yes, a little more of the old studio monies wouldn't have hurt, Darabont and Co. have crafted an effective and thought-provoking horror film - 3 out of 4 tentacles.

Take Shelter - The Perfect Storm

I’m not sure if I can truthfully call this a horror film. I can definitely label it a psychological thriller. And I can definitely label it a brilliant, brilliant movie with a creeping sense of dread that permeates every frame right up to the electrifying conclusion. So to hell with explicit ‘horror’ labels, because this modern American masterpiece is a hell of a lot more scary than Hellraiser.

Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) begins to have apocalyptic visions of huge maelstroms, destructive tornadoes, flocks of birds flying in bizarre patterns, oily raindrops that render people insane - he fears for his own sanity and the safety of his wife (Jessica Chastain) and young, hearing impaired child (Tova Stewart). His mother (Kathy Baker) has a history of paranoid schizophrenia, and Curtis struggles with his desire to protect his family from his dreams and save his own mind. We watch his life fall apart as he spends thousands of dollars trying to prepare for the ultimate storm he's sure is coming - losing his job, his insurance, his friends - but no one else seems convinced. As the community begins turning against him, it's just Curtis and his family against a small town, and perhaps the elements too...



I absolutely loved this film. Everything about it, from Michael Shannon's incredibly subtle yet explosive powerhouse performance as a man questioning his reality to the slowly advancing camera that constantly and threateningly inches towards its subjects, absolutely gripped me from start to finish. Indie writer/director Jeff Nichols creates a masterful slow-burn of tension that literally never ends - the film's final sequence (and no spoilers here - it's mind-blowing) is a summation of the film's principle tension that is at once thrilling, heart-breaking and astonishingly epic; I literally get tingles thinking about it now. The music (by David Wingo) has a lovely, string backing that builds up the emotion perfectly with occasional piano led moments in the quieter scenes. Shot on a pretty small $5 million budget, the effects in this film never threaten to steal the focus from the human element, but are perfectly integrated in the aesthetic of the whole piece. For a man in his early 30s, Nichols has much to offer cinema, and I have every faith that he will continue to deliver quality like this for decades to come.

In short, I can't quite recommend this as a pure horror, despite its taut construction and difficult subject matter. However, I can and will recommend this as a brilliant film, and easily one of the best I have seen in the past year. It's masterful film-making and takes viewers on a most brilliant journey into the depths of the human person - 96 out of 100 disorientated starlings.

One to Watch - Evil Dead

Yet another remake in the pipes, but it looks like fans needn't worry about the sacred cow of Sam Raimi's original being desecrated. While the original trilogy is best known for the slapstick of Evil Dead II and the iconography of Bruce Campbell's character Ash, the early look at this April 2013 release at New York Comic Con seemed to be incredibly stripped back and grimy - a full-blown horror with lashings of extreme violence amongst homages to the original films.

You're sure you don't want to come in?

Young Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez was chosen by Sam Raimi (who's producing the remake) off the strength of his short 2009 film Ataque de Pánico! (which can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk - made for only $300!). Early reports say that he's managed to make the film very much his own while maintaining some of the visual cues of the 1981 film e.g. the kinetic rush through the woods surrounding the cabin, so his selection seems positive. With the script developed by Álvarez and revised by Diablo Cody (Juno), we can expect a very authentic mix of teen dialogue and a hopefully cliché free film, especially given how recent films like The Cabin in the Woods have so successfully warped said clichés. The cast is a list of several young up and comers, including Jane Levy from TV's Suburgatory, Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore and Jessica Lucas, who I have no doubt will benefit from Álvarez's proximity to their ages and the seasoned production team of Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert.

Anyway, always the optimist, I have a strong belief that this will be a good one. As The Evil Dead trilogy really sparked my current passion for binging on horror films, it may be blind hope that's firing my faith for this remake, but only time will tell. Evil Dead is scheduled to hit the US on April 12, 2013, and will likely drop in Australia a month or two after that.

The Blair Witch Project - Hungry and Cold and Hunted

The Blair Witch Project revitalised an entire genre when it hit the horror scene in 1999. Extremely low budget horror has always been a staple, but the found footage twist established in no uncertain way a sub-class of terror that is here to stay. Their approach to filming was lean, mean and efficient, and the finished product proudly reflects this approach.

It's a story that most people know - the three student film-makers (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard) heading into Burkittsville, Maryland to film a documentary about the legend of the Blair Witch. Locals tell them of Rustin Parr, the hermit who murdered seven children at the behest of the spirit of Elly Kedward and others spin tales of the hair-covered witch figure in the woods. They logically decide to enter said woods and go filming at some locations from the legend, finding some odd rock formations and hearing odd sounds at night. After losing the map and admitting that they too are seriously lost, tempers begin to fray, and the woods seem to turn against them. When one of their party goes missing, terror reaches fever pitch and pretty much stays there.

My God it's effective. Shot on two cameras (a colour camcorder usually held by Heather and a black and white 16-mm camera operated by Josh), the footage is edited between the two in a way that both develops multiple perspectives and unsettles the viewers. Conversely, the gorgeous old-school of the 16-mm occasionally punctuates the colour footage with the bleak and threatening beauty of the forest slowly swallowing our trio. The filming locations are almost our film's fourth lead, and the autumn colours hide our deepest fears behind a washed-out palette. But that's the primary thrust of this film - we never see the titular witch nor Parr, it's the descent into psychosis with the students that truly terrifies us. Reading up on the filming process is incredibly interesting - the cast was hounded through the woods and deprived of food and sleep for eight days, receiving instruction left in milk crates and improvising much of the dialogue. The directors - Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez - ought to be congratulated for their unusual and highly effective approach. Finally, the cast - they're very solid, as can be expected given the calculatedly harsh treatment that they received from the crew. Heather's teary apology to the camcorder must receive a special mention - the acknowledgement that they're going to perish in those woods will still chill me for weeks to come.

Unbelievably profitable at the box office and well-received by critics, The Blair Witch Project could be called a classic of modern horror. Well-made, acted and with an incomparably dark and haunting ending, this has to be one of the better horrors I've reviewed yet. I'm now properly scared of going camping ever again - 6 out of 7 straw dolls hanging ominously from the forest's canopy...

Advantage Satan - Just Not Cricket

I was first subjected to this experience last year when it played late night on SBS. This being before I began my recent horror binge, I was relatively inexperienced/a bit soft and literally could not finish it. It shook me to my core. When I found the short film online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RbKwDItEgc) and managed to sit through the entire ordeal, I was remarkably impressed by its pitch black humour and stunningly well-matched use of the audio in tandem with some delicious camera work.

*Slurp*

The script from Rob Beamish is somewhat high concept, but it's fleshed out perfectly by the cast and remaining crew. When a young couple (Shelly Lauman & Mark Winter) are heading back from a party, they decide to have a quick, slightly pissed frolic on the local tennis courts. Abruptly, the lights flare up and the PA system blasts to life with some creepy shit. They're locked in. They try to escape. It gets intense.

I really enjoyed this. Director Sean Byrne (who wrote/directed The Loved Ones) has an eye for horror, and the tension ratcheted up here is exceptional. Our leading couple are also very solid - there's not much required from them in the short space of time but they can do loving canoodling and brain-numbingly scared with the best of them. But it's that damn soundscape that steals the show. A few songs by Wolf Eyes make up the demonic yowlings from the PA and they eat away at the viewer's resolve perfectly. All in all, Advantage Satan doesn't require much effort to watch, and it's terrifically worth the 10 or so minutes of your life that it devoures - 5 out of 6 cool, cool beverages.

One to Watch - Carrie

While remakes are inevitably greeted with groans, this one comes with a certain level of credibility. Director Kimberly Pierce comes from a background which suggests a certain prowess when it comes to extracting phenomenal performances from her cast, and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has a history in developing interesting relationships in the series Big Love.

Something in my eye?

But the real promise in this comes down to two main things - the source material and the cast. The crew have promised to be more faithful to Stephen King's novel than the 1976 film, which (having not read the book myself) I've heard is a good thing. Other adaptations of King's work have been pretty great (such as 1408 and The Mist), and pretty scary too. But the cast - oh the cast! Chloë Grace Moretz is a very special young actress and phenomenally talented. She'll be able to bring both the awkward outsider and the raging, telekinetically charged teen roles together beautifully in a melding of her parts in Kick Ass and Let Me In to play Carrie. We've also got Julianne Moore in the interesting role of Carrie's mother, which gives her a lot to work with. So yeah, I'm pretty stoked for this one to come together, and possibly net Chloë her first Oscar nomination (like it did for Sissy Spacek when she played the role originally).

New York Comic Con will get the first look at this March 2013 release in a couple of days (on October 13th), and I'm very hopeful that this could be another addition to Moretz's already very strong canon. Look forward to our review of this when it hits next year.

Kill List - Nek Minnit

This genre-bending hitman/bromance/romance/drama/horror film has confused and wowed audiences in equal measure since its release in 2011. I admit to belonging more to the former description, and everything you think you know in the first half gets blown the fuck out of the water before the film is finished. While initially more sinister than scary, researching the film's meaning actually manages to make the whole experience more haunting.

Our leading man Jay (Neil Maskell) and his best mate Gal (Michael Smiley) work as assassins to support their respective partners/families. They get in with one bunch of oddball clients who (after signing the contract in blood) set them three kills - a priest, a librarian and an MP. After working through a couple of them, Jay's past (a botched mission in Kiev) comes back to haunt him and shit gets cray. Real cray. While scoping the MP's country estate, they see some  pagan ritual types and from then, Jay, his friends and family get pulled through the shit.

The three lead performances were pretty astonishing. Maskell manages to humanise a character who is constantly fluctuating between extremes - a violent, angry bastard and a loving, family man. Smiley provides the yin to his yang, granting us with some wry smiles on our collective descent into insanity. Jay's wife (MyAnna Buring) holds her own too, playing the mix of vulnerable and fiery that the script requires with aplomb. Ben Wheatley's direction folds out in a dreamy manner, indie visuals and atmosphere languidly developing until extreme acts of violence break through the ethereal texture. His script (written with his partner Amy Jump and partly ad-libbed by the cast) is a layered affair, which develops as one goes into the underlying meanings. I found ... most helpful. I had no idea what I was watching between about the 70 minute mark and the finale, but the above reading (which I'll call compulsory for all viewers following this experience) developed a creeping fear in me and a begrudging respect.

My old friend Albert von Hammerschmidt OBE had this input to offer:
Do you enjoy having your mind fucked?
Do you yearn for that glorious empty feeling experienced after watching a movie that can be neither explained nor described?
Do you like a good gore fest?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then Kill List is for you. Superficially it has great gore and action sequences, but this is by no means a superficial film. It has layers upon layers of meanings, which are not resolved for you.
It starts as a gang/crime/assassination movie with strange lines and unexplained actions that constantly build a feeling of genuine unease that culminates into a sublime genre shift into full blown horror.
The on screen chemistry is great especially between the lead and Gal (who by the way gave one of the best performances in a horror film I have seen in many a moon). They constantly show these little quirks they have as a team, like stealing the soap and shampoo from the places they stay at, and having genuine all round college-calibre banter.
Watch this movie to be challenged, puzzled and yearning for more. A high, hearty recommendation.

It's not an easy watch, but it is a rewarding one. You'll walk away disturbed on a level you didn't know you could be. There's a proficiency in this film that most independents lack, and it benefits accordingly. While not much of a jump scare film, it is undoubtedly a horror. And a damn solid one at that - 8 out of 10 nude cultists.

One to Watch - Sinister

This is the first of the posts in which I keep an eye out for an upcoming horror release that's sure to get the people going. Since being released at FrightFest in March, Sinister has been greeted with pretty strong reviews and currently sits on a Rotten Tomatoes score of 84%, which means that 27 out of 32 reviewers so far have enjoyed the film. Let me tell you - this is high, especially for a horror.

Hey good lookin'... What you doin' later?

But the reviews aren't the real reason that I am super pumped for this one - it's the trailer that really ticks the boxes. Watch it now, and turn off all the lights before doing so. It's good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgYxydrVlDk.

I like Ethan Hawke - he does some solid work (you can look back at Training Day, Gattica and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead), and he reportedly gives a strong turn here. Director Scott Derrickson had a decent effort with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and some of the shots that can be found in the trailer (i.e. Bagul in the pool with that unsuspecting kiddie and Bagul then coming to life on the laptop screen) are amazingly, amazingly scary. However, some detractors have called the movie a little lazy, but the trailer is enough to dispel any notions of laziness for me. To be reviewed in the future...

Slender - Run! F#cking Run!

Surprise, Muthaf#cka!

I posted earlier that I wanted to branch out in terms of my reviews, so today I am bringing you the first game review, and it's a corker. Based off some dodgy mythology about a figure known as the 'Slender Man', this 1st person exploration game gets superbly creepy. Your character has climbed into a fenced-off, heavily wooded area for some unknown reason and has to try and collect 8 pages of doodles left for him by the Slender Man before getting caught.

It is absolutely, balls-to-the-wall terrifying. I didn't think that a computer game could be so horrifically disturbing. The game map is put together so that confusion is the first order of the player - the woods all end up looking the same and there are only ten landmarks (such as a decrepit truck and a run down collection of tiled rooms) to help you get your bearings, upon eight of which will be posted pages. The Slender Man pops up whenever he feels ready, though it reportedly gets more frequent the more of his notes you collect. I say reportedly because when Esteban and I played together, we were so tense that our first sighting of the aforementioned fiend caused us to leap away from the game controls and thus guaranteeing our avatar's demise without someone to control his hasty escape. Oh yeah, we literally played together, Esteban on the WASD keys and yours truly on the mouse - it's just that scary. I ended up literally sweating and yodelling 'Run! Just Fucking Run! Ahhhhh!' everytime we ran into him.

Some minor gripes - it's annoying to not be able to sprint with the torch up, the graphics are pretty average and apparently the game engine can screw up occasionally and cause the thin devil to appear right in front of you from nowhere, but they are ultimately very minor. Esteban had this sentence to contribute: Slender man creates some chronic suspenses so you will not want to watch but you have to to make page finds.

 I can highly recommend this if you're after a shocking night in - 7 out of 8 ominous, handwritten warnings.

Some nice links -
The game download site: http://slendergame.com/
A steely player finishing like a boss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayVyc0K5tCA
11 drunk guys playing Slender (vulgar yet undeniably hilarious): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwkfSmYkf4

Prometheus - Why Am I Here?

Having not yet seen the original Alien, I thought it appropriate to check out this 'quasi-prequel' before travelling to the depths of space with Sigourney Weaver. It's ambitious for sure, but when the answers to questions raised don't live up to their intriguing promise, perhaps ambition is not enough. And it's not all that scary. However, it's very well made and features stunning visuals in tandem with a mixed bag of performances.

Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her partner Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are chartered by Weyland Corp to investigate the origins of humanity in the outer reaches of the universe with a crew after finding a star map repeated in numerous ancient civilisations' cave paintings. Their ship touches down on a moon with Earth-like properties and they explore the place, finding a mysterious structure that seems to suggest that their makers originated here. But there also appear to be the remains of some horrific biotech and an absence of 'Engineers' (the name bestowed upon these primordial creators of life) which hints at some past destruction which puzzles the crew of our titular spacecraft. Elements of classic body horror are driven wild in the next hour or two and the plot gets closer to its prequel premise. As events take a turn for the worst, Shaw and Co. must a) work out what the hell is going on and b) save the world. Just an average day at the office then...

As far as horror goes, there are some nice moments, but it's ultimately more about inducing a few squirms than all out fear. The production design is uniformly excellent, boasting some filthy beasties, space-age technology and some alien architecture that evokes the stunning work of H. R. Giger and Gothic cathedrals in equal measure. Marc Streitenfeld's score is effective in generating unease thanks to some unusual techniques such as recording the music backwards then flipping it for the film. Our cast acquit themselves well (with the exception of Noomi Rapace's attempt at an English accent), with Michael Fassbender's android David stealing the show in his artificially intelligent ignorance of emotion and cold delivery. It's also well shot with some sweeping panoramas in counterpoint with tight, claustrophobic close-ups that tense the audience right up. While I caught it only regular 2D, I can only hazard a guess that the 3D would be pretty spectacular. Ultimately, the let down that undoes all the other good work is the script. It wants to know so much, and sets its own bar too high to ultimately clear. The ending in this sense feels rushed, as though they couldn't be bothered to resolve all the issues.

While not brilliant, it deserves a sequel purely to bring the same production quality and cast to what will hopefully be a better script. Prometheus wants to answer big questions like 'Why are we here? Where did we come from?', but I felt left asking 'Why am I here without a finished film to enjoy?'. With this said though, it's a fun ride up until you realise that some of it just makes no sense, so I'm awarding it 3 out of 5 doomed crew members.

Hellraiser - Frank: 'Don't Look At Me!'

I never thought that I would be an aficionado of the 'BDSM horror' sub-genre, but then I had the misfortune of watching Clive Barker's Hellraiser. While evidently a labour of love for Barker (who scripted and directed from his own novel) and though modern viewers can perhaps appreciate its kitsch and cult status, it's dead-serious tone, insane plotting and horrific cast KO any chance of a positive review here.

We see a fan of the ol' sadism school of pleasure (that would be Frank) acquire and open a mysterious puzzle box before being promptly tortured to death by the 'Cenobites', extra dimensional pain-worshipping creatures afflicted by severe ugliness. His brother and his brother's wife move into the house in which the bondage took place, and when his brother spills some blood on the floor, a mutant Frank appears from the floorboards, freshly escaped from the Cenobites' clutches. It turns out the wife once had an affair with Frank, and when she discovers him/his filthy corpse of a body, she naturally agrees to get him more blood so he can be restored and they can continue their torrid passion/borderline rape fantasies (seriously?). She begins luring unsuspecting strangers back to the attic for Frank to feed on, but Frank's brother's daughter (from his first marriage) begins to suspect something. It all gets out of hand, but not in the 'fun night in King's Cross' kind of way, more like the 'walk through Redfern alone at midnight' kind of way...

This was not Barker's first film as director, but you wouldn't know it. It has the subtlety of an old-fashioned shot to the nut sack (Anchorman 2 teaser trailer reference there...). It boasts the style of vintage pornography. It aptly demonstrates the unfortunate affliction of unintentional comedy. And finally, the production value manages to transcend its moderately low budget in all the wrong ways - if not for the solid practical effects and make-up, I would have suspected it was a home-movie. I've read some of Barker's work, and he's a great writer, and I've witnessed what I felt was a great adaptation of a Barker story (Midnight Meat Train - highly recommended), but Hellraiser feels like a shadow of its potential.

So, as I mentioned in the last post, brevity will be my new focus, so I'll push on to the input of my viewing colleagues - this time the trifecta of Esteban, Bevan from Paul's and Albert von Hammerschmidt OBE.

Esteban's contribution:
It's been real while but Mr. Savalez is back! Mr Gillard reput my visa on for study! I only travelled back from Peru recently.

Now, firstly when I arrived at college (lose!) I watched a film named 'Hellraiser' with my pals. It was not my favourite of which. There was really weird make up and strange characters and a really weird malleable box which a man played with and heaps which made strange men who wanted to give pleasure to come which I didn’t get heaps. But perhaps that is for the fact that my English has fallen since being out of Australia. The weird part was when I became stiff at sex.

If you like skin, don't watch this film because there is not much of skin. But do watch it if you like blood and haired men giving biscuits to young people. I give it 4 ours of the 10 our flight from Peru.

Bevan from Paul's' contribution:
Perms, goo and Latex. Hellraiser is one of those horror movies that fails miserably at raising a scream but completely succeeds as a wacky comedy. With fantastically outrageous costuming and design, some classic lines – "Little girl want a cookie?" – and a general absurdity of plot, Hellraiser is great fodder for a bored Thursday night's viewing.

Albert von Hammerschmidt OBE's contribution:
Pinhead is one of those classic movie monsters and therefore Hellraiser is a must watch just for this. However the script is unintentionally hilarious, with the line delivery only supplementing the misdirected script.

The movie is filled with classic WTF moments with viewers constantly asking themselves: "What just happened?" and "Why did she run up the stairs when down would have been a lot safer?"

Don't question it – just embrace it and have a fun 90 minutes with it

So, despite the grudgingly appreciative opinions of my learned friends, it can come as no surprise that Hellraiser will receive a negative rating from this blog. While impressive practical effects and multiple (unintentional) laughs (the line in this review's title is absolutely rib-tickling) raise it's standing, everything else about it really devastates any chance of success it had. I'll hand it a meagre 3 out of 11 cold beers.

Enjoy the trailer here (but avoid the finished product): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAx34IZ8bTk