TheRetroCritic

TFW your flowers are ringing. My review of The Ruins .

The third part of my Blood Let's Play. Get off. My. Train!

I talk briefly about new sci-fi horror film Life .

Sleeping is bad for you. I think if there's one thing horror movies have taught me it's that. After movies like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and its badass 70's remake, it was time to freak teenagers out again with yet another film which sees its characters go to sleep and regret it instantly. A Nightmare On Elm Street also famously gave a young Johnny Depp a prominent-ish role and introduced us to one of the most lasting movie monsters to date: Freddy Krueger, a character Robert Englund would go on to play many, many times. Wes Craven's original film is a trashy but competently made and always entertaining mix of jump-scares, tense build-ups and cartoonish violence. It's one of those horror movies that isn't really all that scary unless you're a kid seeing it for the very first time. Watching it as a kid, it did leave its mark on me but revisiting it now I can appreciate it as just a solid horror movie with an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek overall vi

Flop or not, Quentin Tanrantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse was certainly influential enough with countless crazy-ass films trying to capture the same type of trashy faux-thenticity and lolgasmic OTT nonsense since. The results have been a mixed bag, for sure, but I'm happy to say Hobo With A Shotgun is one of the good ones. It seemed pretty promising, the prospect of an aging Rutger Hauer shotgunning down thugs "one shell at a time" was something to look forward to. In the end we got a film which unfortunately didn't have that "event" quality Planet Terror possessed but which did not disappoint delivering a strong, funny, completely entertaining addition to the subgenre. Hobo With A Shotgun works as a stylish, well made Troma flick with less boobs but more surreal cruelty... and more hobos. The film looks great with its, ahem, interesting colour palette mostly limited to red or blue half the time, Hauer plays it straight and does a fantas

How do you make a good zombie movie? For one thing, not having a circus dwarf take a shit in the woods for 10 minutes half-way through your film is a good bloody start! Also, repeating awful jokes again and again doesn't help, as does making your film for £6.95. To be fair, for such a low budget this is pretty ambitious stuff and some of it works albeit on a very (VERY) trashy level. Made in the UK, Zombie Women of Satan aspires to be a Troma-style Grindhouse gore-fest but falls way short in that it has no real style or at least some good jokes. Instead we've got a lot of terrible actors trying to be funny and 90% of the time failing to do so. Thankfully though, this is quickly followed by ridiculous gore: the film's one saving grace. The practical gore effects are actually not too bad considering the no budget nature of the film. Also, the idea of burlesque performers fighting zombies is not too bad and there are quite a few genuinely unpleasant, disturbing moments.

Sure, the very idea of a trippy animation in which Johnny Depp plays a chameleon wearing a Hawaiian shirt ALONE is amazing. But can that image hold up an entire film on its own? Hmmmm, barely. To be fair, this being Gore Verbinski's first venture into animation, this was never going to be pitch-perfect. Then again Wes Anderson's first attempt with Fantastic Mr Fox was pretty polished. I will say this, though: the film looks great. Visually, it is definitely impressive. Although I will nitpick and say that there are way too many close-ups throughout. Like, ok, do we NEED to see every scale on that snake's face? Can't we just assume it has them? Rango really is an ode to Depp. You've got a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reference, you've got a whole bit where Rango displays his acting chops (one of his characters being, ahem, a pirate)...and yes Depp is great in this. Most of the cast is actually pretty good too. The problem, well, one of them, unfortunat

Absolutely brilliant reimagining of the first Evil Dead as a slapstick comedy. Consistently creative and hilarious, Sam Raimi clearly has the time of his life here as Bruce Campbell gets drenched in every bodily fluid known to man whilst giving cinema some of its best and least subtle one liners ever. "Groovy!" indeed this is. And as if the first Evil Dead wasn't insane enough we now have evil hands, laughing deer heads, headless dancing corpses and god knows what else to worry about. Evil Dead 2 is probably one of the most chaotic films you'll ever experience but if you have a slightly twisted sense of humour and enjoy a good horror film, this is a treat. This sequel has a notably more significant budget than the first Evil Dead which relied mostly on DIY practical (and make-up) effects not to mention lots and lots of screaming to create the required atmosphere. Here, Raimi spends the dough wisely and makes this second instalment the best and most

Basket Case may be a one joke movie, but what a joke it is. Guy carries around a basket with a monster in it (well...brother...long story) and the monster is sent off to kill a bunch of seedy doctors. It's a revenge movie with horror, drama, romance, monster rape: it's got it all! This first instalment is very low budget so expect something gritty looking and very DIY in its approach but there's plenty of fun to be had with the use of stop-motion animation, entertaining comedy side characters and loads of blood...oh and one of the longest (read: pointless) and most elaborate flashbacks you're likely to see. The mystery shrouding the basket itself during the first half hour is actually pretty clever in the way it's handled. The anticipation is nail-biting and the reveal: delightful! The murders are as wacky and colourful as you'd expect and although the story is pretty slight and the acting mostly dire it's all worth it just to get to the odd

Only David Cronenberg could make us take exploding heads seriously. Not to mention make the out-there concept of mind scanning believable! Then again, out there is kind of Cronenberg's whole deal. After all this is the guy behind such wacko creations as Crash and Videodrome . If anything, Scanners is one of his most straight-forward ventures. Scanners is sci-fi/horror done right: from the tense, unsettling opening scene to the final bloody showdown, this is a ride through a dark and disturbing near future that's hard to forget. Michael Ironside is particularly good as the demented, powerful vilain Stephen Lack's somewhat bland scanner is up against and The Prisoner 's Patrick McGoohan offers fine support as the doctor who trains him. Overall, Scanners is an atmospheric, often chilling sci-fi story with some welcome gore and impressive special effects. One of Cronenberg's best.

Jeffrey Combs gives an iconic performance as the creepy doctor convinced he can re-animate the dead with a fluorescent serum which has NEVER worked properly. And although his serum backfires every single time, he still has that quiet, cool demeanor throughout, as if he knows what he's doing (he doesn't: he's insane). A hugely entertaining and creative take on the Frankenstein story (with the Psycho music theme, strangely), Re-Animator is pretty perfect as a horror film and its cult status is well deserved. The great premise is fully taken advantage of with a rampaging killer cat (lol), a talking severed head and countless other classic morgue moments. As derivative as it is, Re-Animator feels completely original and the whole thing is actually pretty stylish and well made. It's not particularly scary but it stays very tongue-in-cheek throughout and a lot of it is just very funny. Overall, this is a must-see for any horror B movie fan and anyone who&

In many ways, Leprechaun 2 is a superior sequel. Then again, it is a sequel to  Leprechaun  so how good could it possibly be? Kinda like how  Evil Dead 2 is a sequel to Evil Dead , this Leprechaun is really more of a remake or a reimagining of the first film with only Warwick Davis' evil fantastical critter in common: the plot doesn't continue from the first instalment and it seems like this time there is some kind of budget involved despite the (unsurprising) absence of Jennifer Aniston. Whereas the first film took place in and around some old house, this time we actually have a story with characters you actually sort-of care about (not Shevonne Durkin, she's rubbish) and *gasp* numerous locations! Now the Leprechaun is looking for a bride to... cover in gold and impregnate (as you do) but he can only do that with a descendant of the daughter of a past slave of his and that'll only work if she sneezes three times and no-one says "God bless you".