THE HUNT (2020)

May 10, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged 2000s, bluray, gore, horror | Leave a comment

THE HUNT (2020)

*The Australian Bluray release of The Hunt*

If there’s one thing that horror movies have taught me, it’s that hunting humans, ain’t nothing but nothin’. Seriously though, there’s not much I love more than a film that is all about some kind of human hunt… that is after giallo, and slashers… from Turkey Shoot to Battle Royale, and from Countess Perverse to Condemned, I love me a popcorn flick that throws a bunch of perceived lower-caste people being hunted by the upper class, and then seeing them raining down pain and revenge onto the hunters. It’s a blast, usually with a touch of social commentary and always a big pile of tasty tasty violence.

Weirdly, this film didn’t slip by me when it was release on home video in Australia, as I found I had a copy in my possession, but what did happen is it just slipped into my collection without a watch. The Hunt recently appeared on Netflix and I realised that not only did I own but had not watched it, the trailer I saw blew my socks off.

What’s happened next? I dug that disc out and threw it on to enjoy the carnage!

The Hunt was directed by Craig Zobel whose work I previously enjoyed in his quiet post-apocalyptic flick Z for Zachariah which starred a pre-Harley Quinn Margot Robbie and written by Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the Lost TV series, and Nick Cuse who previously has written episodes of Watchmen and the TV series Maniac.

The Hunt find 12 people waking up in a field, gags in their mouths and a large crate in front of them. Upon opening the crate, they find a pig, and weapons…

… HEAPS of weapons…

*Oops. ‘Yoga Pants’ gets lead poisoning*

…and almost immediately, someone from somewhere starts firing at them and very quickly they realise they they are being hunted, but by who? Was their capture random or were they specifically targeted?

Soon we are introduced to our heroine, Crystal (Betty Gilpin from Glow) who doesn’t appear to be like the rest of the prey. She’s gun-smart, aggressive, attentive to detail and prepared to take out anyone and everyone who gets in her way… but can she trust the others who are being hunted… can she trust anyone at all? And what will she do when she finds out who organised this whole hunt?

This film easily had one of my favourite movie posters of all time. It had a bunch of negative, political-charged quotes all over it with, ‘THE MOST TALKED ABOUT FILM OF THE YEAR IS ONE THAT NO ONE’S ACTUALLY SEEN’, reflecting the knee-jerk reaction people have to clickbait internet crap that sometimes reacted to without discovering the full story.

This is where part of the fun is in this film: it’s not putting either the red or the blue in front of each other, but it is presenting extremism at its very worst.

Actually, no. That’s no really true. This film is a fun battle Royale romp that exercises some very subtle choices in regards to whether it’s political or not, and I see it as quite anti-political. Actually, anti-people-who-see-politics in everything. As usual, cinema can be a fun reflection on the real world.

That may be a conscious decision on my part because I preferred to enjoy the film as a black comedy and a violence drenched action film, or it could be that I’m just ignorant.

The lead played by Gilpin is an amazing example of the modern version of an 80s/ 90s action hero. Few words, uncannily superb at various acts of violence, has an understanding of the military and its procedures. Barely speaks, and when she does, it’s an insult laced with swearing – just the way we like our action heroes.

One thing I found really surprising was the amount of named actors in cameo/ bit parts: Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Sturgill Simpson, Amy Madigan, Justin Hartley, just to name a few. So many small parts that all have memorable scenes even though some of them don’t even have names like Emma Roberts’ ‘Yoga Pants’, or Suplee’s ‘Shut the Fuck Up Gary’.

All in all, The Hunt is a roller coaster of violence and comedy, with a slight nod to the current political climate and a touch of Animal Farm by George Orwell, and all this makes for an extraordinarily fun time.

Extras: Only three extras on this disc:

Crafting the Hunt is a little mini-making of where the cast and crew discuss the film with some amusing anecdotes, especially from Gilpin talking about how her and her husband, after reading the script, said it was going to aggravate political-charged people, but they came to the conclusion that they weren’t sure which side.

Death Scene Breakdowns looks at the violence and the gore… the fantastic amounts of violence and gore.

Athena vs Crystal: Hunter or Hunted is a fun exploration of the final fight.

Film: 8/10

Extras: 2/10

Rewatchability: 10/10

This film was purchased from JB Hifi

FALLING DOWN (1993)

April 26, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged 90s, bluray, horror, Michael Douglas | Leave a comment

FALLING DOWN (1993)

*The cover to the Australian release of Falling Down*

Movies are a wonderful thing insomuch that as you change through your life, they hit differently.

I first saw this film in 1993 at the cinemas that were just a short walk from my house. I was in love with two things then; the woman who is still my wife all these years later, and the movies. I’d grown out of comics and toys and video games and I hadn’t yet discovered the joys of writing like I do now.

The second time I saw this film was on the 29th July 2009. I know that date because I bought it on the day it came out. At that point had three loves: I’d been married over ten years to the same woman, a daughter we shared and still, good old cinema.

Finally I watched it today. Married 30 odd years, adult daughter, and me still writing and loving movies, though now I only work casual after being a retail manager for 30 odd years as I had a stroke during lockdown (unrelated to the vaccine) and can’t really work full time due to a bit of PTSD and a mild learning disorder.

I know, I know: why am I telling all this boring personal crap?well it is relevant to movies hitting differently. When I first saw it, I watching it as a fan of film, a fan of director Joel Schumacher and a fan of Michael Douglas. I didn’t get excited by the politics of the film because basically I am not sure I fully understood them at that age.

The second time I watched it more as a student of film, and looked at the nuances of how it was made and honestly paid little attention to the story but more on performances and mise en scene and all that cool movie stuff that we feel is so important.

Now, I see what it really is: it’s a story about how easily we get chewed up and spat out by society. It’s about how we rarely see how we are seen by others. About how no matter how important you feel you are in a situation, you are not. It’s about how people talk about main character energy, but no one actually has it. In a hundred years, nothing you have done matters, but it’s how you deal with that realisation is the key to your happiness.

Falling Down was written by Ebbe Roe Smith, who also gave us Turner and Hooch, and was directed by Lost Boys director Joel Schumacher, and tells the story of a man we come to know as D-Fens (Michael Douglas) who after sitting in a traffic jam on a hot day, decides to abandon his car and make his way to his estranged ex-wife, Beth’s (Barbara Hershey) house to visit his daughter, Adele (Joey Singer) on her birthday, and the trail of violence he leaves in his wake as he sees so many people in the city seeming trying to stop him.

Falling Down is also about Detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall), a cop who has been convinced by his wife (Tuesday Weld) to retire, even though he clearly doesn’t share her desire, but is willing to comply for her mental health. On his last day though, he is the only one who joins the dots on D-Fens’ rampage, and convinces his former partner, Sandra (Rachel Ticotin) to help him solves the puzzle of who the man is that’s committing all these acts of violence across the city.

I feel this film is about the pressure of a modern lifestyle and the pressures put on us from others around us, and how we make conscious choices as to how we deal with them. I think as a younger man I did sympathise with D-Fens but as I have matured, and I use that term very loosely, I see so much more in this film. I think it’s also about futility as well, as no matter how hard you work, it’s not appreciated in the way you would like to think it does.

The film has so much racism and prejudice stamped all over it and that is certainly a sign of the times it was made, and I hope as a society we have become a little more tolerant. The film cleverly initially identifies D-Fens from a misunderstood man, to vigilante to nutjob quite subtlety that you don’t even immediately become aware that the guy who you were at first thinking ‘yeah, I’m with you brother’ has become psychotic, and as we explore his background, may have always been that way. They even make you doubt your feigning support as you meet an intolerant crackpot who aligns himself with D-Fens, much to his disgust, and he rejects what he has become entirely.

I love all the choices of the actors in this film. I have a theory that every movie’s story is a ‘B’ movie’s story but it’s the choice of actors that elevate it. This is certainly the case here. All the budget would have gone to the quality of actors and the performances, but everyone, from Douglas’ slow descent into psychopathy to Weld’s hysterical wife, nail their performance. Sure they all feel a little cartoonish at times but I think Schumacher’s direction sometimes borders on that.

Another thing I do really like about this film, and it’s something that was brought to my attention in a book about Psychos and Madmen in film (it may have been by John McCarthy, I can’t quite remember) is that most films like this already have the psycho in full flight, revelling in their psychopathy. In this film, we see the last straw leave the antagonists mind, and through the course of the film you find that while you have sympathy FOR him, you don’t sympathise WITH him, something that I didn’t necessarily understand at all previously. Seeing the slow devolution is am impressive feat in the story, direction and performance.

Weirdly, I used to like this film a whole lot more, but it resonates so different with me at my current stage of life, so it’s dropped of maybe a whole point. Is that because it rings true or because I’m in a different place politically? I guess that’s something for me to work out.

… it’s certainly evidence of what a wonderful thing cinema is, as I always thought.

*The menu screen to the Australian bluay*

Extras: Not many extras on this disc, but the directors commentary by Schumacher, Smith, Douglas, editor Paul Hirsch and others is fascinating, as is the interview with Douglas about the character of D-Fens and the different obstacles the film had to overcome to get to the cinema.

There is also a trailer.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 6/10

Rewatchability: 4/10

*A madman with a gym bag of guns is not healthy.*

This Bluray was purchased from JB Hifi

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2

April 12, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged bluray, Friday the 13th, horror, Slasher | Leave a comment

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2

*The cover of the Australian Bluray release*

The franchise that takes a licking and still keeps on ticking.

The Friday films are a massive part of my love of horror films. Probably the first non-Universal Monsters toy I ever bought would have been a Billikin vinyl model kit of Jason walking down stairs. It didn’t just change the type of model kits I make (I’m currently doing a kit of Betty Page undressing the Creature from the Black Lagoon costume) but it also stopped me from watching Universal and Hammer films, and turned me on to slashers, which in turn turned me onto my real true love, giallo films.

I wasn’t aware of the Friday films when they first came out, but I became a fan when I started hanging out at my local video shop in the early to mid-eighties, a place I eventually worked at, and started making my way through their horror section, and loved them, and have ever since.

Friday the 13th Part 2 is a surprise for two reasons. One, and if I need to place a spoiler alert for a Friday the 13th film, you may have discovered this site by accident, the killer from the first film is definitely dead… there is some extreme injuries the human body can come back from, but decapitation isn’t one of them. The second is the return of Jason, who was the motivation for his mother to kill all the teenagers, and was only seen as a child in a fantasy that Adrienne King’s Alice had after the trauma of seeing all her friends murdered and being pursued herself. This film takes place a short time later and for some reason our new killer, Jason himself, is a fully grown man, even though he died years ago.

Insert ‘what the hell’ emoji here.

I find it hilarious that EVERYONE who worked on the second film will say in various documentaries and extras about the film that they did t know how a sequel could be made. I think that that is hilarious that even the cast and crew shrugged their shoulders and went with it.

Friday the 13th Part 2 was written by Ron Kurz, who would also give us part 3 a year later and the Final Chapter soon after than, and was directed by Steve Miner whose list of directorial efforts are a mile long, but include both genre pieces like Friday the 13th Part 3 and House, but also episodes of The Wonder Years and Dawson’s Creek.

*Everyone loves a little head, but not in the fridge*

Friday the 13th Part 2 starts 2 months after the events of the first film with us revisiting Alice (Adrienne King) who is living alone and suffering with the PTSD (aka flashbacks to the previous film) of what happened to her, when she finds the head of Mrs. Voorhees in her fridge and is promptly dispatched by a very large man.

We flash forward five years later to the Packanack Lake Region Summer Camp Councillor Training Camp, near Camp Crystal Lake, run by Paul (John Furey) and his assistant/ partner Ginny (Amy Steel), and a bunch of youngsters all willing and eager to learn how to become camp councillors.

Paul tells the legend of Camp Crystal Lake, of Jason Voorhees, who drowned there and whose body went missing, and of his mother, Pamela Voorhees who killed a bunch of councillors for revenge against the kids who weren’t watching her son when he drowned, and how they believed Jason survived the drowning and lived in the wood like an animal… what? Ok, anyway…

One night, most of the councillors go into town for a bit of fun, but as the night wears on, those left behind start to get picked off by… something, or someONE!

For me it’s hard to get over the nonsensical mistreatment of the story, but I am prepared to climb over that obstacle to get to the rest of the Friday films which I do love as a whole, and it gave me my beloved Part V which is easily my favourite one. I think if there were more of an explanation of the story other than this massive suspension of disbelief I would like it more, but as a viewer you are just offered ‘the dead kid from the first film is back… we don’t know why, but deal with it.’ It’s one thing for a character like Michael Myers to get shot six times and fall off a balcony and survive but a zombie child stalking the woods for about 30 years and his mother who still grieved for him didn’t know about it seems unbelievable (even for horror) and assumes the viewer won’t care and will swallow anything… which we did, and still do.

There are things I do really like about this film, though. The first is the group of young people who are playing the camp councillors. I found them to be a little more real and less cartoony than the actor played the ones in the first film. I honestly can’t pinpoint exactly what it is but maybe it’s just that they are more likeable. I’m also still surprised to this day that they even has a really charming disabled character killed… when I first saw this film I assumed he would have survived! I think Amy Steel is a great final girl too, and a cinematic crush of mine as a teenager.

**Friday the 13th Part 2: an equal opportunities employer**

The other is the gore gags. They all look great and are inventive. Not only did they do things like double up on the human kebab, but also some of the other bits that made it next level: a blade to the face is one thing, but then a fall down theory odd steps just unlined the non-survivability of the situation.

It’s a Friday film: you know that you will get what’s on the box, and you will love it regardless of its issues. It’s also the start of the Jason era, so I can’t be too harsh on it.

*The menu screen to the Australian Bluray release*

Extras: As I said in my review for the original film, it’s hard to really judge extras on a F13 disc fairly anymore as the doco and book of Crystal Lake Memories collates all the stories and anecdotes together in one place.

Speaking of which…

Inside Crystal Lake Memories is an interview with Peter Bracke who wrote the Crystal Lake

Friday’s Legacy: Horror Conventions looks at horror fans at horror conventions. I’m not really a convention guy so this didn’t really mean anything to me at all. I write so I DON’T have to interact with others.

Lost Tales of Camp Blood Part 1is a short film that was also seen on the disc for the first Friday the 13th Bluray. I didn’t th*ni much of it then and I don’t think much of it now.

Jason Forever sees 4 of the actors who played Jason Voorhees come together to do a Q and A and a Fangoria convention.

Original theatrical trailer is what it says it is.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 5/10

Rewatchability: 10/10

This Bluray was purchased from JB Hifi

PANDEMIC (2016)

March 29, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged bluray, horror, pandemic | 2 Comments

PANDEMIC (2016)

I was going to review this film about 5 years ago, but something happened in the world that seemed to make it a bad idea, and so I decided that in March 2025, 5 years after the World Health Organisation declared a world wide pandemic, that perhaps it was time to review this film, 2016’s Pandemic, directed by John Suits from a script by Dustin T. Benson, which, according to IMDB, is his only cinematic credit.

That’s a red flag, right there!

When I grabbed this movie on Bluray when it was first released, a pandemic seemed to be a science fiction concept from a zombie movie or a 50s science fiction short story from Analog Magazine. I grabbed this film because I have an affection for Rachel Nichols, who I liked in things like the Amityville Horror remake and P2, which is still a surprisingly ok thriller. Any of the goodwill that I had was lost after spending 90 minutes watching this garbage.

What I did not know about this film when I purchased it was that it is a found footage styled film. As it is I’m not a fan of found footage films. I never find it immersive. I think The Blair Witch Product is a terrible waste of time and money wrapped in an extraordinary marketing campaign like nothing that was seen before or since. I don’t believe the fandom of that film would be as high if the accompanying marketing… let’s call it what it was… lies were as well executed and I’m stunned how easily people are OK with bullcrap in a film advertising campaign but if it was a food stuff that told you you would be better looking and more muscular when it did not do those things, most would want their money back.

Pandemic tells of a world after a horrible virus that changes people into the flesh-eating cannibals that at various stages of viral incubation are still able to reason and use tools… actually, I feel like it’s never made entirely clear though there is a description of 5 level of infection so basically the story can make up what type of infected they have depending on what the story needs.

In a compound of uninfected doctors researching a cure, Dr Greer (CSI’s Paul Guilfoyle) assembles a team to rescue some victims who are held up in the city. In this team are Lauren (Rachel Nichols) a New York Doctor working with the CDC, Wheeler (Game of Thrones’ Alfie Allen) the driver, Gunner (Dawn of the Dead (2003) Mekhi Phifer) who acts as the worst security ever and Denise (Missi Pyle from Josie and the Pussycats) the navigator. There are all fitted with protective uniforms that have headcams on them for research purposes, according to Dr Greer, and this is how we get our story.

As you would expect, the mission goes to utter crap and one of the team isn’t who they say they are, and their personal mission may put everyone else in extreme danger…

The first person aspect feels more like the director didn’t know how to set the scene and opted for found footage look for no reason other than utter laziness. It’s NOT immersive. It DOES NOT add to the drama. If anything, it’s distracts from the drama and makes some quality actors look like they are rank amateurs,

Another problem comes from the costume design: you see, when characters spend time talking directly to each other wearing big transparent helmets that are obviously not well ventilated, the screens mist up, and the when light is shined directly onto that mask, the reflection obscures the faces of the actors. This is a another amateurish issue that even the worst of filmmakers who be aware of.

*A zombie from Rec… oh no, sorry, a scene from Pandemic*

Not that this actually matter too much because these four fairly good actors are simply terrible in this film. At no point do I sympathise or empathise with any of them at all. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disinterested in the plight of characters so much in a film.

There is an occasional bit of gore that works well, but it’s not enough, especially considering some of the CGI fire is utter crap!

This film is basically an amateurish pastiche of Hardcore Henry, Doomsday, Rec and 28 Weeks Later that is so confusing at times with the headcams that you can barely tell who is doing what.

Avoid like, well, the plague.

Extras:

The disc starts with trailers for Take Down and The Curse of Sleeping Beauty, and that’s the entirety of the extras. Having said that, both these films look low budget and ridiculous but I’m intrigued by both trailers and am going to seek them out!

Film: 1/10

Extras: 2/10

Rewatchability: 0/10

Purchased from JB Hifi. Still haven’t forgiven them for allowing me to do so.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

March 15, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged 80s, bluray, Friday the 13th, horror, jason voorhees | Leave a comment

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

*The Australian Bluray release of the film*

Film: So here’s the thing. I have always tried to make my reviews at minimum 500 words long so that at least there appears to be some kind of substance to my writing, but what does one write about a film that had SO much written about it over the years, not to mention countless YouTube videos and Instagram posts. I basically have two choices: start with a long preamble about what new could be written about a 45 year old horror classic to get to the hundred word mark, or just reflect on my thoughts in the film, and how much it means to me, not just as a singular film, but as a series.

Or I could do both!

As you well know, Friday the 13th was released in 1980, was written by Victor Miller and directed by Sean S. Cunningham and is one of the early slashers that spawned not just hundreds of imitators, but a load of sequels, merchandise, and most of all, horror fans.

Now I always do a plot synopsis at this point of the review and I shall here again, just in case there is that single person who has never seen Friday the 13th though i wonder why you would be here on this mainly horror and cult movie website.

(It has since been pointed out to me that this review, even though it is for a horror classic, is actually 45 years old, and how many films did I watch as a young horror fan that were 45 years old. My answer to that was bloody heaps of them, because 40 odd years before when I first became a horror fan was the 40s, when a shed load of amazing horror and sci-fi came out so there’s no excuse.)

Friday the 13th tells of Alice (Adrienne King) a young woman helping to get a new summer camp open at Crystal Lake, run by her maybe boyfriend Steve (Peter Brouwer), and the other councillors (including Kevin Bacon before he was cured properly).

The final councillor who is supposed to arrive, Annie (Robbie Morgan) has disappeared on her way to the camp though, and we, the viewers, know that she has been murdered by an unidentified assailant who picked her up as she was hitchhiking on her way there.

Steve disappears into town to collect supplies after Annie is a no-show, and very quickly, the workers start getting picked off one by one. As the body count rises, we are left to wonder… who is the murderer? Is it one of the councillors? Could it be Steve? Maybe Ralph (Walt Gorney), the town crazy… who knows?

I can’t express just how important this film is too me. I have so much Friday the 13th stuff in my house: board games, soundtracks on vinyl, action figures of multiple characters, my first Fright Rags tshirt was a Jason one, and the thing that got me interested in vinyl model kits as a teen was a really cool one from the Japanese company Billiken, and then one from Screamin’ soon after.

This is the thing, though: most of that stuff is of Jason Voorhees… and not of the killer in this film. This is it, this is an important film and it launched a whole pile of stuff that i love… but it is not my favourite Friday the 13th film. It is violent and exciting and the cast in it are fine, the soundtrack is amazing and the gore effects are heaps of fun, but its a low budget film and it does show.

Just to clarify I do not thing this film is bad or worthless as it is not, but what it is is the beginning of something that i came to love as a horror fan.

If I am to criticise this holiest of holies in the horror genre, it’s just for a few things. The acting is quite horrible here and there, not all the cast, but a few of them have a very low score in the skill marker for this. That’s ok though, it’s a cheap horror film from the 80s and realistically, we don’t always expect too much and it adds to the charm.

*No matter the horror film, Annie (Robbie Morgan) always dies*

My second criticism is I feel the film occasionally, in my mind anyway, posits itself as being a whodunnit insomuch as I feel like we are supposed to be guessing who the killer is, like an Argento film or even a Hitchcock, but even though we are introduced to a bunch of weird characters in town with Annie, including crazy Carl, and even have a few moments where some of the councillors seem a bit off, like after one of them kills a snake and there is a lingering look at him musing on the creatures execution, when the reveal happens, everyone goes ‘who the hell is this?’ I keep coming back to this and looking for some kind of a clue but either it’s not there or I am simply a freaking idiot.

The latter is infinitely possible.

I have a lot of affection for this film, but if somebody said to me “want to watch a Friday the 13th film? Your choice!’, this would not be my go-to flick. That’s not to say it’s not a horror classic or it deserves to be rewatched regularly either.

Disc: There is a huge bunch of extras on this disc and whilst I appreciate the volume of content, I must admit that any extra on a Friday the 13th film is overshadowed by the amazing Crystal Lake Memories documentary and accompanying book (or vise versa). These extras are good ON THIS DISC but that doco offers so much more behind the scenes stuff that without plumbing that well, its hard to have original stuff.

Theres a decent Commentary by Sean S. Cunningham but its most of the same anecdotes you’ve heard before: hosted by Peter M. Bracke.

Return to Crystal Lake: The Making of Friday the 13th is fine, but as I stated previously, watch Crystal Lake Memories instead.

A Friday the 13th Reunion is a reunion from 2008 at a convention of Tom Savini, Ari Lehman, Victor Miller, Betsy Palmer, Harry Manfredini and Adrienne King. It’s a cute piece but it’s all the anecdotes you’ve heard before.

The Man Behind the Legacy: Sean S. Cunningham is a short interview with Cunningham on his work.

Lost Tales from Camp Blood Part 1 was written and directed by Andrew Ceperley and it’s an amateurish take of the Friday the 13th movies: I have no idea why it’s on here.

The Friday the 13th Chronicles is more of the same with the same anecdotes but was probably of a previous DVD release.

Secrets Galore Behind the Gore is a very Quick Look at the for through the eyes of Cunningham and Savini.

Fresh Cuts: New Tales from Friday the 13th is again, interesting but not a great deal of fresh material.

There’s also a trailer.

*Marcie (JeannineTaylor) axed the wrong question*

Film: 7/10

Extras: 10/10 (with the aforementioned caveat)

Rewatchability: 10/10

This film was reviewed with the Australian Bluray release, purchased from JB Hifi.

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981)

March 1, 2025 by J.R. in digital retribution review, To Watch Pile and tagged 80s, bluray, Fulci, gore, haunted, horror, italian, italy, lucio fulci, Zombie, zombies | Leave a comment

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981)

*The cover to Cinema Cult’s bluray release*

I make massive attempts to not be a gatekeeper when it comes to horror. I am almost definitively a live and let live guy. Manos The Hand of Fate is the best horror film ever? Ok, sure thing pal. There’s nothing scarier than an Annabelle film? No worries, junior.

There is a caveat and that is Italian horror: you don’t like it, I doubt your horror cred, sorry, that’s just the way it is. Is it because I’m an arsehole? Maybe. Is it generational? Definitely.

For those who don’t know, let this Gen X dinosaur explain who Lucio Fulci was. Lucio Fulci was an Italian movie director who made his first film, a comedy, in 1959 and was in the middle of making the movie The Wax Mask in 1997 when he tragically passed away, a film eventually finished by Sergio Stivaletti.

Fulci is best know for his horror and giallo films of the 70s and 80s. Such films as the thrillers Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Don’t Torture a Duckling, the slasher New York Ripper and what most horror films of a particular generation know him for, three unrelated in story but tonally equivalent City of the Living Dead, The Beyond and this one, The House By The Cemetery.

The House by the Cemetery tells of Dr Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco), his wife Lucy (Catriona MacColl, though listed in the credits as ‘Katherine’) and son, Bob (Giovanni Frezza) are moving to a strange house in New Whittby, Massachusetts so Norman can continue the work of his ex-colleague Dr. Peterson, a man who murdered his partner and then himself.

Strangely, Bob has been having strange visions of a girl named Mae Freudstein (Sylvia Collatina) who has been consistently warning him away from going to the house, something a child obviously has no control over.

*Pieroni is up to no good, or is she? It’s not really explained…*

Odd things keep happening though as Norman is recognised by several locals even though he claims to have never been there before, and the basement of the house is locked and boarded up… well, it was until babysitter Ann (Anita Pieroni) inexplicably removes the boards one night, but what is down there?

What is going on in the house? What do Bob’s visions have to do with it all? Is there someone else living in the house, or maybe someTHING is dwelling in the basement…

Honestly, I can’t tell you what the hell is going on in this film. There is so much stuff that’s unexplained like characters looking knowingly at each other like co-conspirators, but there time travel involved, are these ghosts… so many questions, so few answers.

I feel like Fulci was trying to make Norman some kind of enigmatic character like Jack from The Shining. All of the recognition from the locals is quite obvious and yet it is not even slightly explored. I kept expecting the film to end with a photo of the house from the 1800s with him standing out the front. It’s never exploited outside of the strange side-eyes and ‘have you been here before?’

There is a lot of fun gore though, and the dubbing of some characters, particularly Bob, is so laughable that it makes the movie even more fun to watch, and between those two things, all that confusion with the script washes away and it just become dumb entertainment.

Whilst this certainly isn’t top level Fulci, it IS infinitely rewatchable: I don’t know why, but it is! Yet another thing I don’t understand about this film!

Disc: There’s 4 interviews and a featurette on this disc.

Back to the Cellar is an interview with Giovanni Frezza aka Bob.

Cemetery Woman is a decent interview with Catriona MacColl. Lots of memories of Fulci here.

Finishing the Final Fulci is an interview with Sergio Stivaletti and him taking over the directorial role of Fulci’s final film, The Wax Mask, after he passed away.

Freudstein’s Follies is an interview with Gianetto De Rossi, the special effects man for the film.

Ladies of Horror is a look at various Italian horror movie stars.

These are all High Riding Productions shorts which are all directed by Calum Waddell whom usually works for Arrow Video with these shorts so I am assuming they have been purchased by Cinema Cult for this disc.

All interesting but of varying lengths. There is probably a really good solid singular feature about Fulci in here somewhere, but these shorts have some great anecdotes in them.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 8/10

Rewatchability: 10/10

*The real estate agent realises the housing crisis is worse than she thought!*

This Australian Bluray was purchased from JB Hifi.

UNTIL DAWN (2025) – PLAYSTATION 5

February 19, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged horror, PlayStation 5, until dawn, video game | Leave a comment

UNTIL DAWN (2024)

Game: I would like to say that as a horror fan I am not 100% sure how I missed out on Until Dawn’s release in 2015, but I was probably due to this reason: Call of Duty.

My video game experience at that point was solely online: Call of Duty and Battlefield were my thing all day and all night, so Until Dawn slipped right by me. I’m older now and my tolerance of online personalities and also the fact that I’m ten years slower than what I was then so my online gaming avocation is coming to a close and I spend more time playing games solo and a few weeks ago I discovered the remastered redo of Until Dawn that was released in 2024.

My discovery of Until Dawn came after I spoke highly of a game called ‘The Quarry’, less a video game but more an animated Choose Your Own Adventure experience like the series of books of the same name, you know the ones you would read as a child… or as an old man like the fact I read one last week, and a friend told me I needed to try this.

Until Dawn isn’t like you average game: you don’t run and shoot, or drive in cars or get a victory Royale, instead, you get to play it how you want to play it. A scene is played out and through the course of it you are given decisions, and these decisions don’t just effect the gameplay, they change the characters as you play them, so the gameplay evolves as the characters evolve. This means the games have lots of opportunities for replaying them.

Until Dawn started with a bunch of friends away on a trip at their rich friends snow lodge, which honestly is massive, like an old hotel, labyrinthine like the Overlook in The Shining and some of the members of the group decide to play an awful prank on one of their own, Hannah (Ella Lentini), that is so cruel she runs into the forest at night, her twin sister, Beth, in hot pursuit. They quickly find themselves being chased by a flamethrower wielding man (Larry Fessenden), who causes them to run blindly off a cliff, and are never seen again.

12 months later, their brother Josh (Remi Malek), invites the friends back for a party to remember the sisters, but after separating, they quickly find they are being hunted by a man in a mask. Who is this man hunting them? Is he the same flamethrower wielding man from the previous year, and what do any of them have to do with the mysterious asylum further up the snowbound mountain, and the miners who went missing over 50 years ago?

Cut in between the scenes of the game are sections where you are being interviewed by a psychologist, played by Peter Stormare, who asks you questions about what scares you, and this, in addition to the decisions you make, taper the game to your personality.

The game is extraordinarily clever in its play. If the decisions made cause a character to die, the game will continue without them and will adapt to their absence. This is a game mechanic called ‘The Butterfly Effect’. This makes for a clever scheme where you can replay the game and try to save everyone, or like the replay I’m currently enjoying (on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/jurm1969 )where I am not just trying to make everyone as awful as possible, which can be shown by their constantly changing personality profiles, but I am also trying to finish the game with everyone dead. Sounds easy but the game, as I’ve stated, adapts, and it’s not just as simple as walking off a cliff like any other game.

There are 10 chapters in the game, represent the ten hours ‘Until Dawn’ and in amongst them are 22 critical decisions which mould the games outcome. The game had an auto save feature that stops the player from being able to simply go back and try to save a character, instead, you’ll have to start the game over. This could be frustrating but if you are trying for a PlayStation Platinum trophy, you would be used to this repetition. There is also a bunch of totems one must collect throughout the game which are also a fun way to give it longevity. Clever stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised by the cast of this game also, as I said previously, I went into it quite cold. The aforementioned Fessenden, Malik and Stormare are joined by other actors like Scream’s Hayden Panettiere, Meaghan Martin (10 Things I Hate About You), Jordan Fisher (The Flash Tv series), Brett Dalton (Agents of Shield), Nicole Sakura (Superstore), Galadriel Stineman (The Middle) and Noah Fleiss (Josh and S.A.M.). Fessenden also co-wrote the game with Graham Reznik for Supermassive Games.

Funnily enough, this game is what I want from a modern horror movie but don’t get anymore. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a film adaptation is being released in 2025 which rather than tell the story straight, will seem to have a ‘groundhog day’ effect for the feel of multiple play throughs. I liked the look of the trailer so I’ll cross my fingers and dance around the wishing tree for it to be good.

It’s a great game and I can see myself actually attempting to get all the trophies on the PlayStation Network even though I don’t normally give a crap about that kind of stuff.

*Our killer at work, but is he the WORST thing in the mountain?*

Extras: Extras… on a video game? What kind of clown shoes bullsquirts is this? As you finish the game you actually unlock a bunch of DVD extra type stuff which sees cast and crew talk about the creation of the game. It’s such a fun thing and really fascinating.

Game: 8/10

Extras: 6/10

Replayability: 9/10

TERRIFIER (2016)

February 15, 2025 by J.R. in digital retribution review, To Watch Pile and tagged art the clown, bluray, clown, horror, Slasher, Umbrella Entertainment | 1 Comment

*The cover to Unbrella’s Bluray release*

TERRIFIER (2016)

Film: Horror movie ‘franchises’ are made or broken on how charismatic or how visually striking their antagonist is.

The Freddys, the Jasons, the Michaels, the Ghostfaces all rely on those two points. The victims, the ‘final girl’, the story are all secondary to how appealing the bad guy superstar is! The caveat to that is recasting some don’t always work… sorry, Jackie Earle Haley, but I think you know it’s true.

Terrifier, with its new superstar antagonist, Art the Clown, came out of the blocks racing at full tilt. Suckling on the teat of coulrophibia and doubling down on it with a creepy mime costume, and acting choices, Art slipped it to a space in cinema where the old franchises, except for Scream, were missing in action, and perhaps too old to be revitalised effectively anyway.

Maybe Art is the first of a new generation, and we’ll start to see some REALLY screwed up stuff.

*Not all clowns are funny, especially this work of Art*

Terrifier, along with its two sequels (to date) were written and directed by Damien Leone, who created Art the Clown (he’s more of a mime but you get what I mean) for his earlier film, All Hallows Eve, an anthology film from 2013.

Terrifier tells of party girls Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran)… are these Buffy references…who by sheer bad luck meet Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) at a pizzeria they stop at on their way home from a Halloween party.

Art creeps them out by, well, just being a creepy guy in a clown costume, and is quickly kicked out after he defecates all over the walls of the restaurants bathroom, only to return after the young women leave to execute the two workers.

Tara and Dawn return to their car only to find a tyre slashed and call Tara’s sister, Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) to come and pick them up as the spare was already in use.

Unfortunately for them, Art catches up with them before Victoria’s arrival, and then the gory night of terror REALLY begins.

I’m gonna start with the gore as it really is in your face and all looks practical. Leone a-pears to have come from a make up and special effects background and it’s generally good when those people end up directing as they can see how an effect can be done practically and not resort to substandard CGI. The only effects work I don’t really like was the make up on the nonsensical prologue that ties in with the ending.

On make up, Art the Clown is a terrifying looking thing. The actor is tall and lanky and knows how to manipulate his body so he looks like a combination of a preying mantis and Dhalsim from Street Fighter. His smile is an awful thing to behold also. Doug Jones would be impressed with his physical performance and his lanky, tendrilous body is a sight to behold.

The acting of the four females leads is pretty good, with Canell and Scaffidi being the highlights. The male characters just seem to act by seeing how loud they can yell at each other. Sure I get the script calls for that but at points it was borderline Kitchen Nightmares.

The locations are occasionally laughable as well. The morgue in the basement with what looks like Kaboodle kitchen cabinetry is laughable.

As for the script, well there isn’t really much story here: prologue, killer kills, kills again, and again, and then again, ending. As horror fans we shouldn’t expect more than that, especially from a smaller budgeted film, but the lack of depth was apparent. To Leone’s credit, he certainly is a horror fan judging by the tributes to other horror films thrown in here and there but this was gory over story every inch of the way, and if that’s want you want, something that doesn’t challenge you and just shows cool kills, you will probably dig this, but for me, I just needed a little more of a tale told.

I’m constantly criticising Hollywood for its lack of originality with its incessant need for remakes and sequels and stuff based on comics or books, and whilst I don’t think this is the cure, it’s a great start.

Extras: There is a decent amount of extras on this disc:

‘All Hallow’s Eve’ the Anthology Prequel Film: it’s a great joy when a director’s earlier film is an added extra, it’s even better when that film features the same character from the feature you just watched and even better when it’s a full length film and not just a ten minute short. Winning all round!

Behind the Scenes featurette is a badly films pile of behind the scenes footage but at least they show the final film of some of the bits so you know what part of the film it came from.

Interview with Jenna Kanell sees ‘Tara’ talk about her experiences with the film and her history with Leone.

Deleted scenes shows two scenes that would have made little difference to the film at all.

Dread Central presents Terrifier San Diego Crowd Response is what you would expect: a bunch of people who loved the film… of course they did, why would you showcase the people who hated it. A bit onanistic as these things usually are.

Art the Clown Time Lapse Makeup – it does NOT look like a fun application, but it was fun to see the transformation: I wish there had been a talk through of what was being done.

Finally, trailers for Terrifier and All Hallows Eve.

Film: 5/10

Extras: 9/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

*Guess who isn’t coming back for the sequel!*

This Umbrella Bluray release was purchased from JB Hifi

ALIEN 2 ON EARTH (1980)

January 4, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged 88 Films, bluray, horror, italian, Sci Fi, scifi | 1 Comment

Alien 2 On Earth (1980)

Did you know there was a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien that was made a year after Alien’s release? Surely, just because something isn’t ‘official’ doesn’t mean it’s not a sequel, right?

Fan fiction is legitimate writing, isn’t it? If that’s the case, I’m going to say that Alien 2 On Earth, aka Alien Terror, aka Alien 2 Sulla Terra is just as legitimate a sequel as Patrick Lives Again, and Zombi 2.

Alien 2 On Earth was written and directed (under instruction/ advisement of a Mario Bava) by Caro Ippolito under the pseudonym ‘Sam Cromwell’ and even though it’s not an actual sequel, and doesn’t look anything like Scott’s Alien, 20th Century Fox attempted to sue, but were stopped when it was shown that a book called Alien also existed.

The plot of the story is bizarre.

The world excitedly awaits the return to earth of some astronaut hits in their landing shuttle, but when it arrives, it’s found to be empty, just as weird blue rocks start to appear around the world.

Thelma Joyce (Belinda Mayne) is a spelunker who has a bizarre psychic seizure when being interviewed on a TV show about caves. The interview is cut short and she joins husband Roy (Mark Bodin) and the rest of her spelunking crew to go into some caves (filmed in the beautiful Castellana Grotte: a cave system in Italy).

On their way, one of the team Burt (Michele Saovi) finds one of the blue rocks and gives it to Thelma, knowing she loves geology, and of course for some strange reason, she takes it with her into the cave system.

Once down there, the rock starts to pulsate and a bizarre ‘thing’ comes out, attacking the crew, murdering them one by one in all manner of gory ways. Panicked, they lose their way in the caves but will any of them escape? And if that blue rock had that ‘thing’ in it, what of all the others above ground..?

Alien 2 On Earth is a silly as a film can be. It looks like an Irwin Allen science fiction TV series, has extreme gore that is actually quite indefinable, considering we never actually get to see the alien properly, and has bizarrely bad pacing with lingering shots of bowling alley ball returns that go on for so long that they are clearly there to stretch the time of the film. This all goes without commenting on how dismal the handheld camera work is; it’s so rocky at times that it makes The Blair Witch Project look like it was filmed on steadicam.

Sadly, and it is a reflection of my taste, I guess, I enjoyed watching every stupid minute, and this 88 Films Italian Collection release has treated it with far more respect than it possibly deserves.

An amusing story surround this film as it was originally supposed to be far more grand in scale, opening with the remains of the Nostromo from Alien crashing to earth (it must have traveled back in time) with the remains of the alien onboard, but legend has it that Ippolito spent a large proportion of the money raised for the film on an expensive car, escorts and casinos.

I really can’t express how stupid AND how much fun this film is. I’m almost embarrassed to like it.

*The menu screen from 88 Films’ bluray release*

Extras: The delightful folks at 88 Films have provided us with a handful of fun extras:

Special Effects Test is an interesting way to sit in silence for a few minutes whilst blank screens and blood and guts fill the screen. Would have been more interesting with some editing and maybe a commentary?

Franchised Terrorist: An Interview With Eli Roth, who is a big fan of 80s Italian horror and his enthusiasm for the film is visible, and he knows a lot about it! Interesting, but I would have preferred seeing someone who worked on the film chatting about it.

Alien 2 On Earth Trailer is exactly what it says on the box; the trailer for Alien 2 On Earth… but that’s not all, folks! We also have a trailer reel for other films like Creepshow 2, Invasion U.S.A., River of Death, Graduation Day, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland, The Couch Trip, Cuba, Messenger of Death and The Dead Next Door! Whew!

Film: 5/10

Extras: 6/10

Re-Watchability: 7/10

This 88 Films release was purchased from Amazon.

Imaginary (2024)

November 21, 2024 by J.R. in digital retribution review, Digital Retribution review, horror, To Watch Pile and tagged digital retribution, dvd, horror, imaginary, Jeff Wadlow | Leave a comment

IMAGINARY (2024)

I think most people had an imaginary friend when they were children. I know I had one, though apparently mine was a different experience to most. I had my imaginary friend from the ages of 13 to 16, and instead of being an elf or a teddy bear, mine was a 27 year old blonde Bulgarian single mother of two with a voracious sexual appetite.

… but enough about me and teenage fantastical and onto the fantasies of writer and director of Imaginary, Jeff Wadlow, the director who also gave us the perfectly average but forgettable Truth or Dare from 2018 and a slasher from 2005 called cry_wolf, mostly forgotten except for the fact it starred Jon Bon Jovi as an educator.

It also had my then-horror movie crush Lindy Booth.

Imaginary starts with children’s author Jessica Barnes (DeWanda Wise) having a nightmare about a giant spider perusing her through a house, ironically in a scene similar to a children’s book she has written called Molly Millipede and the Blue Door.

She awakes with her partner, Max (Tom Payne) and they make the decision to move a few days early back to her childhood house, with his two daughters, Taylor (Taegan Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun), the house now vacated after her father was admitted to an aged care facility.

Max’s life has had some tragedy as well as his former partner has been removed from society for some mental issues, including hurting the younger daughter.

Of course, being a new parent to the girls, Jessica has trouble connecting with teenage Taylor, who also won’t let her break down the walls with the her little sister, try though she might.

Soon after moving in, Alice and Jessica engage in a game of hide and seek, during which, Alice finds a teddy bear abandoned in a hidden room in the basement, which she quickly adopts.

Alice and the bear, who according to Alice calls himself ‘Chauncey’, become fast friends, as any child with a plush toy would, but very soon Chauncey gives Alice a list of things to do, a list of very specific things that have to be done… but why? What are these tasks in aid of… and why are some of them destructive, even self-destructive?

Unfortunately Imaginary is a great name for this film, as its entertainment value, its acting quality, its character’s likability… all imaginary. I love a film that has an imaginary friend cause some kind of terror to the family, even though each of these films has the same stuff in it like childhood trauma, a blended family, a new house, a young child who feels disenfranchised for what ever reason, and this film just sat down with a checklist and marked them off, one by one.

I will credit it with it taking the murderous demon/ ghost/ imaginary friend, and tweaking it a little to make the payoff somewhat different, though it does feel like it’s riffing a little on Steven King’s It, but because the rest of it is so mediocre, the payoff doesn’t feel like a reward, and instead feels just like a relief that it’s all over.

Disc: Nothing

Film: 2/10

Extras: N/A

Re-Watchability: 0/10

This review was done with the Australian release DVD purchased from JB Hifi

Digital Retribution

Horror, sci-fi, action, cult, exploitation, more!

Tag Archives: horror

THE HUNT (2020)

FALLING DOWN (1993)

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2

PANDEMIC (2016)

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981)

UNTIL DAWN (2025) – PLAYSTATION 5

TERRIFIER (2016)

ALIEN 2 ON EARTH (1980)

Imaginary (2024)