Die On Set A...

Out the mouth of madness.

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The Tall Man is a Tall Order that succeeds.

Originally entitled 'The Secret' it changed name across sea's from France, so don't blame the writer and director about possibly mixing up this with 'Phantasm', instead blame the distributors for deciding 'The Secret' wasn't a good enough title. This is probably going to be quite a short review as I don't want to give any spoilers away, especially considering this film should be a definite to do in your watch list.

We begin with a birth, Jessica Biel's character we learn is a nurse and her husband, a doctor was treasured amongst the town until he passed away. We then learn about the Tall Man himself, that he comes and takes children away every couple of months, then eventually it comes for David, Jessica Biel's son.

That's when about an hour in the twists start coming, like Pascal's previous film 'Martyrs', the plot changes every time you believe you know what is going on. But unfortunately you do figure out the twists a few minutes before the twist happens and I figured out the ending after the first lot of twists. This however didn't ruin the story or the film for me as it was fun and there were a few more twists I wasn't expecting.

BUT...Whatever you do when you enter this film, do NOT expect a full on horror movie. It isn't what you expect. Being Pascal Laugier's first English spoken movie it does well to show he doesn't need to stick to his native language and is an amazing writer and director still. The cast is a bonus:

Jessica Biel(Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, Total Recall remake)

William B. Davis (X-files) as an old Sheriff.

Samantha Ferris (Supernatural) as a beat up mother.

And Jodelle Ferland (Silent Hill) as a young woman who has trouble speaking.

A definite worthy film to sit amongst your collection I have to give this 5 of 5 skulls. (we need a new rating item instead of skulls, tell me what you think it should be).

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'Silent House' fits homely within the genre.

The film started off rather interesting, it dug into claustrophobia and the atmosphere was great. (Now I haven't seen the original which is apparently much better than the remake, but I enjoyed the remake).

About 20 mins in is when it gets going, the father disappears and the girl is left alone. She then walks around the house trying to get away from her 'want to be' attackers. Obviously she does escape at one point just to be brought back from what all the way through I thought of as a 'Rapey Uncle'. She stays in the car while her Uncle goes into the house to find the people, someone gets in the care with her, she escapes back into the house and that's when the game gets going. Cue the creepy scenes of pitch black with flashes of a camera. Fair enough it has been done before but there was something different and more creepy with this, especially with it being 'real time' it brings you in a lot more, suddenly you are thrust into this girls life and you truly feel sorry for her and like you want to protect her. Eventually the ending comes and as per usual there is a twist, I wont spoil it for you however but unfortunately I guessed the twist right near the beginning of the film, all you need to do is listen.

The problems I had with the film however was that it was too short, the creepy scenes didn't go on for long enough or there wasn't enough of them (like at one point there is a little girl in a bath full of blood and what looks like a urinal half way up the wall bleeding). And the ending seemed like a quick way out but can develop more questions, most would see the easier answers though and take it as it seems. Overall I have to give the film 7.5 out of 10 Skulls.

[dieonseta-blog]

The Pact should've made a Pact to be better.

It starts off with a young-ish mother Nicole, alone in a house which we then learn is because her mother had recently passed. She then has a video call with her daughter which leads to the daughter asking who is behind Nicole, Nicole then walks toward the open closet into the dark, the film all the while trying to build suspense and atmosphere and then nothing, the film starts as it cuts to Nicole's sister.

Its things like this that fill the film with failed attempts at atmosphere and suspense as it all gets cut short to nothingness. Its because of this why the full feature feels like a short, nothing is really shown and the plot is muddled from the beginning, the worst part was that it seemed it didn't know what type of film it wanted to be (if you watch it you will see what I mean). In all I was disappointed, I expected a good 'haunting' style film but it unfortunately turned out a messy mixture. There were some interesting ideas but it needed a longer time to explain what was properly going on. Die On Set A.

[dieonseta-blog]

harry potter and the 'WOMAN IN BLACK'

There are many where's the ???? films and none have fully disappointed me yet but unfortunately they somehow always disappoint one way or another.

Fair enough for Hammers first Ghost film ever, it is good ish. And thats a big ISH, the beginning is quite slow and the end is rather boring. (Which by the way is completely different to the book, well, all of the film is really).

The Middle however is the best part mostly due to the scares, as already said the film is a 'Where's the Ghost' film so most of the time the scares hover over Harry's, sorry, Arthur's shoulder creating the right amount of suspense.

Then there are others which are just blatant jumps but because of the repetition of 'ooooh something there, BOO' it gets dull and unscary way too quickly.

I think the main problem I had with the film was that it wasnt long enough, at a mere hour and a half it didnt have enough time to properly dig into the story and tell you everything it was about.

I wont spoil anything however but lets just say we had to piece the puzzle together ourselves, it was a simple job but just not satisfying enough to do. We should also be going through many different emotions for the characters but it doesnt give us enough to go on, so all we go through is 'AAAAAH, that scared me' and '..............'.

Either way you might aswell give it a watch, you might completely disagree with me but I would much prefer to watch 'The Resident' again instead even if a lot of people hated that film.

I guess it can have a 5 of 10 score as the middle part had amazing potential but unfortunately didnt deliver.

Die On Set A.

P.S Daniel Radcliffe cannot ever be anyone other than Harry Potter now, and his acting has gotten worse with age.

[dieonseta-blog]

Fave Horror of different Taste.

So we begin on a quest to find peoples favourite horrors and why...

The picture explains all for my first on the list:

'In The Mouth Of Madness' is my favourite movie of all time for many reasons, one being how well Sam Neill can portray a man going insane. Also how well the story is written and presented, how thought really went into it (for example, a simple one - when we find out the antagonists favourite colour is blue, a lot of things have blue lighting over them and whenever we see someone from close up, their eyes are blue also).

So that's mine, these are some others from friends and more with their own quick reasons as to why:

Jen: 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'  I love Franks shoes and the film was so different for it's time.

Andy: 'Saw'I like the idea that the "villain" in the movies is infamous for doing the world (point of view based) justice.

Mike: '28 Days (not weeks) Later' A bit of a clichéd choice but because it deals with a human side of the apocalypse.

Danny: 'The Others' It's the closest I will get to a horror. (bless him).

And the one and only Charles Band of Full Moon Features:  'The Exorcist' Slasher film just don't scare me. There's something legitimately disturbing about the film. So simple and well done.

  If you have any questions about anything horror related, anything at all feel free to email me at [email protected], or leave me a comment on my home page on here.   

My facebook is: Die On Set A

Signing off, Die On Set A.

You can also like Charles Band and Full Moon Features on facebook via these links:  

Charles Full Moon  & Full Moon Features & Charles Band

And dont forget to visit the full moon website at:  http://fullmoonhorror.com/ 

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The Thing's got a good Thing going!

So all prequels/sequels/remakes suck right? WRONG....

I apologise for this review being rather late, late meaning in the sense of you could've all seen the film by now, and its been about a week since I saw it.  I enjoyed it though that much I needed to do this review. 

 So at first everyone I know, including myself was thinking 'but how will this work?, it should be in Norwegian surely???'

 Well this gets all explained on viewing, two Americans (Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Joel Edgerton) get sent to the Norwegian camp site to dig out 'The Thing' and carry out tests, and all except one of the Norwegians speak English fortunately, hmm very fortunately when you think about the 1982 original ;).

 Overall structure (Spoilers ish):

The Thing escapes

It starts to kill and assimilate people, tries to turn each other against each other.

People figure out how to figure out who is who (or what), The Thing can't reproduce metal etc, so fillings and other metal parts placed in the body would be removed).

Fights, lots of them

Boss fight

End/Beginning of 1982's The Thing  

And thats pretty much it, (except it isnt as it isn't a typical horror prequel). It actually manages to create just about the right amount of fear, claustrophobia, suspense and jumps ( A very difficult thing to do indeed nowadays ). Not exactly keeping you guessing it relies a lot more heavily on the action than suspense, but it still keeps it all at the right pace and place. Surprisingly it even kept iconic images from the original in place and gave them a whole new beginning, like the double headed dead thing and the axe in the door. And The Actors aren't all new young pretty faces (for once), there are only a few of them and they are still damn fine actors like the rest of the cast. They really did a brilliant portrayal of being afraid etc.

While watching the film there was a couple things I got annoyed at...

CGI, nobody uses good old animatronics anymore (It pleased me altogether though and I understand why they used all CGI) 

The Thing at one point tries turning someone against the rest but then transforms and just tries killing the member (but then on look back, its probably how a creature would act if they had the chance to take somebody else I guess)

It ended a bit.. Wait did I miss something?  

Overall it turned out to be an incredible film and prequel, it managed to do justice for the original and John Carpenter, fair enough it is no where near as good as the original, it is still an amazing beginning to 'The Thing' trilogy - 2011 film, 1982 film, 2002 Game (yes the game is a sequel to the original)

I advise you to watch it as soon as possible if you haven't already, and buy the dvd when it comes out, I shall be.

Signing off, 

Die On Set A.  (P.S, I liked brackets a lot in this review, sorry). 

[dieonseta-blog]

11-11-11, 1 + 1 thumbs up!

There's apparently 2 versions out there, and if the final film is as good or better than the original copy then we are in for a treat.

First off, I don't apologise for writing a review on a Darren Lynn Bousman flick as Saw 2 was the only decent sequel to saw, and once again he delivers with this. Fair enough to be honest he could've done better, just as he could with Saw 2, but what we get is still a great film as he manages to direct in a superb way.

I'm happy I have now found another recent horror I have enjoyed along with Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2, go take a look at that review after this one....

Anyway, So the films premise is Religion, Faith, Trust and overall Numbers.

We don't ever find out why the numbers have anything to do with anything, it seems to be just a ploy for some higher power to wreak havoc during the time and date of 11-11.

Mostly the film is about religion, The famous author Joseph Crone (Gibbs) lost his wife and son many years ago and has been in a state of loss since, a loss of God, Faith and himself. He then begins to realise that everything bad happens to him at the time of 11-11 whether it be day or night doesn't matter. After realising this he can't escape from the numbers wherever he goes, he also starts hallucinating seeing strange demon/angel creatures.

Being told these creatures warn him about something bad coming on November11th 2011, he starts to panic further and finds other people know about this sort of thing more than they let on including: his crippled priest brother, their spiritual maid Anna, even an internet group aptly named 'The Eleveners'.

And I'm going to stop there as I don't want to ruin anything for those who want to see it.

Like I said, there is allegedly 2 versions of this movie, and the screener I viewed I believe was the original, and everything seemed perfect enough with that version already, so god knows what the re cut edition is going to turn out like.

Give it a watch, have fun, have a think, you can easily figure out what will happen but have a think anyway albeit a simple thought.

Signing Off, 

Die On Set A.

P.S

OHhhhhh don't forget to play the games: Spot the 11, and Spot the Buffy Demon/Angel.

They do look like some demons from good old Buffy.

[dieonseta-blog]

Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2 is definitely not resting.

Nothing on the first film, but still one of the best recent horror/slasher flicks out.

The highly anticipated sequel to Laid To Rest, I had high expectations.

Turned out I wasn't disappointed.

With the original writer,director and cast (and nice appearances of the lovely Danielle Harris) coming back it definitely paid off, and I think its quite fortunate it's a direct to dvd release as if Hollywood got their hands on it and put it in the cinema we know full well it would've been destroyed.

We begin with pretty much the end of Laid To Rest 1, Tommy and the girl from the first film escaping, and then a clean up crew come and take Chromeskulls body away, we then learn they are there to fix him back up.

The rest needn't be said, I don't want to spoil it whatsoever, however, I will let you know that we do learn how the chrome skull mask and knife is created. There are many unanswered questions and to be honest they aren't needed to be answered. Which along with one other thing which I will get to eventually annoyed me about this sequel, typically it went on to try explaining the background etc etc. 

Ok I lied, I want to spoil it a little just by giving a little hint....

It does have a slight Hostel/Saw style at some points to it.

But as you know with Laid To Rest, its just a fun slasher flick, and that's all we need for once.

And shockingly only these 2 things annoyed me about the movie:

It has most modern clichés of a slasher flick, both ends, good and bad are pretty stupid at times (But that's expected of any movie now, especially B-movies).

And talking about typicality and B-movies - An 'actor' ran into the camera at one point, you will probably notice when you watch as its the most ridiculous scene of the film, plus the three men in the scene opposite Chromeskull cannot act whatsoever, luckily they soon met their demise.

Other than that I can't knock the film at all really, the only thing I would like to know is how Chromeskull is stupidly death defying.

All in all a great watch, and I now need to buy the DVDs myself.

Signing off,

Die On Set A.

Oh and p.s, if you want a tiny tad bit of info on Chromeskulls ex personal life, stick around after the credits.

[dieonseta-blog]

Sorry.

I know not many people really read my reviews or rants about movies anyway

But I apologise now for not having one for a while, there just seems to be nothing coming out recently that I'm receiving in good quality thats actually good enough to review.

I would love to review The Thing, as well as just see it, but unfortunately I dont have a decent screener or anything.

There will 100% be a review coming soon though, even if its a retro review.

[dieonseta-blog]

'Faces In The Crowd' makes me proud.

Saying that its a cliché and typical slasher psychological thriller hits the nail on the head, but it pulls it off.

We are used to not seeing the killer in most slasher movies up until the end. And in this one we don't see them again even though this time there is no mask.

This time around we see the killer (and pretty much everyone else) in the main characters (Milla Jovovich) eyes. She managed to survive an attack from a serial killer named 'Tearjerk Jack' but from the severe blow to the head a disease comes into play. 'Face-blindness', basically where everybody else's face looks like someone else's every time you look at them. And yes it is a real disease.

So from the beginning then on its hard to know who any of the characters are when Milla is around, so we start to do what is expected of her character, to associate clothing and voices etc. to recognise the characters.

The only problem I had with this movie was not the pacing, the pacing seemed perfectly fine, but I kept getting sucked into it just to find myself drifting off focus.

Just as the film itself did, as really it was mostly about a woman coping with a new illness with a serial killer in the background, especially seen as there is a twist about the killer, but only on to who it is, not why or any actual backstory.

Now I'm drifting off focus again haha, well what I was saying is that the movie is not about the killer really, but then we do get a few little glimpses into what the movie couldve turned into if it were a teenage slasher flick with a sadistic sarcastic fucker for a killer.

The Cast were excellent, just as expected for A -listers like Milla and Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck).

Jovovich played the part very well and seemed to be very attached to the character she played. But I would hope so as it would be a terrible disease to get, not even being able to recognise your own father.

But Julian was the one who stood out for me, barely looking recognisable anyway, even without the face-blindness, a beard on the go and everything, he played a hardened cop with a soft side.

Every slasher has to have one of those.

At the end of it all, I cant complain, it was a decent hour and 40 minute view, the only thing I could've wished was that it was harder to have figured out who the serial killer was, and also it kept me sucked in constantly.

Give it a watch when you can it will be worth it, just don't go out of your way desperate.

Signing off,

Die On Set A.

[dieonseta-blog]

CREATURE. Only good enough for a one off feature.

Good for a one off, unfortunately not for more, even with Sid Haig being a bad ass.

Creature starts off as a typical B-movie, a few young pretty little things go into some forest, get naked and get wasted. A few Hicks scare them.

It then changes from what you would expect though, instead of being the typical monster/slasher flick it pulls out a couple of twists out of its sleeve, and I wont ruin these for you incase you want to watch the movie (as I didnt mind it).

But I would like to explain the backstory of the 'creature':

Man named Grimley slept with his sister

Alligator eats sister

Grimley eats Alligator and the rest of his sister and others

Mutates into Killer Croc from Batman

Being the rather predictable movie as every other B flick usually isit unfortunately doesnt bring anything new to the ever growing horror table and neither do the twists even though intelligent and interesting.

There isnt anything really that particularly sticks out either which is disappointing, the dialogue is dull, the characters are dull, even the death scenes are dull seen as we dont really see any on screen and because of this you would expect they would try working on suspense or scares of which neither happen, instead we get to see some ridiculous slow moving shots in completely wrong places.

All in all it was an alright film either way, better than most the shite Hollywood are bringing out these days, but it still didnt cut the mustard for me, there are much better out there.

Sorry for not being interesting myself here and just laid out plain and simple, but thats the way the movie was.

Signing off,

Die On Set A.

(P.S. I take back what I said about nothing sticking out, Sid Haig did an excellent job, its just a shame he plays the same personality in everything.

[dieonseta-blog]

This, this is what I'm talking about, I cannot wait and a review shall be up as soon as it has been seen.

I may do a Fear and Loathing review soon in preparation.

[dieonseta-blog]

Red State, A Bloody State. With spoilers.

Despite the decent cast, it isnt such a decent 'horror' movie.

Red State is not a horror movie whatsoever.

If you dont want to spoil the movie, skip to the last few lines.

In the beginning it has promise, three kids wanting to have sex with some woman at the same time, and then getting kidnapped by a religious cult that kill people in fancy little ways.

Q: Why do they get kidnapped???

A: Because the Religious cult believes the kids are actually gay for wanting sex at the same time, even if it is with a woman.

We then believe the movie shall be about the kids trying to escape from the cult and the cult basically running around trying to recapture the kids and kill more people etc.

But no. what we do get is

2 dead kids, 1 escaped eventually to be shot by:

A SWAT team who has a shootout with the Cults Church members,

Whom are extremely contradictive people due to the fact of killing people and being catholic, but then we get catholic priests in reality being contradictive all the time, for worse than killing

A lot of gay people, mostly secretive.

And then when we think some supernatural force is actually going to come into the film we get disappointed and it turns out to be all bollocks and we cut to a scene in an office where John Goodmans character is explaining everything to some government officials (who once again show that the government are dicks).

End.

If it wasnt masqueraded as a horror in advertisements then I wouldve enjoyed it more knowing what to expect, or if it was a horror like originally intended I wouldve enjoyed it more also, either way dont expect a horror.

Signing off,

Die On Set A.