The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

DARKLANDS * *

Technically well enough executed, but just; this thriller is all about Welsh nationalists trying to revive their land through human sacrifice. It makes a ridiculous, violent caricature of Welsh culture and even of human sacrifice. Repeats Thursday June 15 at 4:45



And that's it for this year's Indie horror & sci-fi festival. Alas, there was nothing as wonderful as last year's favorite, "Evil Aliens," but the best of this season was easily "The Slaughter." "The Hamiltons" and "The Curse of Cthulhu" also ranked high, and "The Gravedancers" deserves at least an honorable mention.





See you at the movies!

THE HAMILTONS * * * * *

This coming of age story opens with a prisoner and bodies in the basement so you know the family is pretty twisted, but the actual twist takes some time to unravel. The parents are dead, leaving a responsible eldest brother and a viciously sexy pair of barely adult twins to frame the angst of the teenaged kid brother. And what is in the basement with all those live and dead bodies? Repeats Thursday June 15 at 2:30



THE LOST * *

Nasty boy kills people… violence mounts, and at what point do we just give up on the idiot victims and just consider the whole business Darwinian? Some of the acting is appealing enough to merit a second star, and the threads of sub-plots suggest that Jack Ketchum’s novel on which this was based might be a pretty good read.



DARK REMAINS * * *

Although this ghost story is little more than a hodge-podge of clichés it is well produced, directed, and acted. If you enjoy haunting tales and don’t require much in the way of originality this is a moderately appealing flick. Repeats Wednesday, June 14 at 4:45

SIMON: KING OF THE WITCHES * * *

Goth for your Grandma’s generation (and mine). This is a fun bit of sex and drugs and… well, not much rock and roll, but more hip to Wicca than one might expect for the time. As aged cheese goes, it’s a good bit of camembert.



ROOM 6 * *

Plays nicely on fears of the hospital, and manages to evoke a few shivers, although there are times it stretches suspension of disbelief even for this genre. The apparent lack of internal logic highlights how important that that is in these affairs, but it all comes together in the end.



CALL OF CTHULHU * * * * *

A brand new black-and-white silent from the Lovecraft Historical Society captures the classic tale in an updated approximation of the cinema if its day. Technically interesting as well as good story telling.



HAZE * * *

This abstracted bit of claustrophobic Japanese terror invites a number of interpretations. See it for yourself!



GHOST OF MAE NAK * * * *

A charming love of ghostly romance from Thailand also has some lovely bits of violent gore. The romance is sweet and sincere, and not at all cheapened by the occasional dark humor. Repeats Tuesday June 13 at 2:30



MEATBALL MACHINE * * * *

A deliciously nasty and perversely erotic Japanese splatterfest about aliens invading human hosts and turning them into hyper-violent necroborgs – a sort of zombie transformer. Repeats Thursday June 15 at 9:30





After an intense weekend of movies it will quiet down a bit.... the weekday shows are mostly repeats, giving me a rest and a chance for you to go see the best of the fest! I'll report in on a few more films through the week.



See you at the movies!

STARSLYDERZ

By and for college students who grew up on the Power Rangers or more recent sci-fi cartoons… maybe “grew up” is not the operative phrase here. Anyway, it’s a madly cannabinol-driven spoof of those shows. The laughs coming from younger watchers showed it was working for a good bit of the crowd, but I quit drugs before that audience was born. If you enjoy getting stoned and watching Transformer cartoons, you’ll probably think this is a gas. I think I’ve passed better gas and would pass on this. It repeats Tuesday June 13 at 4:45



BLOOD DEEP *

This slasher flick offers little new, but a muddle of confused mysteries that overlap awkwardly providing some false leads and little else.



GRAVEDANCERS * * * *

Three college pals years later re-unite at the funeral of a fourth. Inadvertently they release the very nasty ghosts unleashing havoc into their lives. A few nice twists, some good character development and good production make this quite worthwhile. Repeats Wed, June 14 at 2:30



SLAUGHTER * * * * *

The treat of the day was about some college students and the yuppie scum who hired them as the only impediment to an archdemoness who wants to return to Earth and unleash…. Well, you get the picture. This is done with wry humor and an élan that plays adroitly off the inherent camp in most horror flicks and puts it a cut above the pack.



DEFENCELESS * *

What starts out as pretentiously artsy exploitation of violence against women becomes pretentiously artsy mildly supernatural vengeance. The themes of love and vengeance are handled in a way that will probably be very popular with some of the goth kids, even if the aesthetics are entirely different. Repeats Mon., June 12 at 2:30

EVIL (To Kako) * *

Billed as the first-ever Greek Zombie movie this adds a sometimes fresh touch to the all-too-usual business of live humans running in terrified circles from the brainless, ravening dead. The splatterfest gets some fun and innovative touches, so if you like Zombie movies or want to brush up your Greek, you can see this when it repeats on Monday the 12th at 9:30



THE LAST EVE

A total waste of time offering the Abrahamic creation myths re-interpreted as a bad Kung Fu battle and then a cheesey sexploitation story set in LA. This will be repeated Wed. June 14 at 9:30, but don’t you have hair to wash, dishes to dry, or paint to watch dry?



RAMPO NOIR (Rampo Jigoku) * * * * *

A trilogy of Japanese surreal horror beautifully photographed and deliciously told. The themes of mirrors, muder, and mutilation; perversity, death, obsession, beauty, and blood should appeal to any vampiric soul. Sadly this will not be repeated during the festival, but hunt it down like a nubile virgin and devour it at your first opportunity!



BROKEN * * *

I love relentless sadistic violence as well as anyone, and this flick has some interesting touches, but it does follow the tiresome sexist cliché of psychopathic heartless male torturing and enslaving stupid, screaming women. Repeats Monday June 12 at 4:45



THE BEAST (Le Bete) * * * * *

This really deserves no more than three stars, and probably just two, but I love campy sex farces, and this one is up there! A French sexploitation flick from 1975 this one takes easy shots at the clergy, the nobility, and morality in general. The sexual scenes are very explicit, but aimed more for belly laughs than pornographic titillation. The Beast is a 7 foot lycanthropic sort of thing with an enormous endowment that seems never to stop spurting… and some of the quasi-normal human characters are almost as randy. This won’t repeat at the festival, but if you like utterly absurd sex flicks, this one is a fun bit of outrageous fluff.

From Friday, June 9th to Wednesday the 14th I'll be hiding from the sun at the "Another Hole in the Head Film Festival" in San Francisco, a collection of independent sci-fi, horror, and psycho thriller flicks showing at the Roxie.



Last year's was a real kick with lots of splatter and gore, much of it presented in deliciously imaginative scenarios.



Anyone in or near SF should definitely check this out! There are always at least a few vampires in the audience.