Citadel (2012)

RATED- R

RUN TIME- 84 MINS

WRITERS- CIARAN  FOY

STARRING- ANEURIN BARNARD, JAMES COSMO AND WUNMI MOSAKU

DIRECTOR- CIARAN FOY

Synopsis taken from IMDb

Tommy Cowley is a young father inflicted with chronic agoraphobia since his wife was brutally attacked by a gang of a twisted feral children. Trapped in the dilapidated suburbia of Edenstown, he finds himself terrorized by the same gang, who now seem intent on taking his baby daughter. Torn between the help of an understanding nurse and a vigilante priest, Tommy sets out to learn the nightmarish truth surrounding these hooded children. He also discovers that to be free of his fears, he must finally face the demons of his past and enter the one place that he fears the most- the abandoned tower block known as the Citadel. 

This movie caught my attention because it's an Irish horror film, and I can't think of too many Irish horror films I've seen. So instantly I was intrigued to watch Citadel. The trailer was well put together, it didn't show you enough to know exactly what the film's about, but it showed you enough and made you want to see it.

It was a major letdown to find this movie to be somewhat of a dud. It didn't deliver like I was hoping and the ending was anticlimatic. The film is largely based around Tommy's agoraphobia, and this is what I found to be disappointing to an extent. I like that they did this, but they should have focused more on making this film and the little children scarier.

 This film had a few good jump scenes in it and the suspense is strong, it's the lack of it that makes this movie drag on and become boring.

I thought the acting was good, but overall this movie didn't meet it's expectations, despite the critical appraise it's getting. It didn't live up to the backing it had and failed to meet it's potential.

The film centers around Tommy how much of a victim he is after seeing his wife murdered. The scene where she's murdered is one of the best parts of the film for me. Tommy is stuck in the elevator and the doors won't open, so he's stuck hopelessly watching her demise. This made me think of how frustrating and horrifying it would be to be in Tommy's shoes in this situation.

After that he becomes the definition of a victim, he even takes classes to help make himself stop looking so pathetic.He walks in short, quick steps and hunches. This makes the tense scenes even more suspenseful and chilling. It's truly a shame they left so much of the movie bleak and didn't build more suspense and jump scenes.

The children wearing white hoodies reminded me of David Cronenberg's The Brood. They were mysterious children who wreaked havoc. I did like the look of the kids faces. I liked the makeup used and the design. I don't want to give too much away so I'll leave it at that.

There are some good chase scenes in this film that I liked. They were filled with high tension and dread. Tommy being stranded at night time (the worst time to be out) in an area he isn't familiar with.

He is pursued by the children and we get some shots of their faces and begin to think something is definitely wrong with this picture and that Tommy may be in over his head. Once his child is kidnapped by the children, Tommy finds the priest and joins forces.

The priest is deranged and seems psychotic. Tommy needs him though, because only the priest can help him get his kid back. The priest's plan is to blow up the Citadel, where all the children live. Tommy is terrified of this idea but will do whatever it takes to get his daughter back.

Ultimately, this film has the setup to be a great horror film but it drops the ball. They did a great job of making us know how terrified Tommy always was, but there was nothing there to terrify us, the viewer.

THIS FILM GETS 2 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)

RATED- UNRATED
RUN TIME- 90 MINS
WRITERS- DECLAN O'BRIEN AND ALAN B. McELROY
STARRING- DOUG BRADLEY, CAMILLA ARFWEDSON AND SIMON GINTY
DIRECTOR- DECLAN O'BRIEN



Synopsis taken from IMDb
A small West Virginia town is hosting the legendary Mountain Man Festival on Halloween, where throngs of costumed party goers gather for a wild night of music and mischief. But an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals kill the fun when they trick and treat themselves to a group of visiting college students.



I was fortunate enough to get to see this film at an advanced screening, for those of you who are itching to see it you won't have to wait long. It hits Blue-ray and DVD this Tuesday, October 23rd.

Although the Wrong Turn movies have digressed I still haven't been able to pull myself away. I've seen all of these films.

This film starts off bloody and brutal, what we have come to expect for the opening credits of this series. We see an ax used to dismember a passerby. The opening scenes to these movies are for pure shock value, to show you that they don't hold back and that they're gory and over-the-top.

The group of friends this film revolves around are heading to the festival and carrying alot of drugs, planning to party hard. While talking and distracted the driver has to swerve to avoid hitting a pedestrian and wrecks his fathers vehicle. When going to check on the man they may or may not have hit during the chaos the man stabs one of them in the arm. In retaliation the group of boys start kicking the hell out of the man just in time for the sheriff to pull up and see the beating happening. This gets the gang of friends and the weird pedestrian a night in jail.

It was awesome to see Doug Bradley in this film playing the pedestrian, Maynard, and father of the 3 hillbilly's. For those of you less informed,  Doug Bradley is most commonly known as Pinhead from the Hellraiser franchise created by the legendary Clive Barker.

While in jail Maynard makes everyone on edge by telling everyone including the sheriff that they've made a mistake and that they're going to pay. He's very arrogant and this scene reminds me very much of the jail scene from 30 Days Of Night (2007). Playing mind games, getting into the heads of everyone and getting off on it. Knowing something sinister is on it's way.

Amidst the jail scenes One Eye, Three Finger and Saw Tooth are wreaking havoc, slaying festival goers in barbarous ways, sparring no gore on their way to get Maynard out of jail.

But the sheriff is left alone to deal with the all the calamity because all of her officers are at the festival making sure things don't get out of hand. Can she hold off the hell that's coming down on her?

I am a fan of the original Wrong Turn (2003), it isn't a staple in the horror genre or anything of the sort, but it's a good, enjoyable horror film full of gore and chills. As this series moves on it strays less and less from the standard set by the first film, becoming tongue-in-cheek and senseless slaughter films.

That used to bother me. I remember when the 2nd Wrong Turn hit video how disappointed I was in it. I couldn't believe how far the ball had dropped. After that I said I'm done with the series and have no interest anymore if that's what they've become. Then some time later, I was over a friends house having a few laughs and he told me he just purchased Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009) and asked if I wanted to watch it. We talked and chatted about our opinions of the films and decided we had nothing to lose, so we watched it.

Then a few months ago when I was rearranging my Netflix queue I decided to put Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011) on it. So when it arrived I watched it. That's when I realized that despite my dislike of the sequels, I still keep watching them.

Then I kind of had a revelation and said that regardless of how more superior the original film was, that these sequels are still appealing to me. They're fun movies. They're the type of movies you watch for the gross out factor and to see the hardcore death scenes, as well as laugh at the bad acting and cheese. These films don't hide that though, and that's what piqued my mind and turned my opinion around on them. I'm not saying they're great movies or solid horror films, I'm saying they sure as hell aren't the worst horror films you'll ever see and they're amusing. They're a shell of their predecessor but they're here, like it or not, and they're probably aren't going anywhere for a while.

If you watch them expecting serious horror films or if you're trying to compare them to the original don't hold your breath.

For those of us who've come to understand what to expect of these movies, you'll like this 5th installment. For those of you who don't like these films, you shouldn't bother.

Although these films are low budget and senseless predictable gore fests, the story for this one is still considered weak to me. It's a simple story and it's all about dialog and kills. Not that the other films didn't suffer from the same things, but this film seems to have even less effort put into it. There are some awesome deaths though, and it's got laughs and some turn your head moments. The things these movies are known for.

I guess you could say this is probably the least best film in the series but I still found it amusing.

THIS FILM GETS 2 1/2 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5

It's Alive (1974)

RATED- PG
RUN TIME- 91 MINS
WRITERS- LARRY COHEN
STARRING- JOHN P. RYAN, SHARON FARRELL AND JAMES DIXON
DIRECTOR- LARRY COHEN



Synopsis taken from IMDb
Heavily pregnant Lenore Davis tells her husband, Frank, that she is in labor. They leave their eleven-year old son Chris with their friend Charley and they head to the Community Hospital. Lenore feels that something is wrong and delivers a monster that kills the team in the delivery room and escapes through a skylight. Lieutenant Perkins comes to the hospital to investigate the murder and the press divulges the identity of the parents. Frank discovers a dark secret about Lenore and the baby.




Larry Cohen comes out swinging with this tongue-in-cheek horror film. Cohen, who'd later make The Stuff (1985), did two sequels to It's Alive. The sequels are titled It Lives Again and It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive. I haven't seen these sequels yet, but you bet your ass I'm getting to them.

One thing you gotta love about Larry Cohen is that he's big on slapstick horror. He throws the cheese one high and runs with it and makes it work. While I don't consider his movies to be masterpieces they're very entertaining. It's Alive has been dubbed the title of classic and until recently I've never seen it.

The hospital scene is one of the best horror scenes from the 70's, totally shocking. It's notorious. The birth of this mutant is grisly. It makes me cringe to think of that actually happening in real life. And it's definitely not something that a pregnant woman should watch. It'll put alot of horrors in your head.

Something that I found amusing and got a few laughs from me were the attack scenes. Where you see the baby's POV and he's crawling through grass and bushes and attacking people. His vision is blurry and cheesy, but it was a good touch. My favorite is when this little ugly thing attacks a milk man.

One thing that I find funny about this movie is that the father, Frank, seems to be the only real character. He's the only one acting as a real person would, feeling emotional pain and mental strain from what's happened with his baby boy. To make it worse he wife starts acting like a lunatic. Frank is the only one with his head screwed on tight, the guy acts on rationality and emotion. Everyone else put on over-the-top performances adding to the goofiness of this movie. Since it's intentional, I accept it.

One thing that upsets me a bit about this movie is that you don't actually see the baby. You hear him growl and attack people, you even hear him cry. But you never see him. There's one shot where you can see him but he's in the shadows, so you can't draw out any real details of him. However, there are plenty of pictures floating around online. Just a shame you have to go online to see what the ugly bastard looks like.

The policemen soon discover that the baby's been using the sewer system to get around (which made me laugh) and go after him. I liked the scene between Frank and his son. Frank has a real reaction and has a heavy decision to make. He's in a tough spot.

Overall I was amused and entertained by this film. I wasn't overly impressed but it was a good movie. It's one you could watch in the dark by yourself or one you could watch with friends and have a few laughs and jumps. I was a bit disappointed by it because I heard so much about it that it didn't meet my hype expectations. I feel like there was more to the story and we were cut short and only got part of it. The finale could have gone out with a louder bang.

THIS FILM GETS 2 REAPERS OUT OF 4

Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011)

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 93 MINS
WRITERS- DECLAN O'BRIEN AND ALAN B. MCELROY
STARRING- SEAN SKENE, BLANE CYPURDA AND DAN SKENE
DIRECTOR- DECLAN O'BRIEN



Synopsis taken from IMDb
Following a group of friends that decide to go snowmobiling during their winter break. They make a "wrong turn", getting lost in a storm, and seek shelter in an abandoned sanitarium. They are completely isolated by the storm and are thankful they can get out of the elements. But the sanitarium has a troubled past, and some of its former patience still reside there and are not happy  about the intrusion. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, the college kids must fight to survive the night.



I am a big fan of the original Wrong Turn, yeah it has its flaws but it's a fun, brutal and shocking movie. Everything us horror junkies are entertained by. I was strongly disappointed with the sequel and I gave up after the third film. But like the sucker I am I gave the new one a shot just for the hell of it, and it didn't turn out quite that bad...

The movie starts off in the inside of the sanitarium and we see the inmates of the sanitarium who're all deformed and mutated in some way. I'm not sure if all of the inmates were like that, but there definitely was alot of mutant/deformed inmates. And we learn that the lead mutants, who are our villains in this film, are deformed do to inbreeding.

We see the inmates breakout and murder the doctor in a viscous and brutal, bloody way. Something you'd expect out of a Saw movie. One thing off the bat that I didn't like was that they made these mutants too smart, I don't think they should have been able to pull this kill off. They got the savagery right but they were too smart.

The inmates Three Finger, One Eye and Saw Tooth all get there names from where you can imagine just by hearing their names. One Eye stabbed his own eye out with a fork and ate it. Saw Tooth has to wear a facial mask to protect the sanitarium security guards because he sharpened his teeth to jagged points and killed a security guard by bite before. Three Finger cut his own fingers off.

They were sick looking, and while I have seen better make-up for mutants, this gets the job done and makes them look hideous. These bastards were gnarly.

After the college kids show up decades after the incident with the mutants and the doctor, things slowly start to pick up and build some suspense for the characters. The main problem with the cast for me was that they weren't likable. I'm not saying because I don't like them they deserve to die, I'm just saying that it's harder to get behind the characters when they're total douche bags.

One Eye, Three Finger and Saw Tooth start their new reign of terror as they pick off the horny, drunken teens one by bloody one. They eat the bodies as well, and they don't always wait for their beaten prey to be dead before they start their feast.

The gore in this movie was over-the-top but worked for this film seeing as the film itself is totally over the top. There were some good and nasty deaths. Some that make ya laugh and some that make you jump or hold your face. Either way it was a fun thrill ride, but not to be mistaken for a great horror film or masterpiece.

I have to say that I love the ending of this film. The last handful of minutes take place in a blizzard outside the sanitarium and it's a fight to the blood splashing finish. Survival is the name of the game. The ending threw me back to 2001 Maniacs' ending. It wasn't something I haven't seen before but it's acceptable because it hasn't been over used yet.

For those of you who have seen 2001 Maniacs you'll know what I mean when you see this film.

THIS FILM GETS 2 1/2 REAPERS OUT OF 4.