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Demons Standard Horror - Evil Pleasures

Film Review: Reeker, and No Man's Land: The Rise of Reeker

June 15th 2009 00:35



As I explained before, I lost a review of each of these movies, so basically I'm going to just do one review to cover the both of them. Don't worry, you won't miss much, they're basically the same movie.

Premise: A group of people feel a mysterious earthquake, and then finds that they are trapped in a remote desert locale with a demon hunting them.

Now, I watched No Man's Land before I watched the original, so I may have a skewed opinion about it. Both the movies are, and I am not exaggerating, virtually identical in terms of scripting. Even down to the exact same twist/explanation at the end. When I bought these movies I had no idea that they were so similar, so I didn't watch them together for comparison.

However, seeing as this is basically your typical hollywood-style horror movie, I'll be brief. No Man's Land is a complete ripoff of Reeker. Someone has decided that the Reeker franchise wasn't quite dead yet, so decided to add a little bit of a backstory to the Reeker character, and then proceed to basically rescreen the first movie. The whole Reeker backstory from the movie can't have lasted more than 15 minutes, after which they've decided they couldn't be bothered thinking of anything more inventive, and just used the script from the original Reeker film as filler. Like I mentioned previously, the similarities extend right down to the same twist at the end.


Now, I haven't seen No Man's Land recently, so my memory of it is a little sketchy, but overall I thought that the second one was better, simply because of it's bigger budget. While the first has a more cultish feel to it, the second has much more to offer in the gore department, which is really the only reason we watch movies like these anyway.

Overall... I can't really pick which one to recommend. It depends what you're looking for. If you prefer a more cultish tinge to your films, or if you think watching a blatant money-grabbing ripoff would be sacrilege, well then go with Reeker. If, on the other hand, you are after some higher budget gore effects, and don't mind recycled scripts, then No Man's Land is probably a better bet.
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The Devil's Chair

May 28th 2009 06:29
Warning! Spoilers!



Premise: A healed mental patient is released to the care of a psychology professor, who along with 3 students takes the man back to the abandoned mental hospital where the man claims a chair took his girlfriend 4 years prior, in an attempt to discover what really happened.

As I mentioned in my previous review, twists are a hard thing to get right in a movie. If done badly, and they're hard to do well, they can ruin a movie (think M. Night Shyamalan. The Village, The Happening... eugh). However, if done well, they can define a movie, elevate it, make it stick with you long after the movie is over, and make you watch it again and again. Think back to the first time you saw Fight Club, or The Usual Suspects. Hell, even The Sixth Sense.

Mmm... Comfy.


Back to the movie at hand. The first hour and ten minutes is fairly standard Hollywood horror-by-numbers... the chair is a gateway to another realm, in which a blood-demon is killing whoever comes through. There are the standard cliched twists, like the evil professor and the man not actually being crazy, and you are thinking wow, what a waste of a promising movie.

I am warning again of spoilers, I am about to totally ruin the movie.

And then the last 10 minutes just blow you away. Turns out the majority of the movie, borrowing heavily from Identity, is just a representation of the main character's mental struggle. What follows this realization is a brutal 10 minute sequence in which the main character slaughters everyone else with an axe.

Now, the last 10 minutes are easily the most disturbing of the movie, even though there is little gore. There's alot of blood splashed around, but the actual gore is always just off screen... What makes it disturbing is how the first hour-ish of the movie is spent building the main character up as a hero, who risks his own life to try and save one of the students, and then cutting to reality, in which he is raping said blood-soaked student. Creepy stuff.

What also makes it believable is the acting. Now, I have a couple of bones to pick with the casting, which I will get to shortly, but overall the acting was above average. Best among them is the lead (Andrew Howard),

who does a good job handling the shift from sane hero to psychopathic killer. I also didn't mind the blonde student (Elize Du Toit), who isn't half bad.

However, what the hell were they thinking when they cast Matt Berry in a serious movie. It could be because I'm a fan of The IT Crowd, but I cannot possibly ever take that guy seriously. Ever.

Also, the Professor was way too melodramatic to be realistic... however, seeing as he was part of an illusion, and seeing how the Narrator (Howard) himself comments on how it's like a crap B-grade movie, it's entirely plausible that this was done on purpose.

Overall... probably not one of the twists that will stick with you for the rest of your life (come on, you know Fight Club will), but if you get 50 minutes through the movie and you're about to turn it off... just let it run. The last 10 minutes I feel more than make up for the rest of the movie. Especially the ending, in which the main character, soaked in blood, drives away with his imaginary girlfriend. Probably worth a watch, but there are definitely better movies out there.

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Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes

May 24th 2009 12:05


Well, having watched 4 before 3, I figured it was only fair to give this one a go...

Premise: A family of weirdos, lead by the town doctor, desecrate corpses to sell organs, in order to fund the town's free healthcare. When a passing hiker discovers the plot, he is (almost) killed by the group, but manages to hail down a passing car and tell his tale before dying.

Because of this, the scheme is uncovered, and it is discovered that one of the desecrated corpses belongs to a (though to be cured) crazy distraught ex-mother. In her grief, she and 3 others related to the child summon Pumpkinhead, who goes around being all demon-like and killing people in the name of revenge.
Pumpkinhead: 2, Helpless Victims: 0
Now, this movie isn't all bad. Gorehounds won't be overly disappointed, as there are some gruesome deaths... Nothing spectacular, but enough. The movie doesn't really bother with that whole 'suspense' thing, and 'tension' is really quite an alien concept... but it moves on at a decent pace, and it isn't entirely predictable. I saw the ending coming, but then I'd already seen the sequel, so that's to be expected.

However, this movie did have flaws aplenty. The acting was all-round abysmal. Wooden acting delivering poor dialogue throughout the movie. Wait, I take that back. The only saving grace in the acting department was Lance Henriksen, who only had a small part. Other than that... well, I'd rather not talk about it. The witch didn't annoy me as much as in number 4, but she had a smaller part so that's probably why. There were a few pretty dumb scenes, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a straight to tv affair.

Overall... understandably similar to Pumpkinhead 4, considering they were shot back to back. Probably the best bits of the movie were (unfortunately) the flashbacks to the original Pumpkinhead, which I haven't seen but looks to be a far superior movie. I would recommend renting the original if you want some Pumpkinhead action, but this will do if you're bored and it happens to come on tv.

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Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud

May 21st 2009 02:11


Premise: 2 families, the (snooty) McCoys and the (redneck) Hatfields, have been at war for a years, following a car accident that left one of the Hatfields crippled. However, a Romeo & Juliet-esque love affair between Ricky McCoy (Bradley Taylor) and Jodie Hatfield (Amy Manson) has developed in secret


[ Click here to read more ]
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