Dracula 2000 (2000)

Directed by: Patrick Lussier
Starring: Gerard Butler; Johnny Lee Miller; Jennifer Esposito; Nathan Fillion; Omar Epps (from House); the curly guy from That Seventies Show; and Seven of Nine.

I was in the mood for something vampy. The mood doesn't strike often because I rarely find bloodsuckers scary,  but I was feeling optimistic today.

Van Helsing's "great grandson" is in London dealing in antiques and denying the legend of his ancestor. When a group of thieves break into his vault they find a secret which belies Van Helsing's unassuming exterior. A metal coffin. They come up with some plausible reasons to break the coffin open, which turns out to be a bad idea.

They make off with the coffin to the sounds of an overpowering noughties soundtrack. At this point I have to say that some of the accents are also fairly offensive but I let it slide because the film is surprisingly engaging. Spooky Drac mist seeping out of the coffin?! Hell yes!

Yes I know, it's silly, it's stagey and improbable but aren't all films featuring Dracula?  And Gerard Butler makes a delicious Count.

30 minutes into the film and the thieves have all gotten theirs but Drac has only one thing on his mind. A girl named Mary, whom he is compelled to find. Since she has been dreaming of a tall pasty stranger since childhood it seems the feeling is mutual. The reason for this fascination is set out in a dull lengthy exposition by Van Helsing to his protoge Simon. It has something to do with leaches.

Don't worry there are a few unexpected chuckles throughout the film, which do take the edge off the otherwise grandiose storytelling.

Anyway, Simon (Miller) endeavours to protect Mary from the vampires and between them they try to figure out how Count Dracula can be destroyed. And here an interesting concept is floated - one which I (as a vamp film neophyte) had not heard before. Dracula' s hatred of all things Christian, where does it come from? He's averse to crosses, silver, sunlight - why?  He also speaks Aramaic which hasn't been popular for about 2000 years...hang on a second...is it possible that Dracula is quite a bit older than Bram Stoker had us believe?

In my humble opinion a potentially trashy idea was employed quite neatly. It's not a brilliant film but it's watchable. I liked the vampire make-up, very understated and Esposito is just fab to look at. Also, though I hate to repeat myself, there is lovely lovely Gerard Butler. 5/10.

The Ward (2010)

Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Amber Heard, Jared Harris and Lyndsy Fonseca

No doubt Mr Carpenter should be forever revered for Halloween,  but that does not mean he can't make a bad film. Do I need to mention Ghosts of Mars? Or the tragic soundtrack to Vampires? The fact that this film is directed by him gives me hope. The fact that I never heard of it before fills me with concern.

In 1966 a pretty young girl named Kristen is caught setting fire to a remote farmhouse. She had no memory of why she is there or who she was before this act. She is summarily thrown into mental hospital.

Her room is a cell and the girls are 'locked down' at night but Kristen believes she has seen a girl roaming the corridors. The ward nurse is mean, the doctor seems nice. The four other patients are stereotypes: the child, the crazy, the priss and the whore.

The setting is perfect for a horror movie - dark creepy old hospital,  vulnerable young girls, trapped in the dark with lightening flashing outside - but it falls curiously flat. Scenes cut from one to the next with nothing really happening, it seems like bad writing as well as bad editing.

Kristen is terrorised by visions of a zombie-looking girl and it seems she's not the only one. Another girl is mercilessly lobotomised by the scary mary. I do like the fact that this monster defies classification.  She looks like a zombie but dissapears like a ghost, she's corporeal but cannot always be seen.

I expected the film to explore the themes of captivity and mental illness- is there a haunting or is she just crazy? are the doctors helping or using the patients for nefarious experiments? Will the girl stand true to her own mind or accept what she is told? Instead the film plays it as a straight haunting throughout and then offers a limp 'haha!' at the end - by which point I had already become completely pissed off by the implausible occurances and lack of explanations.

Not impressed John, not impressed. Think I'm going to give this woopsie a 3/10. You can safely avoid it folks.

Black Christmas (1974)

A Canadian film starring Margot (Lois Lane) Kidder and Olivia (Juliet)Hussey.
All I knew before watching was that this film pre-dates Halloween and Friday 13th and is sometimes referred to as the first slasher.

Set in a sorority house and based on an archetypal horror story the film hangs together quite well. It's not as gory as its later counterparts and the body count is lower but there are plenty of creeps provided by the 'prank' phonecalls being made to the girls at the house.

These phonecalls include mumbling, squealing, screaming, panting and schizoid voice changes with an unnatural urgency. If I was getting these calls? I would be sleeping with on eye open.

The tension in the house escalates when one of the girls goes missing and another is found dead in a local park. Pretty young Jess (Hussey) seems to be bearing the brunt of the calls and after she upsets her boyfriend he begins to behave erratically causing the finger of suspicion to point his way.

The film takes its time. It's not just a sequence of murders strung together. Despite the patchy acting, some of the characters are quite interesting and Hussey is oddly watchable. As we approach the climax I do actually care - who is the killer? What's the twist? Did the boyfriend do it??

We see the inevitable call from the police. Having traced the prank calls they tell Jess that they've been coming from...inside the house! Shock!  Horror! Jess knows she should leave the house but her friends are still upstairs, what to do? She narrowly escapes and hides from the monster awaiting the final showdown. In the whole film to this point we have yet to see this psychotic maniac killer.

The close is perfect, some will disagree, but I liked it. Beautifully subdued and quiet. Open ended in the way of a good scary story (before the franchise era made us groan at the end of every sequel).

I enjoyed it but it didn't move me so it's getting a 6/10.

Four for the price of one!

Crap. Blogger just lost my draft of this entry when I was three paragraphs in. Damn you blogger.

I was saying that I have seen a few movies recently and whilst I didn't make notes at the time I definitely have something to say.

Friday 13th (2009 remake)
Boring. Dull, pointless. Lacking panache or fun. Characters avoid being stereotypes by being utterly bland and forgettable. Not a patch on the original and less memorable thsn Jason X.
3/10

Child's Play 3 (1991)
Dissappointing. Not as good as I remembered! There was a lot of fuss about this movie in the 90s and the impact it had on the terrible actions of young boys. This film is tired. Having a semi-grown Andy in a military setting (why?) is just nonsense.  There is enough Chucky for me to give it a 5, but I won't be watching it again for a while.

World War Z (2013)
Starring Brad Pitt. Wow. An intelligent,  big budget, zombie apocalypse movie.
It looks great,  it's original and bloody tense. Featuring the new trend of fast zombies and even more frightening - fast infection,  the scares come from the relentless nature of the plague. It's an intense film with great moments - like the first time a zombie headbutts it's way through a car windshield. Must see again 8/10.

Evil Dead (2013)
Directed by Fede Alvarez.
Supremo horror movie. Unexpected near perfection.  Love love loved it!!
This is the best remake I have ever seen and the best horror movie I have seen this year.
I loved the original and did not think for a second that a remake could come close. They kept the key elements but really made their own film. A film which was gory, gross, funny and actually bloody scary. I just can't praise it enough. It's not the cult film that it's big brothers have become but it's a great movie in its own right. Own it! Happy to award my first 9/10!!