Tag: Horror

Achieving Deathgasm, A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

deathgasm

Metalheads will certainly love the pointed stab at which bands truly belong to this musical subgenre in the movie Deathgasm. This film is now out on Video on Demand (VOD) in select markets, and it’s worth checking out for the absurdities that goes on. I had to laugh when Poison‘s Look What the Cat Dragged In is hurriedly put back in the record stacks in favour of one of Autopsy‘s albums when this film’s hero Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) meets Zakk (James Blake) for the first time.

From bashing glam metal to loving death metal, that’s a detail few will pick up on and I have to praise that kind of attention to detail by writer/director Jason Lei Howden in a movie that’s truly dedicated to the music. From its Frank Frazetta-style cut scenes of the heroes posing powerfully atop a mountain to the anime-inspired gore-fest that goes on, this movie is a gem coming out of Kiwi-land that also unleashed the vampire mockumentary What We Do In Shadows last year. I suppose more tentacles could be used, but I’m glad this film did not go down that vein.

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Insidious 3 Attempts to Connect to Teen & Pop Culture

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Insidious_–_Chapter_3_posterThe mythology that’s created for the Insidious movies is one that’s rich with evil intent. With departed souls looking for a second chance at life, just what writer Leigh Whannell has crafted for Insidious 3 may well have Aleister Crowley giving his seal of approval. With one witchy woman and a spawn of Darth Maul populating the Further, just how this other side works is much more effective than anything the Poltergeist remake can conjecture.

Instead of a gothic realm populated by corpses, this mirror realm is simply devoid of light and life. In the afterlife according to Whannell, the freaks of purgatory exist because of their own devices. Whether by family neglect or desire by an entity to take a soul for its own, just what’s next for this series of movies requires figuring out who is the star of the show: is it Lin Shaye who is doing her best to give life to an otherwise droll plot or someone else?

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How to Scare Up a Poltergeist, a Movie Review

Poltergeist2By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Even poltergeists have trouble vying for attention these days. We’re not talking about how the ‘remake’ compares to the original Steven Speilberg produced and Tobe Hooper directed film but instead, the Enfield haunting (the basis for the next The Conjuring film) suggests that targeting paranormal enthusiasts to earn box office coin is a good way to manifest dollars. Next year’s ghostly themed product has the potential to do far better than this rehash of a familiar tale.

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Oren Peli’s Area 51 Lacks Videogame Style Punch

Area51By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Okay, I admit it. As a paranormal investigator (not a ghost hunter), I was intrigued with the movie that Oren Peli made with his breakout hit Paranormal Activity. He got a few concepts right in terms of what goes on during a haunting and he also got other things wrong — namely in the fact that Dr. Fredrichs, the supposed investigator, ran with his tail between his legs. The way the cameras are set up and the editing created some good suspense. The back story that was told, spread between the first movie and the latest, provides a great reason to stay tuned. In wondering what this writer/director can do with Area 51, which took years in the making, suggests that this producer has lost his touch. Where’s the suspense? Where’s the drama?

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[VFF’15] Where do the Scares Belong in It Follows? A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

it_follows_xlg9:15pm Feb 14
Odeon Theatre

Fans of minimalist horror will love what’s created in a simple tale of terror, It Follows and to find where it will screen next requires carefully paying attention to film festival or this movie’s own Facebook page for where it will play next.

Students of the occult will want to figure out what the entity is and to figure out what the monster represents can be studied in film analysis class but is any of the above really needed at all? Most likely not, but in a film that certainly delves into themes about sexual awakening, this tribute to 80’s sentimentality certainly delivers the thrills in an effective manner that even John Carpenter would approve of.

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A Look Into Shout! Factory’s Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions

Only the die-hard fans and film studies enthusiast will enjoy the extra content in the bonus disc that comes in this latest home video release of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed.

nightbreed-blu-ray-1The underground world of Midian was very much alive within me many years ago, even before I discovered Clive Barker’s Cabel. I loved the narrative and it spoke to me as there were times I felt misunderstood. Life of an outcast as a nerd was never easy but I adapted. When the film Nightbreed appeared in 1990, I hoped some of the themes explored in the book would get translated over. Instead, what was presented was totally alien. This film was not Barker’s story and I wondered why. My favourite moments were either cut out or never written in.

As a rated R film, I hoped the way Boone connected to Baphomet would be represented but alas ….

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