The Devonsville Terror

A Witch In Time

The Devonsville Terror
USA 1983 Directed by Ulli Lommel
88 Films Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some spoilers... although it's not really that kind of movie.

There were two reasons I wanted to see a film like The Devonsville Terror (a movie I would not normally be interested in seeing, it has to be said). First up, it was shot in Wisconsin a month or so before another film I recently saw, The Demons Of Ludlow (as part of Arrrow’s Weird Wyoming boxed edition... reviews of the individual films in that set will be put up on the blog at some point soonish... but possibly not until 2022). It shares a few of the same minor cast members and I thought it would be interesting to watch another movie using the same locations etc.

Secondly, it’s another film by Ulli Lommel, made the same year as the brilliant Olivia (aka Prozzie aka Double Jeopardy, which I reviewed here) and it’s once again starring and co-written by his then wife, the remarkable Suzanna Love. And, like Olivia, it also co-stars, in a much less prominent role (not quite an extra but he might as well have been) Robert Walker Jr, who readers may remember as playing the troublesome and troubled, lethal teenager Charlie Evans in the very early Star Trek episode Charlie X.

So, yeah, I was looking forward to this one but, I have to say, it’s not nearly the film Olivia was, in all honesty. This one’s a standard ‘witch return’ movie and it starts off 300 years prior to the main action of the film, with three ladies being seized by a witch hunter before being tortured to death. One is eaten by pigs, one is broken on a wheel by being rolled along on it and the third is burned at the stake, invoking some kind of vague curse as she dies.

Cut back to the present (or, you know, 300 years later, at any rate) and the little village of Devonshire is having the 300th birthday of its guilty past, when the village gathered the witches and put them to death. The resident doctor, Dr. Warley, is played by none other than Donald Pleasance (although the voice over extracts read from his diaries in a couple of places is obviously read by someone else, presumably trying hard to sound like the great man). The doctor believes the witches were wrongfully burned and commonly puts his patients under hypnotic regression (mostly unknown to them) to find out more about their actions in that event... the film seems to subscribe, without question, to the idea that everyone has past lives directly connected to their ancestors. It’s just a phenomenon presented as the presumption of fact so, yeah, the audience isn’t given a chance to question that idea. Dr. Warley himself is cursed with a rare illness, passed from one generation to another, where he has worms swimming in his blood as punishment for his ancestor’s deeds and, indeed, on a number of occasions you see him making excisions in his wrist and pulling out worms.

Anyway, around this time, three new people arrive in the village of Devonshire. One of them, Jenny (played by Suzanna Love) is the new school teacher. Another, Chris, played by Mary Walden, is studying the water locally because of toxic chemicals she suspects the locals have been dumping in there. The third, Monica, played by Deanna Haas, is a new radio DJ and seems somewhat reminiscent of Adrienne Barbeau’s character in the then recent movie The Fog... although, to be fair, the film doesn’t seem to be cribbing from John Carpenter’s production half as much as The Demons Of Ludlow did.

And it’s a short film with the town not responding kindly to any of these new outsiders and, ultimately, attempting to kill them all in modern versions of the deaths visited on the three witches, who do appear to be these women’s ancestors, 300 years before. So one of them gets eaten by a dog, another gets dragged along behind a car and, well, when Jenny is tied to a stake she gets her revenge in a scene which is, frankly, completely lifted from another influential film from a couple of years before, namely Steven Spielberg’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark. In a less than credible and ‘way out there’ moment, Suzanna Love takes a page from Bobbie Bresee’s book in Mausoleum (again, review coming at some point soon) and shoots lasers from her eyes. This causes the ‘Raiders moment’ where one man’s head explodes and the other man’s head melts, with his glasses falling down his melting features as in the Spielberg film. Then, we see Jenny leaving the town on a bus and that’s the end. The curse is apparently lifted.

It’s a short movie and that might be the reason why this film, although watchable, is not all that engaging or that credible as a story line. Robert Walker’s character, for instance, is built up in a couple of scenes and then he bizarrely just seems to drop out of the narrative when things start really happening. There’s no awareness on the part of the three women that they’re in any way related to the witches at the start of the film either and... yeah, it all seems to be a hasty sketch of a movie rather than a fully fleshed story, it seemed ot me. About the only thing worth mentioning here perhaps, asides from Suzanna Love who I believe is a seriously underrated actress and should be better known, is a dream sequence Jenny has where some impressive, ogre-like creatures are glimpsed, with some nice, possibly animatronic movement on their faces. It’s a shame these creatures weren’t used in the rest of the movie because they look very good and the rest of the film could have done with the lift.

As it is, The Devonsville Terror is a watchable film and, certainly, it handles the whole witchcraft idea more tastefully than Bill Rebane’s The Demons Of Ludlow but, yeah, it’s not all that great and, asides from the aforementioned dream sequence and some brief landscape shots filled with nice Autumnal colour, it’s not a great film by any means and one I would have trouble recommending to others. I’m glad I saw it though and, you never know, I may watch it again some day.

The Pale Door

Coven Hoofed

The Pale Door
USA 2020 Directed by Aaron B. Koontz
 Paper Street Pictures

Warning: Some spoilerage ensues.

Okay, so the first thing I want to say here is, I can’t believe the unbelievably bad, bordering on overtly hostile, one and two star reviews The Pale Door has over at the IMDB. I mean, it’s like the people writing in have never seen a low budget movie before. Let me be clear, I’ve seen a lot of low budget movies prior to this and this one doesn’t even come close to the low production values and lack of basic competence that many of them have. Frankly, this one looks like a gazillion bucks when you compare it to a lot of the stuff out there.

Secondly... yes, it’s a fairly simplistic movie but I don’t understand why people are having a hard time with that. There are a lot of simplistic films out there which are pretty damned good and, frankly, I had a great time with this movie. I don’t understand why some people thought it might be trying to be a comedy because, honestly, I think there’s rarely a lick of humour in it so, yeah, this is one of those head scratching puzzles of a film where I can’t figure out why my response is just so out of kilter with the majority of the audience response so far.

Thirdly... and much to my surprise... this film has the great Bill Sage on it as one of the main, supporting roles and, frankly, he’s always worth watching. One of the great actors of our time and he also has an associate producer credit on this. Not quite sure what an associate producer does, to be honest but I guess that means he believed in the film enough to really get involved.

The movie has a nice set up, after a picturesque credits sequence of black magic/witchcraft books burning up... where two young brothers escape their home while witnessing the slaughter of their parents. Skip to years later and one of the brothers is a famous outlaw (this is a Western movie) and he’s about to hold up a train guarded by Pinkertons’ finest with his gang when, one of their number gets killed in a petty gunfight. So the younger brother volunteers to fulfill the missing gang role and... as you would expect... the heist goes wrong.

The valuable trunk on the train contains a bound and gagged young woman and the older brother is gut shot while the gang of outlaws are trying to get away. The puzzling ‘girl in the box’ takes them back to her home ‘town’ to help but, it soon becomes apparent when she takes them to the local brothel of her friends, that this is a coven of witches who plan on eating the outlaws.

So yeah, it a low budget Horror Western and, frankly, it’s a romp. The performances of all the main outlaws and some of the witches is great and although the thrifty attitude to the reuse of sets and stuff is... well, like I said, it’s thrifty... the production values are pretty good and it really doesn’t look as economical as you might expect. I’ll obviously single out Bill Sage here who I mostly know from his turns in the marvellous films of Hal Hartley and who plays a character who is somewhat against type, I think. He starts off as a quite ruthless and villainous personality (he does things with spurs you might not want to be on the receiving end of) but, of course, by the end of the movie he has a somewhat bonding arc and redeems himself in the eyes of the younger brother, whom the witches want for his innocent blood.

The other actor I liked in this was a guy called Pat Healy, who plays a quiet, somewhat authoritative member of the outlaw gang and brings a certain sense of confidence and weight to the rag tag group. Well, until something happens to him after the witches steal a lock of his hair, that is. Things get a little unfortunate for him after that.

However, if you are a fan of gory horror films where monstrous creatures are used as violent gun fodder and where life, mortal or supernatural, is cheap... then I reckon you should have a good time with this. Also, the cinematography is wonderful and, dare I say it, quite spectacular in certain shots where the outlaws are riding away from the scene of their crime.

There are lots of nice little set pieces and visual commas throughout the thing too... such as a rainstorm of blood, a nice 180 degree camera movement which I won’t spoil for you here and a nice sequence where a crow bursts forth, in a not too pleasant way, from an outlaw’s stomach... working it’s way up the throat and out the mouth, obviously killing him in the process.

My one complaint on this might be that the language of the characters, living in the Old West as they do, seems a mite modern and more naturalistic to contemporary times than, perhaps, it might have been back in the late 1800s. I’m guessing this was a deliberate ploy to help make it accessible to a younger audience but, yeah, I think the writers might have made more of an effort to make the dialogue a little more antiquated, to be sure.

Still, other than that one, minor flaw (as I see it), I thought The Pale Door was a nice little cross genre piece which deserves to find an audience. I think it’s more likely to appeal to horror fans than most other sections of its potential audience but, I suppose that’s why it’s been chosen for this year’s October FrightFest. Certainly not a great work of horror art, for sure but, nevertheless, a thoroughly competent and, it has to be said, somewhat charming entertainment. And that’s as good a thing to say about a movie as most, I believe. Definitely worth a watch if you like body count horror such as zombie movies and such like.

Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension 3D

Wheatley Hell’s 
Going On Here?

Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension 3D
2015 USA
Directed by Gregory Plotkin
UK cinema release print.

Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for the Paranormal Activity films. The first of these (reviewed here) was not really all that scary but fits into my realm of 'comfort horror'. Paranormal Activity 2 - 4 (reviewed here, here and here)  were pretty scary and, as each new film was released, they added another compelling puzzle piece to an overall  back story arc that has been used to drive the franchise on, pretty successfully, since the first installment. At this point I should probably point out that I don’t include the original sequel to the first Paranormal Activity film, the Japanese horror movie Paranormal Activity 2 - Tokyo Nights because, amazingly, the producers have done a really good job at suppressing a release of that, now unofficial, sequel over here or in the US and I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy with English subtitles. it follows a completely different plot avenue from the US Paranormal Activity 2 and I really want to see what the Japanese did with it. I shall keep looking out for it though.

The US films are not set in a chronological order but, as the story unfolds, you realise that there's a good reason why this is so, especially with the inclusion in the fifth installment, the dreadful Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones (reviewed here) of the concept that various characters in the Paranormal Activity universe can travel back and forth in time. Now this is interesting because, as far as I can remember, the release of Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension was stalled for a couple of years to make way for the shooting and release of The Marked Ones and it seems to me now that the only reason this could be so, was that test audiences (be they members of the public or part of private studio screenings back in 2013) may have been confused by the time travel element in this movie but, honestly, although I originally assumed that this was why that fifth film was needed, I can honestly say that you’d have to be... well...  really not very smart if you couldn’t work that out for yourself by the things which are happening in this one, since the film straddles mostly just two realities (or three if you count the titular plain of existence) - that of the year when Katie and her sister were taken in by ‘the coven’ in the past and also the current part of the story playing out, the year 2013... which gives me further circumstantial evidence that this was, at least in part but probably in whole, in the can by the original projected 2013 release date.

Now, the thing which was driving me nuts about this one before I went to see it was that it’s being presented in 3D. What the heck? Now you have to think about this. The movies are found footage horror films making use of whatever camera technology they are purportedly being recorded on... mostly VHS in this one because it includes the identity of the finders of the tapes which you saw being discovered in the opening of one of the former episodes... I forget which one. So how do you get away with justifying a 3D release of a Paranormal Activity film when the whole point of these things is they’re supposed to look like they are documentary style found footage recorded on the hoof?

Well, as it happens, I forgave them almost immediately because, like the majority of the series, this film brings in a slightly newer element which elevates proceedings just a little more than the last one and, in this one, it’s the discovery of a souped up camera which has twice as much innards as it’s supposed to have and which seems to have been specifically created to capture things happening in a spirit realm, invisible to the naked eye or a normal camera, superimposed over the real world images as they manifest themselves. So think shots of eerie ectoplasm beings appearing whenever the films ‘star demon’ Toby comes out to play, so to speak. So most of the footage in the movie is still flat but, whenever The Ghost Dimension starts manifesting whenever it’s this particular camera picking up the footage, the ghost parts are actually projected on a 3D layer... accompanied by some appropriate sound design to heighten the audiences awareness that something spooky is about to happen while simultaneously conditioning the audience, Pavlov style, that whenever they hear these sounds or see these ectoplasmic 3D black shapes... something awful could happen, so be afraid! Of course, all this would have gone down a lot better if it had made its original 2013 release date, when 3D hadn’t totally lost the popularity Hollywood wants it to have, in order to justify the ticket price hike but... at least the team behind the film have gone to some lengths to find a decent spin on the gimmick for this movie... which I think lets it off the hook somewhat.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that this is a real return to form for the series after that last, plug in installment. This one has a group of characters consisting of people who you really can sympathise with again and who you can hope make it through the film fairly unscathed... rather than the bunch of foul mouthed  street thugs you just don’t care about in The Marked Ones. Of course, I’m not going to tell you if everyone or, indeed, anyone survives this installment but... it’s a Paranormal Activity film. What do you think? You need to go find out.

The film is somewhat formulaic, it has to be said, following the slow burn format of the previous installments with the scares getting increasingly more alarming and violent as Toby and the gang ramp up to a finale where all hell breaks loose... almost literally in this case. There’s also a nice return, in this one, to the old Dennis Wheatley school of horror... which manifests itself when a local priest gets involved with the family and friends who are trying to protect their Toby-obsessed daughter. So, yeah, you get the old chalk symbol circle sequence where everybody has to stand in said circle and must not... whatever they hear or see... leave the circle which protects them from the demonic forces at work.

Okay... so how do you think that ones going to work out in a Paranormal Activity movie? Someone always leaves the circle of protection in a horror tale, right?

Let’s just say that the final confrontation between the priest and Toby, kickstarts the usual chaotic and scary concluding sequences of the film and, I have to tell you, the writers/producers/director goes way past the level they usually do at this point in these movies. You will, finally, get some good glimpses of Toby and the demonic deaths of any/all/some of the characters in this one (like I’m going to tell you) are all done in a much more over-the-top fashion which, in a lot of cases, makes full use of the 3D format. It possibly gets a little silly in this final pièce de résistance of the movie but it’s swings and roundabouts averaging out between the “blimey, that scared the pants off me, I did not expect that” moments and the “okay, 3D demonic impaling... whatever” moments and I can really forgive the film-makers any indulgences with the last quarter of an hour of this movie because it’s just so much scary fun.

The creator of the franchise, Oren Peli, has gone on record that this will be the last in the series but... hang on, you can’t stop it here! The final message we take away from this one is pretty grim and I really do want to see more of this franchise. I don’t think the story is done here and I would so much like to see a good guy/gal ‘anti-coven’ group of heroes go into a final showdown with Toby, the coven and, presumably, the devil made flesh etc. This is like where they left it at the end of The Last Exorcism Part 2 (reviewed by me here) and I was pumped up to see where the next one would go... which didn’t materialise. I want to see this series’ equivalent of the original Omen trilogy’s The Final Conflict (reviewed by me here) where there’s a huge showdown between the forces of darkness and light, over one or two movies. I don’t even care who wins... I just want to see it. I think this film needs to maybe make a heck of a lot of money and wipe out the bad box office of the unnecessary fifth installment to somehow give the studio a hand in reconsidering their options at this point.

The one thing that I found maybe dissapointing is that this is the first of the movies not to feature an adult version of the Katie character and played by the original actress. We certainly hear about what she’s been up to in 2013 and we certainly see a lot of her as a young ‘un... but no actual appearances in her adult guise in this one, I’m afraid to say. Which would have been a nice touch when all hell starts breaking loose in this one, I feel.

Regardless, my final words on Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension are... this is another great entry into a seriously cool set of movies which actually make full use of the, possibly overused, modern cliché of the ‘found footage horror’ movie. It’s scary, heart racing fun for people who like to go to see these kinds of films and if you’re a fan of the Paranormal Activity series... essential viewing. If you got disheartened after that last movie in the series, you don’t have anything to worry about here... it’s back on track and is especially well worth a watch at the cinema in 3D because it’s used to enhance a plot point. And, like I said, I really hope this one does the numbers because I really want to see another sequel. A truly great movie, too, to spend this Halloween at the cinema with. Go see it soonest.

Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones

Marking Bad

Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones

2014 USA

Directed by Christopher Landon

Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: There will be some spoilers in here.

Okay... so if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll probably know that I adore the Paranormal Activity films, at least the ones which were made in the USA... I’ve not been able to get a subtitled copy of the Japanese sequel to the original movie, Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night due to, presumably, the Hollywood studios suppressing a release in English speaking countries (I can only, at time of writing this article, track down versions with Italian or French subtitles... so please let me know if you have any leads to picking up a decent, English subtitled DVD of the same).

This sixth (depending on how you choose to count them) entry into the series is a sideways swipe of a movie, shot as a fill in to bridge the release gap between Paranormal Activity 4 and the next one in the series, erm, Paranormal Activity 5... although my understanding is that Paranormal Activity 5 was done and in the can before this one was even made. Is that correct? Maybe the producers don’t have much confidence in it.

Anyway, up until now, although I loved the first in the series... I always considered that movie to be the weakest of the films, not because it wasn’t any good - it was. It’s just that the first one wasn’t scary like the other ones turned out to be. However, now I’ve seen this installment, I’d have to say that this is now my least favourite of the series, not because it isn’t scary... it really is. Scary as hell. The usual high blood pressure and heart attack inducing shenanigans ensue, especially if you are going to see this in the company of a young, impressionable audience at the cinema. However... I did have some really big problems with this movie too.

My biggest problem, though, is that I didn’t sympathise with any of the main protagonists of the movie and, frankly, I didn’t care what happened to them. One of the two main guys is fresh from his College graduation and, frankly, I just assumed that a lot of his time before the spooky goings on were happening, and all through the film, would be about getting himself a job and becoming an upstanding, working citizen.

Nope.

He and his friends are just, basically, thugs. Lazy teenagers who just seem to think its fine loafing around, acting goofy, playing mean pranks and doing nothing to help themselves. Seriously, this lot are worse than the kids in Attack the Block but, whereas in that film the issues inherent in the chemical make up of the so-called “heroes” was addressed at various times in the movie, here it’s just accepted that these are typical teenagers somehow... and presumably the film’s primary target audience of cinemagoing teenagers is supposed to identify with them. Lord help us if they do!

Another big problem is that the found footage style of film-making, which has served the series so well right from the start of the franchise (before they even figured out this would be scary, cheap and profitable enough to be a franchise) is adhered to as it should be... but with absolutely no apparent reason for this to be the case. Seriously, at least the other films in the franchise made a passable effort to justify the use of found footage media. Using surveillance cameras and switching to different sources to build a picture where the use of video of camera equipment would be justified. Here the main protagonists don’t even have a camera fetish like a couple of the characters in the past films. Here they just seem to be intent on recording stuff when they obviously are not interested in the camera in the slightest and will even remember to pick up the camera when they are running for their lives.

Seriously? The producers expect us to believe this?

The actions by various characters in this film defy credibility and that means I didn’t buy into it the way I would in a film where that layer of super-realism was deliberately used. I would have thought this is something the film-makers would have realised. The [REC] films abandoned this style a little way in to the third entry in that series and, although I didn’t agree with that departure from the format myself, if the writers couldn’t have written what they wanted to show credibly within that found footage format then you can see why they decided to rid themselves of those shackles. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a good film to use as an example of why you wouldn’t continue with that format if you can’t write convincingly for it.

There are some good moments in this one though. The scenes where the old hand held electronic game Simon, which was popular for a year or two in the late 1970s, is used as a variation of a ouija board, is fun but, this also brings problems of its own. If this film is aimed at teenagers, and I’m pretty sure it is, they’re probably not going to remember an old toy which was briefly popular nearly 40 years ago. So... nice idea but maybe a little too low tech for the teenage audience Hollywood producers tend to target.

There are also a fair few cameos from previous episodes in the series, which is nice, including the surviving daughter from Paranormal Activity 2 and, most interestingly, Katie (a regular character in all the US installments in the franchise) and Micah, her husband who was killed at the end of the first film.

Wait? What?

The film is set in 2012... so how does this happen?

Well, if you’re paying attention during one of the “young thugs doing research” sequences of this one, you will hear references to time travel, when talking about the demon spirits and, presumably, the witch army we have seen the coven recruiting for in previous episodes. And, yeah, there’s a sequence right at the end of this one which dovetails straight into the first movie, via time travel. And I have to say that this is the tackiest writing choice I have seen in the franchise. Also a self defeating one because, if you’re building a demon army, you might as well do it in the past and there you go, it’s already done before you know it. Yeah, I know. First born sons etc need to be waited for... but then they can be whisked back in time and still exist then, I would guess... whether they were born or not. In fact, if that’s the case then the demons already know the outcome of their work, surely? It’s all very confusing and I think this element is something which is going to trip the franchise up later on down the line. But they’ve committed to it now so there’s not much anyone can do about it. Kind of a hard element to overlook in the grand scheme of things.

And that’s about it as far as Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones goes. As you would expect, the film is well acted by all the performers. Yes, acting really unsympathetically most of the time but at least you can kinda believe in them. I do think the franchise has taken a bad step with this one though. Of course, if you’re into these films, you really do need to see this one as it’s another jigsaw piece of the overall story... but I’m hoping the next one is better than this mess of a movie. The first “not so good” entry in the series.

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D

Every Witchery Way

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D
Germany/USA 2013
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
Playing at cinemas now.

Alrighty.

So now we have the big gingerbread house of a movie that is Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. It’s an intriguing concept, in that it’s something I’ve not expected to see in terms of using a source material to inspire a gung-ho action flick and the writer/director’s certainly taken a good stab at doing something which is almost as irresistible as the succulent confection of a witches abode that features so heavily in the source fairy tale (and also at certain points in the movie). It’s certainly a lot of fun, that’s for sure.

There are also a few problems with it which I’ll also highlight a little as I go through my personal witch hunting experience.

If you don’t already know, this film is a kick-ass action movie in much the same camp as the badly received Stephen Sommers movie Van Helsing, from almost a decade ago. This may be, I suppose why a lot of people don't seem to be that turned on about going to see it... which is a shame because it’s got some nice things to offer. Now, I happen to have really loved the Van Helsing movie so, when I saw the trailers for this film featuring crossbows, gatling guns, flying witchery, Famke Jannsen, Jeremy Renner (who I like a lot as an action hero, ever since I first became aware of him in 28 Weeks Later) and, as the lovely icing on an already rich cake, the fantastic UK actress/glamour puss phenomenon who is Gemma Arterton... I was already kinda full on gagging to see this particular movie.

The film starts off with a pre-credits recap of the fairy tale version of the story (or “a” version of the story) for people who don’t know it, which neatly leads onto an ultimately expected but still nice little revelation about the main protagonists later on in the movie. It’s a pretty cool sequence and, the young girl in particular, looks very much like Gemma Arterton, who she grows up to be while the opening credits sequence plays out. This particular title sequence is a real masterpiece in itself (especially in 3D) with “newspaper” articles which trace the path of the two witch hunters as they grow up and make a name for themselves in the... ahem... “Witch Hunters For Hire” business. The nature of the illustrative drawings used and the way they are presented in 3D make them almost look like those old, Victorian, Pollock’s Toy Theatre cutouts (black and white for a penny, colour for tuppence) and this helps lend a certain sense of larger than life theatricality to the proceedings as we then plunge into a “witch trial” which is stopped by the title characters in their grown up form.

These characters are quick and easy to be established through some verbal and physical shorthand and then the basic plot (and it is pretty basic, it has to be said, though there’s nothing wrong with that) is out of the way and everyone can get on with the witch hunting and general “beating-upness” of the movie in some set pieces which are half way between dazzling and, unfortunately, bewildering. Yes, this movie suffers from some confusing editing during the action sequences, it’s true, but I’m hoping when (and that is a when, not an if) I watch this movie again, on DVD, some of the - fight/chase/run/fight a bit more - sequences will make more sense. To be fair, it might have been that my brain was trying to cope with all the 3D effects and, in tight juxtaposition with a fast action sequence, I was just not processing the information fast enough.

There are some nice supporting characters in the shape of Hansel’s red headed love interest played by the very beautiful Pihla Viitala and also “Hansel & Gretel’s biggest fan”, played by Thomas Mann (who turns in a really likeable performance and who is not to be confused with the German geezah who wrote Death In Venice). The film also features Peter Stormare in a minor villain role but, although he is more than worthy of the character, he never really gets the chance to let rip with his particular kind of craziness and I think this is a case of the specific casting choice raising this viewers expectations of the character via the baggage of his previous roles... which is a shame but, hey, he’s still excellent and credible in it, so I need to temper my expectations a little, maybe.

There’s some nice business with a troll character that I really liked and he really drives home one of the things that I’d kind of subconsciously noticed right from the outset but which was then pushed to the front of my mind when I watched the first big sequence with this character... this film is not for little kids. It’s violent, for sure, but I was kind of expecting it to be the Marvel comic book style of turning violence into a bloodless ballet, which the majority of large budget films over the last decade or so have been guilty of, primarily because of censorship issues and the fears said censorship would have on the box office. This, however, is quite gory all the way through, with loads of decapitation, head pulping, bodies torn apart, bodies exploding and, you know, all the gory stuff. It wasn’t until after I’d seen the movie, when I looked up the director to write this review, that I realised it was written and directed by the same guy who wrote and directed Dead Snow (aka Dod Sno), the excellent, tongue in cheek nazi-zombie movie which was on everyone’s radar a few years ago. This explains a lot. I certainly can’t say I prefer Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters over Dead Snow (which I loved) but now i understand why this movie was refreshingly, for the kind of movie it is, blessed with a penchant for gory bloodletting when it could so easily have bypassed that aspect of the production.

I also think there may have been script issues along the way too... which is a shame. There are some nice details and little character props put in the film and one of these is the fact that, due to Hansel’s childhood experience at the original witch’s gingerbread lair, he has to inject himself with a substance every couple of hours or die... which could have made for a suspenseful scene towards the end of the picture but, alas, all references to this facet of the character seem to fly out of the window by the end of the movie and he goes for long stretches of time without even once “pulling out his plunger” after a certain point. There’s one scene which may explain the reasons for this in terms of story logic, except if that is what was going on, it wasn’t made implicit enough, for me at least, to register. What I think, is more likely, is that the film was originally a much longer cut and the sequences explaining just what is going on in relation to this story element were lost in the edit somewhere along the line. Personally I’d like to see a longer version of this movie where stuff like this is addressed at some point in my near future. Oh well... maybe with the blu-ray.

Another script issue might be the language, which seemed a bit too modern in a lot of places... specifically when it came to the use of swear words in whatever the time period of this film is supposed to be covering. I remember reading an article when I was a kid about “controlled anachronism” in the context of fantasy fiction but, frankly, there’s a lot of reference to “those f*cking witches” throughout the film and this did seem to lessen the credibility of the central characters somewhat... I would have personally gone with a more antiquated set of swear words to run through the film but, all in all, it doesn’t really spoil the movie too much and the pacing is such that you never really have too much time to think about it before being yanked into the next set piece.

So, in essence, what we have here is a movie which is a rollicking action fest, if that’s your thing, and has some pretty cool actors playing some characters with a fair bit of heart and depth (although, it is a shorthand sketchy kind of depth, to be sure) tearing through an adult fairy tale at a fairly fast pace with a good amount of gore thrown into the mix. Some nice scoring, too, in the few places you can actually hear it properly (it does tend to get buried in the mix in places) which I’m looking forward to grabbing for a “stand alone” listen when it gets released towards the end of next month.

This is not the best action movie going, by a long shot, but it is trying something new and it is, by and large, a fairly enjoyable romp in the cinema if you’ve got nothing else to do one night. I’d recommend it to most people but don't go into it with really high expectations... this director is in better form with nazi zombies than he is with twisted fairy tales.

Outcast

World Of Witchcraft

Outcast
Ireland/UK 2010
Directed by Colm McCarthy
Momentum Region 2

Warning: A few spoilers but nothing too major.

This is a nice little find. I’d not heard of this movie before I read about it in a book the other week, but I’m really glad I ordered myself a cheap copy off of Amazon.

Set in a depressed, council estate in Edinburgh, a woman and her adolescent son rent a very run down, delapidated, 10 notches below ‘fixer upper’ of a flat and it doesn’t take you long to notice that there’s something a little odd about these two. Once they are in, for example, the mother paints strange symbols on the walls and it doesn’t take much to figure out that a) these two are on the run from someone (or something) and b) the mother is a witch and her son is... aha. I’ll not get ahead of myself there.

With these symbols ‘protecting them’ in their new home, the flat itself seems to be cloaked from anyone meaning the two of them harm. This is amply demonstrated (or should that be ‘demon-strated’) by the fact that the lady from ‘housing’ cannot find where these two live, even when she is standing outside their very door. Something stops her from recognising the flat, even though she has the number written down for her.

This little scene itself is used to impress upon the minds of the audience that the mother, Mary, played brilliantly by Kate Dickie, is actually a fairly potent witch and that she’s best not crossed. Something which becomes very clear when she goes out to talk to the same lady a little later in the film and puts a curse on her so that she wanders around the council estate forever, not knowing why she’s there. She can hold her own against her ‘own kind’ pretty well too... as seen in a few scenes scattered throughout the movie.

This low budget, UK witch movie exudes a kind of raw style which makes for a very rewarding watch. The two are being pursued by the boy’s father,  who is tattooed early on in the film with special symbols which give him “witched up” supernatural powers of his own to aid him in his hunt. There’s a nice scene where he cuts open a bird and follows the way the blood is pointing... and another where he basically has a mentally projected battle of wills with Mary from afar... similar to the kinds of things you used to see in the old Dr. Strange comics in the sixties. Mary once again proves her worth as a witch... and the fact that when she’s getting especially witchy that she also gets a bit naked might also interest a certain percentage of the viewers.

Meanwhile, her son is busy falling in love with the girl in the flat next door and all this is happening against a backdrop of gory murders in the area. There are quite a few little British character actors in this, including the inimitable James Cosmo as a kind of local ‘witch godfather’ (I still remember him best in Brond and also as Jock in the 70s Dick Barton TV serial... good times) and a small appearance by a certain female who had just gotten famous by the time this film was released...

Come along Pond!

Yes, I was actually gobsmacked when I noticed a friend of the neighbour was played by Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan. She is only in two brief scenes, with only a few lines before she’s dragged off and ripped apart by... well I won’t say by ‘who’, but if you’ve seen the cover of the UK DVD box then you’ll have a pretty good idea of ‘what’. There’s a ‘not badly done’ beastie in this movie and if you’ve been paying attention to the story in the film, it won’t take you very long to figure out who this beastie is when they’re not being a beastie... although I won’t say who it is here. To be honest, there’s a lot of deliberate misdirection in this film to kind of hide the identity of this particular ‘outcast’... but ultimately this doesn’t really succeed in blinding the audience to the inevitability of the identity of the movie’s central monster.

But that’s only a small fault and it would be a shame to judge the entire film by this because, frankly, it’s a well crafted, reasonably intelligent, British horror movie and deserves to find its audience. If the Hellblaiser comics had been done properly instead of having the basic character changed and too much money thrown at it (like it did with the Constantine movie, which was an enjoyable but hugely inaccurate adaptation of the source material) then I’d expect it to turn out a little more like this movie here. It’s probably the lack of budget which really helps this movie stay focussed on the function it’s trying to perform in the script, is my guess, and it certainly lends it a certain charm and reigns it in when a bit of money thrown at the odd scene or two might have actually harmed the uneasy feeling of authenticity it manages to carry off  at certain points too. The creature looks a little less sophisticated than it might be in a Hollywood project, for instance, but that too is really not bad and I much preferred it to some of the terrible, over-used CGI rubbish we’ve been getting over the years.

The film is competently shot and edited and has absolutely brilliant performances, as you’d expect from a lot of the “haven’t-I-seen-him/her-before?” character actors who turn up in this one. A really good watch if your in the mood for a modern day story of witches and monsters which doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator audience and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Worth a watch by pretty much anybody, but especially if you have a passion for this kind of modern spin on a Dennis Wheatley vibe. Don’t let this one get away from you.