Sin Reaper

Hey there, gang! I'm back with a horror film to review. Yes I know, I do lapse into this a little too often but this particular flick is produced and distributed by the one and only, Fangoria Magazine. 

For those that aren't warped and eerie from so many slasher films or whatever fits the holy rollers' current criteria, Fangoria Magazine has been in print since 1979, started as a quarterly issue and it wasn't until the 7^th issue did it venture solely into Horror genre. In 2015, the magazine was ceased and unlikely to be back in print but had a huge internet following and the fans spoke out. Film producer Dallas Sonnier of Cinestate acquired the magazine in 2018 and also sunk fangs into podcasting, film production and novelization under the Fangoria flag.

FYI, films produced by Fangoria is as far back as 1990 with Bruce and Bill Campbell's Mindwarp so the magazine is no stranger to Horror distribution. Back to the movie now.

Today's flick is about a young woman with continuous nightmares or visions of a past she isn't certain is hers. After consulting with her shrink, she takes his advise and makes her way to Germany, seeking her ancestral roots. This is Sin Reaper.

Did I get top billing? Damn straight I did!

Heeeeeyyyy...her shrink looks an awful lot like an android. Yup that's Lance Henriksen, character actor extraordinaire!

The young woman is Samantha Walker (Helen Mutch of Lunar Girl, All in the Game, You're Fired!! Lycanthropy Gardens with Red Roses, The Village and Sin Reaper 3D) whose nightmares are about a disturbing cowled monk with a four sided ax? Maybe a flail? A mace? Need a SCA member to wage a guess. She converses with Frank Black there and sees what can be done. While Samantha has been with a loving family, she is adopted and knows next to nothing about her birth parents. Her artwork is vivid and she has a few medications but not quite the bevy I have seen. Doesn't seem to be on any anti-psychotics, her artwork is still being channeled.  Using her own drawings, Lance find Wallhausen monastery and sets her on her path to this remote, isolated area of Germany and find out if there is any truth to her dreams and must confront them head on. How very Dr. Phil. Hope she's paid up for sessions.

MICHELLE!!! FLEDGLING!!!

Among ze Germans, most of the cast sounds like they learned their English lines phonetically and I am having Troll 2 flashbacks already. You don't piss on hospitality, boy!

We find the garb of said monk is reminiscent of ones found with the Crusades and I am immediately wondering if he or she is connected to the Knights Templar. It is a popular connection for Horror. Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead quadrilogy is prime examples of such. The music score is reminding me of Ted Nicolau's Vampire Journals. Prep the vampire orgy scenes!  No?  Huh, I mean that's fine. Didn't wanna see those anyway, whatever. Instead our killer monk seems to be gacking men and women of the Roman Catholic faith. So the Protestants can breathe easy I guess.

Okay before I go further, I must warn you that you are not getting your Lance Henriksen fix from this film. His shrink character has about three scenes and then he's out of the flick. I know, I would have loved it if he went with Samantha on this intrepid journey into her bloodlines' past but it was not meant to be. Or they simply couldn't afford him. Low budget has to put their money where they can in all of the project.

Got a little grape jelly on your neck there.

Moving on, Samantha finds herself at the very monastery of her dreams of bloody murder. That's..uh that's not necessarily a good thing. The monastery itself is vast and a character all to its own. Provides great atmosphere and frankly I'd shoot a flick horror wise here as well. Proper mood and darkness spreads over the courtyard and you will be easily creeped out.

Samantha almost immediately bonds with another tourist Sasha (Patrick J. Thomas of Son of Morning, Going Global, Sin Reaper 3D, Million Dollar Matchmaker and Megan Nicole: Checklist) and I think it may be due to her dreams of blood or possibly she just doesn't get out in the dating scene that often. Hell I don't understand women enough to psychoanalyze them. Just felt rather sudden. The guy's pretty enough but Samantha is practically salivating.

The caretaker of the monastery gets all shady and foreshadow like hinting this may not be the safest idea, so naturally our gaggle of one-dimensional teens have to go back in the night and start screwing around or screwing each other. When will these pesky teens to twenty somethings ever learn?!

Lord be praised!  *WHACK!

Interesting enough, one of the tourists Jenny (Hazuki Kato of Ballistica, The Forest, The League, Sin Reaper 3D, Shi, Muppets Most Wanted, Falcon Rising, Atomic Eden and Grisse) speaks perfect English buuuuuut has done something her voice that either sounds like nails on a chalkboard or a Yoko Ono album. Whichever is more painful for you. I think it was the director's choice, I will look further into young Kato's filmography and make a more informed decision.

So one by one they are stalked and now we have slasher elements and for this film, that's okay. What puzzles me is the whole 3-D angle because our kills didn't get the graphic edge I was expecting. Figured innards and entrails would fly at the screen or a head would bounce down a flight of stairs but yeah it was really wasted. Loved how the staff of the tourist spot there attempts to be nonchalant but FAILS at even a hint of subtlety. The performances were workable and decent. Camera, lighting and sound all quality and just again shows that low budget can create just as easily as the A-List.

Not a bad concept using a religious persecution as the basis of your Horror movie, it has been done before but this was executed well. Director Sebastian Bartolitius (Another Slice of Life, Die Reise des Jacob Crane, Coppelius and Passage 33) made this unfold well but some of the less than subtle responses made it feel awkward in scenes. At the end of the day it is good work.

Few observations at this time. Lot of handheld work. While that can create suspense if done right I guess they didn't have the ability for a dolly track from scene to scene. Some real jarring zoom up shots and weird pans, made me wonder how much work these cameramen had prior but overall some solid work. Not trashing the cinematography. Just made me start thinking of early 90s Charles Band flicks like Subspecies. Again not a bad thing and easy enough to get used to.

STOP MENTIONING THE WAR!

Daylight's End

Back again kiddies! Yeah you missed me. I can just sense these things. So I held a poll on two movies both post apocalyptic and apparently plague based zombies. Clearly I won? I guess. So today we concentrate to Daylight's End.

Winter Soldier?  Bucky?  BUCKY!!!

Directed by indie director William Kaufman (The Prodigy, Sinners and Saints,The Hit List, One in the Chamber, Jarhead 3: The Siege and Murder Made Me Famous)we open with an out stretched road POV shot, I am reminiscent of George Miller's Mad Max. A lone wanderer (Cue Fallout theme) makes his way to an abandoned gas station in a steel meshed covered Plymouth. I think it might be a Superbird. He makes his way in for supplies when he comes across a massive freezer, which he shoots letting in sunlight to fry the zombie/vampire? So these blood thirsty creatures are bringing me back to Last Man on Earth or I Am Legend. A gathering of exposition and visuals throughout the credits opening explains the outbreak of this apocalypse.

He heads into a wayward, abandoned house and cleans house. By himself. Three of these dead bastards were kind of terrifying and jump scares were limited. THANK GOD!

On his travels he sees a police squad car be accosted by the vambies. Zompires?

Anywho, the contents of the car is people and has been murdered and closer examination the group is actually armed humans. Our mysterious stranger dispatches the marauders efficiently.

Well it's no Mad Max ride, but not bad.

Our bad ass protagonist helps the lone survivor, Sam (Chelsea Edmundson of Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt, Camera Phone, Gangster Squad, Bloodsucka Jones, Isolation and Joe Bonamassa: Drive) who invites her savior named Rourke (Johnny Strong of Get Carter, Black Hawk Down, The Fast and the Furious, Sinners and Saints and Cold Brook) for safe harbor along with food, supplies and ammo. A girl the groupof marauders abducted, Annabelle (Farrah White of Miss Congeniality, Single and Dealing with It, Hate Crime, By the Devil's Hands, The Locker, Lunch Break and About Mom and Dad...) is lacking oars in the waters so of course Sam wants to take her along. They hop in his car and make it deep into the midtown of once was Dallas. Um go Cowboys? They narrowly make their way into the old police station.

Journeying in the police station, Rourke encounters leader of this group, Bishop himself (Lance Henriksen of The Terminator, Aliens, Near Dark, Pumpkinhead, Millennium, Scream 3, AVP: Aliens vs Predator and Hellraiser: Hellworld) known as Frank Hill. With a massive steel sliding door keeps the zompires at bay. Naturally Frank, his boy Ethan (Louis Mandylor of Martial Law, Price of Glory, Relic Hunter, Sinners and Saints, Sorority Party Massacre, Jet Set and Code of Honor) and former Dallas Cop Chris (Hakeem Kae-Kazim of Grange Hill, Critical Assignment, Hotel Rwanda, Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End, The Jinn and The Bourne Conspiracy) don't trust outsider Rouke, so they lock him in a cell, after confiscating his weapons. Dude, trust me. This cat could snap necks pretty easily but Rourke agrees to it.

The Vambies (Zompires?) get around at night but seem to actually doing some rudimentary thinking instead of just being scavengers or hyenas on the kill. They seem to follow a beast of a man known only as the Alpha (Former UFC fighter Krzystof Sosynski of Here Comes the Boom, Tapped Out, Hidden in the Woods, Daylight's End and Logan).  Evolution occurs everywhere, folks and even in disease and this big boy is the apex predator. 

Jeez, does no one sew in the Apocalypse?

 Frank realizes it's only a matter of time before these bad boys and girls come smashing in and slaughter them all. Frank tells Rourke they need to regroup, grab some wheels and get everyone out of the area. Rouke is more determined to eliminate the threat of the Alpha during the day. Clearly something personal between the two, not that Rourke is forthcoming with that info.

Keep in mind, the budget is not huge, the musical score is done by our protagonist, and we have a very capable cast and crew. Yes, yes this is YET another post apocalypse but there is nowhere near the gore and rape scenarios of the Mad Max, 2019: Fall of New York or Book of Eli. While this is not an original idea, I like what you take away from this film.

The writer Chad Law (Hero Wanted, The Hit List, 6 Bullets, Isolation, Jarhead 3: The Seige, Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the 4^th Reich and Sinners and Saints: Vengeance) has a solid understanding of Action genre and Stuntman/fight choreographer Ron Balicki (Barb Wire, Escape from L.A., Point Doom, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Prodigy, The Sensei and The Dark Path Chronicles) broke down weapons handling, hand-to-hand and knife fights pretty damn well. The choreography feels like the Bourne series or Burn Notice...granted with zombies and scumbag humans against our survivors.

Strong's physical performance alone is worth going on about. The guy is doing Urban Warfare, sweeping through room to room and putting as little weight on his feet to give his position away. The camera captures all of this and it feels real. Continuity goofs? Well a few. Car windows were shot out and then reappeared whole, some magazines seem to have infinite ammo and not enough reload time between rounds and for some reason Frank's stirring speech, his hat kept disappearing and reappearing throughout it. That being said, this is a decent flick. Plenty of action and story to keep most folk interested and yes ladies I am sorry to say at least one rape scenario but no skin, just the fear.   An attempted one if you will, and our hero goes sick house on these skells.

It's graphic, got very few lull moments and keeps a good steady pace. Yeah I was impressed and I say, "Go Indie film makers!"

THE CUBS WON THE PENNANT!!! ANARCHY IN THE STREETS!!!

Pumpkinhead

Howdy gang! I hope you enjoyed that ridiculous video review of Billy the Kid vs Dracula.

That took far, far too long to finish but it is done! Okay funny note, as many articles I added on here from epinions.com, I somehow skipped a decently creepy film. Today's movie hails from MGM and United Artists making a chiller film with an amazing practical effects creature from Stan Winston's Studios plus he helped with the story and directed our movie. This is Pumpkinhead.

Now massage my corns, Lance.

We start off with an odd prologue in 1957 seeing a farmer with his wife and son, Ed refusing shelter to a doomed soul. The man screams, begs, swears and howls in terror as something from the night kills him.

Flash forward to a present day era, Ed (Lance Henriksen of The Terminator, Aliens, Millenium,Alien 3, Dead Man, The Quick and the Dead, NCIS and The Blacklist) is all grown up with a son of his own is now a general goods store man. Amazingly enough no old guys out widdling wood for pipes or toy soldiers.

With a gaggle of promiscuous and rambunctious teenagers (Because don't almost all these movies start that way?) are out and about dirt biking riding, partying and getting ready for the big orgy, one of them accidentally ran over a small boy that happens to be Ed's son. Joel, (John D'Aquino of SeaQuest DSV, Matlock, Melrose Place, Murder, She Wrote, Seinfeld, Sliders and Crossing Jordan) drunken dirt biker ass decides to be worried...about his record and starts freaking out as the rest of the group came back to the cabin they were staying at for the weekend. Joel knocks one of his buddies out, rips the phone cord out of the wall (this is that old timey land line phones many of you younger readers may not know about) locking him and a girl in the closet so they can't alert the cops. Apparently he is on probation for a similar incident. So how many kids has Joel ran over?

Man, I hate those kid shaped road cones!!

Believing the cops are useless, the loss of his son with the fact his wife died giving birth to their boy has overwhelmed Ed with grief, that he knows what he must do. Yup not call the cops or grab a twelve gauge pump hunting the guy down revenge style. Nosiree, he must journey to visit a crazed witch deep in the woods who will bind Ed's soul to this revenge golem known only as Pumpkinhead. Could be a demon too. They were never really clear. The creature is loosen on the world in search of righteous cruelty.

This demonic entity starts roaming the woods as Joel starts to reflect on his asshat ways and proceeds to head out to turn himself into the cops when his girlfriend Maggie (Kerry Remsen of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Appointment with Fear, Tribes and Round Numbers) hears her name being whispered and goes out to investigate because...well Horror movie obviously. Steve tries to save her but is immediately gacked by this spindly tall monstrosity and drags Maggie away with him.

The dreaded and feared demon, Snappy.  He bites.

Unfortunately given it was his and his late son's blood to resurrect Pumpkinhead, Ed must bear witness to the horrors the creature is inflicting on the kids. Regardless of his need for revenge he cannot stand the sight of these murders.

He begs the old witch to release the creature and put him back so he can do no more harm but the witch laughs saying it's too late and once it is done, Ed's final price will have to be met.

Can Ed lift the curse? Are our hapless and helpless teens done for? How often does this creature make the rounds in these here parts?

This film marks Stan Winston's directorial debut. Many critics were blown away by Winston Studios monster but felt the plot was lacking. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune went on the record saying, "As a technician, Winston clearly knows how to make a monster, but as a director he was yet to learn how to bring one to life."

Personally the family vengeance angle, coupled with grieving father driven to near madness was a compelling idea but the story itself was a bit slow. I mean you have love, loss a need for revenge and even some redemption and okay so it moves a bit slow but that also allows for when the creature will strike next. My only complaint was the creature itself revealed too early. Do a pee wee or extension arm slash and gutting effect first, then crank up a wind machine, a bit of lightning to unveil the beastie at the beginning of the third act.

Lance is what truly keeps this film interesting. Watching him going through this barrage of emotions is impressive and brought his "A"game to it.

This is a surprisingly original atmospheric horror film that gets the most mixed reviews.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed it. I do own a copy of it so that should be proof right there. Impressive effects, performances are done well and overall not too shabby.

Pumpkinhead ensures better gun safety regs in the woods.