Friday, May 31, 2019

One Dark Night Movie Review






One Dark Night is a 1983 horror movie directed by Tom McLoughlin and starring Meg Tilly, Adam West and E.G. Daily.

A few dead girls are found in an apartment of a man called Raymar who is an occultist. He was with the girls and he died of a heart attack. The girls were murdered. Raymar was a psychic. His daughter is called Olivia McKenna(Melissa Newman). She has a vision of corpses coming back to life. Her husband is Allan(West). A man called Samuel Dockstader calls to see them. He is a magazine writer and he tells them about Raymar. He tells them that he could use energy to drain the life out of people. He used the girls to take their energy. He inadvertently killed himself while he was doing it. He gives Olivia a tape of her father. Cut to a group of girls. They are in a sorotity and they have an initiation planned for a girl called Julie(Tilly).Leslie(Daily), Kitty and Carol are the girls and they talk to a guy called Steve about it. He is Julie's boyfriend and he is not happy about them planning anything for her. He used to date Carol and she wants revenge on him by taking it out on Julie.


Steve tries to talk to Carol about it but she tries to get him back. He pushes her off and she is mad. She calls Julie to tell her that the initiation is tonight. The girls collect her. They drive her to a mausoleum. They tell her that she has to stay there for one night. They lock her inside. She looks around. Raymar's corpse is in there and his crypt is opening. Steve calls to see Julie but finds out she has gone. Meanwhile, Olivia is listening to her father on the tape. He has very strong energy. The sisters are at the mausoleum. They are going to frighten Julie. They gave her a drug and she is groggy. They scare her and chase her. Steve finds out where she is and he goes to the mausoleum. Olivia discovers that she might have powers too. Things start moving inside the mausoleum. Reymar is making a return from the dead. The place starts shaking. Carol and her pals decide to leave.


Steve arrives, looking for Julie. Carol and Kitty get trapped. Coffins start to open. The dead are back.
They chase the girls. Olivia decides that she wants to go to the mausoleum. Rayman comes back. He calls on the dead. They converge on Kitty and Carol. Julie wanders around and meets Steve. The dead follow. They get surrounded. Oliovia shows up. Raymar gets Julie and Steve can't stop him. Olivia arrives and stops him. She grabs her mirror and he destroys himself with his eneergy. The dead drop. His power has gone. He is dead(again). Julie and Steve are okay.


This film was quite entertaining. It got a bit slow in the middle, but it picked up near the end. The cast were good and it was good 80's fun. The zombies were so so but I can let that go. I hadn't heard of this film before when I came upon it and it was certainly worth a watch. The setting of the mausoleum was interesting. It was fun seeing Adam West in this. Meg Tilly is young here, but she plays her part well. All in all, this is enjoyable so give it a chance if you like 80's horror. I will give it a 5/10.



Saturday, May 18, 2019

Rogue Movie Review







Rogue is a 2007 horror movie directed by Greg McLean and starring Sam Worthington, Radha Mitchell and Michael Vartan.

The movie begins in the Northern Territory in Australia. A crocodile comes out of the water and attacks a cow. It is a big crocodile. An American called Pete McKell(Vartan) is taking a wildlife tour. It is a tour watching crocodiles in the river. He is with a few others. The wildlife expert leading the tour is called Kate Ryan(Mitchell). They see some crocs and meet two guys in the water. They are Neil(Worthington) and Collin. Kate knows them and she moves the tour back to the start. They see a flare in the sky. Kate needs to see if someone needs rescuing. They find an upturned boat and something hits their boat. Their boat fills with water. They have to stop. The radio isn't working. Everyone starts to panic. They need to cross the river.  A crocodile is in the river. Pete is worried.
Neil and Collin pass them, but don't help. The crocodile knocks their boat over and  Collin gets attacked. Neil is okay. They end up on an island in the middle of the river. They need to move though, as by nighttime, the island will be covered with water.


Neil decides to swim across and set up a line for them to climb across.  Neil swims over and he meets the crocodile. He is killed. One of the tourists falls off the line and gets eaten too. Pete finds a huge hook and he wants to keep the croc still while they cross over. They find dead fish to use. They get ready to swim across. The crocodile comes. They have to run for it. Kate is still in the water. The crocodile attacks her. Pete swims to save her. She is gone. Pete finds a cave and he falls down into a cavern filled with water. There are dead bodies there and Kate is in there too. The crocodile is coming back to its lair. He wants his food. The crocodile goes for a sleep. Pete wants to get Kate out. The crocodile wakes up  and chases him. He injures it. He has a spike and he sticks it into the crocodile. He kills it. He carries Kate out and the police have come. The survivors from the tour are there. Kate is airlifted to hospital.


I really liked this film. It was a lot of fun and there were some great scenes with the crocodile. It had a good story and I liked the monster croc. It had a good cast too including John Jarratt! This is a pretty straightforward movie. I mean, it is a story of man versus crocodile but it works very well. I had a good time watching this and I highly recommend it. I enjoyed it a lot. I will give it an 8/10.


Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Ghosthouse Movie Review





Ghosthouse is a 1988 horror movie directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Lara Wendel and Greg Scott.

The movie begins with a man in a house. He finds his cat dead. His daughter did it. He locks her in the basement. He is murdered along with his wife. Cut to twenty years later, a radio operator called Paul(Greg Scott) hears a weird call for help on the radio. His girlfriend, Martha(Lara Wendel) is there too. They hear a strange voice. There is weird music playing in the background. Paul is disturbed by it. They decide to go and find where the signal came from. It comes from an old, spooky house. Martha is scared by it. Paul wants to go inside and look around. They are caught by a guy called Jim(Martin Jay). They tell him why they are there. It was his voice on the radio, along with his sister Tina(Kate Silver) but he says that it wasn't them. Martha looks around. She sees weird things and gets frightened. Jim and Paul take her outisde to tcalm her down.


There is a camper van outside. It belongs to Jim. Tina is there and a guy called Mark and a girl, Susan. Tina sees a child with a doll on her tv. Blood is coming from the child's eyes. The camper van shakes with her inside. Jim also sees the child, who is a little girl. Tina wanders into the house. She disovers Jim dead. There is a dog inside the house too and a weird guy, who tries to attack Tina. She manages to escape. Mark chases the weirdo and he tries to take him down. He gets hurt. Paul is looking for Jim. He finds his dead body. Tina tells Martha about the little girl. Martha finds a strange doll. Its face changes. A clown attacks her. She is hysterical when Paul finds her.


The police are called. They take Jim's dead body away. A cop called Ferguson(William J. Devany) tells the group about a double murder which took place in the house twenty years earlier. A little girl called Henrietta was found in the cellar, dead. The police are looking for the caretaker guy. Everyone is going to leave. Paul is convinced that they received a telepathic message. He discovers that a man called Sam Baker had a funeral home and that he was Henrietta's father. Tina and the others are going to leave but their camper van stops working. Paul and Martha visit the funeral home. They talk to the new owner. He tells them that Sam uses to steal things from the dead bodies. He tells them that Sam stole a doll that was meant to be buried with its owner. The weird caretaker guy, Valkos, is hiding at the funeral home and he kills the owner..


Tina is the next to die in the house. Paul goes to the graveyard. Valkos shows up at the house. He tries to kill Martha. Paul talks to the man who works in the graveyard. He tells Paul that there have been killings. Martha wanders into the crypt where Henrietta is buried. She gets hit by something. Valkos ends up dead. Paul hears Martha shouting for help. He gets her out of the crypt. Mark is in the house, looking for Tina and Susan. He finds a little girl and her doll. He also finds Tina's dead body. He falls through the floor into some sort of slime. He climbs out but gets stabbed by Susan, who doesn't realise it is him. She ends up in the crypt and shees Henrietta, who is a skeleton like creature. Paul pours gasoline over it. He sets it alights and it burns. Susan is saved. The police come and take the dead bodies away. Everything is fine. Right? Wrong. Susan leaves. Martha sees the evil doll in the window of the house as they leave. Poor Paul gets run over by a bus. Happy ending!


This is a weird film. Really weird. Stuff just happens for no reason and the whole thing is very strange. I liked parts of it and there were some creepy scenes,but this is not a great film. It is watchable but the acting is bad and sometimes, it was just silly. Having said that, it was one that I had on my list for quite a while and I am glad that I got around to watching it. Despite the flaws, this is not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. It is a ghost story at heart so I would recommend it as such. I will give this one a 5/10.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

The Beast Must Die Movie Review





The Beast Must Die is a 1974 horror movie directed by Paul Annett and starring Peter Cushing, Michael Gambon, Calvin Lockhart, Charles Gray and Anton Diffring.

A  man is being chases by a helicopter. There are cameras everywhere. He is caught and he is shot. A group of people see it. It is not real. It is just a trick. The man is called Tom(Lockhart) and hie a millionaire. He has microphones and cameras installed in his house and the grounds. A man called Pavel(Diffring) installed them. Tom talks to the group of people. He has invited them to his house for a reason. They are all suspected of doing things that are bad. They are Arthur(Gray) who is a diplomat, Paul Foote(Tom Chadbon) who is just out of prison,  Professor Lundgren(Cushing) who is a werewolf expert and Jan Gilmore(Gambon) who is a pianist and his wife Davina(Ciaran Madden). Tom has his wife Caroline(Marlene Clark) with him also. Tom tells them that one of them is a werewolf and he wants to find out who it is.


Lundgren talks about werewolves and he explains how a werewolf comes into being. Jan hands around a silver candlestick to smoke out the werewolf. Lundgren says that there needs to be wolfs bane growing in the area. Tom has it in his greenhouse. Someone tries to kill him. That night, it is a full moon. Tom brings in his wolfs bane and he and Pavel wait to see what will happen. They see something on the camera. Tom goes after it. It goes inside the house and Tom comes back in and finds Pavel dead. He has been killed by the werewolf. Tom looks around for his suspect, Paul, but he is asleep. Davina decides she wants to leave with Jan. Tom disables their car and all of the cars. He cuts off the telephones. He is acting crazy. Tom is obsessed with finding the werewolf. Paul goes missing. Tom gets into his helicopter and goes looking for him. He sees the werewolf. It fights with the dog and it kills the pilot. Tom shoots at it. He is sure that it is Paul.


Tom hands everyone a silver bullet to put into their mouths. It turns out that his wife Caroline, has been turned into a werewolf.. She was infected by the dog who was also bitten. Paul gets killed. The mystery hasn't been solved. Who is the werewolf??? Tom is stalking it. He sees it and follows it. He has one silver bullet left in his gun. There is a fight and Tom manages to kill it. It turns out that the werewolf was....Jan! There is a little snag, though. Tom has been infected!!! The film ends with Tom shooting himself as he does not want to be a werewolf.


This was a very entertaining film. I enjoyed the mystery and trying to work out who the werewolf was. The cast were great and the premise was interesting to me. This is a fun horror movie from Amicus who are better known for their anthologies. Cushing does his job well and I liked Lockhart in his role as Tom. All in all, this is a good horror movie and a mystery also. I would certainly recommend it. I will give it a 7/10.



Blog Widget by LinkWithin