Friday, September 27, 2019

Angst Movie Review






Angst is a 1983 Austrian horror movie directed by Gerald Kargl and starring Erwin Leder.

The movie begins with a man(Leder), who is being released from prison. He has killed his mother. He wants to kill someone else but this time, he doesn't want to get caught. He walks around town, into a diner and looks at some local girls but considers it too big a risk to attack them. He gets a taxi and tries to attack the female driver but she throws him out. He ends up running through the woods. He finds a house there. It looks like nobody is home. Of course, he breaks in. He sees a man in a wheelchair. Just then, a car pulls up outside. It seems the owners are coming back. A woman and her daughter enter.


He tackles the daughter first and ties her up. Then he turns his attention to the mother. She fights him and gets away but he catches her and ties her up too. The daughter tries to free herself and the disabled man crawls up the stairs. He gets caught by the killer who drowns him in the bath. He unties the mother and sees that she is not well. The daughter tells him that her mother needs medicine. He makes her get it. He is intent on keeping the mother alive as he has plans for her. He shoves the pills into her mouth. She is dead. The daughter tries to run away, but it is in vain. He stabs her and kills her. He has sex with her corpse. He wanders around outside into the daylight. He discovers their car and he gets the keys. He puts the dead bodies into the car and cleans himself up. He wants more victims. He intends to show them the dead bodies to scare them before he kills them.


He takes their dog with him and he heads into town where he crashes into another car. People start looking at him. He starts to go crazy. He speeds off and he finds family pictures in the car. He drives to a petrol station and he sees the girls he saw earlier in the diner. He goes inside to get food. The police come and look at his car. They want his registration and he has to open the trunk. The movie ends with a doctor saying that the killer had it all planned. He is a sadist but he is not mentally ill.It stems from a bad childhood. He is sentenced to life in prison.


This film is a tough watch at times. It contains quite a lot of violence. It is very bleak also.
Saying that, it was interesting and I did enjoy watching it. It had been on my list for quite a while and I am glad that I finally watched it. The killer in this has no redeeming qualities. He is a total psycho and he deserves to rot in prison. The guy who plays him looks kind of weird already, so this makes it easier to believe that he is a sicko. So, this film is a harrowing, realistic experience and I recommend it. Just be warned that it is pretty graphic!I will give it a 5/10.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Terror Train Movie Review






Terror Train is a 1980 horror movie directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner and David Copperfield.

The movie starts with a group of college students who play a prank on a guy called Kenny. They set him up with a girl but it all goes wrong and he loses his sanity and gets sent to an institution. Three years later, all of the college kids are going to have a New Year's party on a train. These are the same college kids who set up Kenny. One of the group gets killed before he can board the train and replaced by the unknown killer. There is also a magician(Copperfield) on the train with his assistant.
A girl called Alana(Curtis) is going on the train but she isn't happy because it reminds her of what happened to Kenny three years ago. She feels guilty about it. The leader of the group is called Doc(Bochner). Alana is dating his friend, Mo(Timothy Webber). The others are Jackson(Anthony Sherwood) and Mitchy(Sandee Currie).


There is a conductor on the train called Carne(Johnson) and he has porters with him, as well and the driver. The killings continue with Jackson meeting his demise in the bathroom. The conductor sees the dead body but when he shows others, the body has been moved. The killer is wandering around in the lizard outfit that Jackson was wearing.The conductor thinks that it was a prank and moves on. The others are murdered by the killer, who is mixing with the party goers. The conductor tells Alana that her friend Mitchy is dead. She doesn't believe him until she sees the dead body. The two of them know that there is a killer on board. The driver goes missing. The conductor has to take everyone off of the train and find the killer. Everyone disembarks while the conductor looks for the killer. There is nobody there. Alana thinks that it is Kenny coming back for revenge.


Then they wonder if the magician could be the killer. They lock him into a train car. Carne goes to have it out with him. The killer comes for Alana. He chases her and he tries to kill her. She manages to stab him. There is a struggle and she tries to push him off the train. He is still hanging on. They think that the killer is dead. Alana goes to lie down after her ordeal. The magician's body is discovered, so it wasn't him. It turns out that the killer was the magician's assistant. It was Kenny dressed up as a woman. He was hiding in plain sight. He is crazy and he wants revenge. He forces Alana to kiss him and he totally loses it. Carne saves the day by pushing him out of the train and into a freezing river, where he meets his death.


This is a fun slasher movie. I think that it is one of the better entries from the 1980's. I liked the premise of the killer on a train. It was original and the cast were pretty good. The movie is what you would expect from a slasher film, but I found it entertaining. I liked it on the whole and I would definitely recommend it for slasher fans and fans of 1980's horror movies. There is an interesting cameo from David Copperfield and of course Jamie Lee Curtis is decent as the lead. I don't hear much about this film when people discuss 1980's horror, but it should be there as it is a good movie. I will give it a 6/10.


Thursday, September 19, 2019

Schizo Movie Review




Schizo is a 1976 horror/thriller directed by Pete Walker and starring Lynne Frederick, John Leyton, Stephanie Beacham and Jack Watson.

The  movie begins with  a man called William Haskin(Watson). He looks in the newspaper and sees an article about a woman who is getting married. The man packs his bags and he also packs a big knife. The woman is called Samantha(Frederick) and the man she is going to marry is called Alan(Leyton). Her friend is called Beth(Beacham) and they have another friend called Leonard(John Fraser). Samantha has lost contact with her family since her mother's death. Haskin arrives in London. Samantha and Alan get married. At the reception, Samantha sees Haskin. He hides a knife in the cake. When it is brought out, Samantha is very upset. He is watching her house.


Samantha is alone at home when she sees someone outside. When she goes to the supermarket, she meets Leonard. He asks her about her family, but she becomes evasive. When she arrives home, she knows that someone has been in the house. She tells Alan about it. Alan looks around but there is nobody there. Samantha goes to see Leonard and she tells him that the man who is after her is called William Haskin. He was her mother's lover. Samantha's real name is Jean. She was seven when she saw Haskin murder her mother and he went to prison. Leonard tells her that he will find out where Haskin is. Haskin finds Leonard in his car and he kills him. Samantha finds a bloody knife and she freaks out. She calls the police but they find nothing at her house. Samantha has a housepkeeper called Mrs. Wallace and she is part of a group called the Psychic Brotherhood. Mrs. Wallace and her daughter, Joy, are attending. She asks Samantha to go too.


Joy is a medium and she has a message for Samantha. It's from Leonard. It says that the killer is in the hall where they are. It scares Samantha. Joy goes to the bus stop to wait and she gets killed by Haskin. Alan is angry when he finds out that Samantha attended the meeting. He thinks that it is rubbish. Samantha finds out that Joy is dead. Beth offers to help her find out where Haskin is. She traces him to a boarding house. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wallace gets killed. Sam finds her body. Beth goes into Haskin's room but he returns. He catches her and he attacks her. She manages to escape. She tells Sam what happened. They go to the police. Sam clears up the blood left from the death of Mrs. Wallace. She goes to get Alan at his place of work. Haskin is there. She tries to run but he corners her. He says that she is the one who should have been in jail. It was her who killed the mother. Haskin says he wanted to frighten her into a confession.


Haskin says that she is the killer. She pushes him off a ledge and he dies. Alan finds her and the police deal with Haskin's body. Everything goes back to normal. A postcard arrives from Mrs. Wallace. Sam becomes jealous of Beth and Alan. Sam and Alan are going on holidays. She packs a knife in her bag. She plans on killing Alan, so she is the one who is the schizo after all....


This was an entertaining thriller/horror. I liked the main cast and the story was interesting. I did see the ending coming but it was still good. There are some creepy moments and there is plenty of blood in this one. It started off like a stalker movie, but it ended up as something quite different. Samantha ends up being the psychopath, but Haskin is one also, so it is hard to feel sorry for either of them. If you enjoy 1970's horror, then this is well worth a watch. I will give it a 6/10.

Monday, September 2, 2019

The Green Inferno Movie Review






The Green Inferno is a 2013 horror movie directed by Eli Roth and starring Lorenza Izzo.

The movie begins with students in college. A guy called Alejandro (Ariel Levy) and his gal pal Kara want to go over to the Amazon rain forest to stop a logging company from destroying the forest. Justine(Izza) wants to go with them.Going along also are Samantha, Amy, Lars, Daniel and Jonah. They reach the jungle and they make their protest. Guys with guns come out. They are a private army hired by the company. It is streamed live on the Internet. They are all arrested but they get out of it.
They are leaving on a small plane when it crashes in the forest. Everyone panics. There are people in the jungle. They get shot with darts. Justine wakes up in a boat with what looks like tribesmen. They are brought to their village. They meet the leader who is a woman.


They are all thrown into cages. The first to die is Jonah who is decapitated and eaten. Alejandro tells the others that his motives were not very pure. He was staging the protest for another company. He doesn't even believe in what he said. The leader takes the women off and tests them to see which ones are virgins. Justine is the only one so she is prepared for a genital mutilation ceremony. Samantha escapes but she doesn't get far. The group eat her flesh, unknowingly. This causes Amy to slash her throat and she dies. Lars is eaten. Justine tries to reach out to one of the children. She and Daniel escape the village but they are soon recaptured. Daniel is left to die and ants are put all over his body.
Justine is helped to escape by the child she befriended. She leaves Alejandro to his fate. She manages to escape when a private militia find her and she tells them that she is an American citizen. The group kills some of the tribe. Justine returns home and she tells everyone that the tribe were friendly for some reason and the film ends. There is a mid credits scene where Alejandro is seen in the village and he is painted.


This was a pretty good film. It has certainly been inspired by the likes of Cannibal Holocaust. It is brutal in parts and there is a decent amount of gore. The story is what you would expect. Some do gooders wander into the forest and get themselves in a lot of trouble. They get captured and all sorts of horror ensues. If you like cannibal movies, then this will satisfy you. It isn't the best film by any means, but I found it entertaining. I liked it and I thought that it was interesting. I am not really into cannibal movies, but this was fun overall and I enjoyed it. I will give it a 5/10.