BLOOD WIDOW (2014) Review

Directed by: Jeremiah Buckhalt
Written by: Chad Coup, Ian H. Davis
Starring: Danielle Lilley, Brandon Kyle Peters, Christopher de Padua, Emily Cutting, Gabrielle Ann Henry

"DIE IN SILENCE"

Let's see what we've got here... Isolated house in the country? Check. No cell phone signal? Check. Masked killer? Check. Group of painfully stereotyped friends? Double check.
Yep you guessed it, it's a slasher flick. Slashers have long been a staple of the horror genre and although the 'golden age' is long gone, a solidly put-together modern slasher can still be an enjoyable experience. LAID TO REST, THE ORPHAN KILLER and the HATCHET series are all fine examples of good slashers made in the last decade. The question here is; does BLOOD WIDOW deserve to be added to that list?

Laurie (Lilley) and Hugh (Peters) are a young couple who have just purchased a holiday home away from the hustle and bustle of the big city (in other words; the middle of fucking nowhere). Sure it's a bit of a fixer-upper but it's nice and quiet and the closest house is the run-down place next door which happens to be abandoned. Or is it? (hint: of course it fucking isn't!) To celebrate the purchasing of their new house Hugh decides to invite all of his friends around for a party, but first his friends decide to go explore the 'abandoned' place next door. After all, nothing can go wrong. Right? So they go in, fuck the place up a little and then leave to get ready because it's party time! Unfortunately for them they've disturbed the 'abandoned' structure's resident, and she doesn't appreciate her neighbors and their loud music. But rather than calling in a noise complaint to the cops, she's going to take care of them in her own brutal way.

In case you hadn't already guessed it BLOOD WIDOW is a slasher which follows the tried and true formula which slashers have been doing for decades. But that's part of its charm. It doesn't try to be anything more than what it is, and for a low budget indie effort it does a pretty solid job and has pretty much everything you could expect to see. But as we all know there are only really two things audiences care about when it comes to slasher films; the villain and the gore.The writing can be horrible, the acting can be almost non-existent, the pacing can be all over the place, but as long as the killer and the effects look good all can be forgiven.

Fortunately in the case of BLOOD WIDOW the killer looks great and so does the gore. That's a double bonus right there. I can't stand it when all a slasher can offer in the effects department is some off-camera stabbing and a few blood sprays on the wall, but here we get a smorgasbord of pain. There's decapitations, broken bones, guts tumbling out and even a flogging. There's even some skin, because as we all know the best slashers are the ones with a little good ol' fashioned nudity.
It would be easy to sit here and criticize the cliched plot, the (heavily) stereotyped characters and the villain's paper-thin back-story, but you know what? None of that really bothers me at all. And do you know why? Because it's a fucking slasher. And it does what it's supposed to do and that's good enough for me.

PMS COP (2014) Review

Directed by: Bryon Blakey
Written by: Bryon Blakey
Starring: Heather Hall, Cindy Means, Elaine Jenkins, David J. Lee, Megan Dehart, Kristin Mothersbaugh

"IT'S HER TIME OF THE MONTH!"

Full Moon Streaming are currently offering a free 1 week trial if you're interested. That's right, one full week of as many movies as you can watch. For free. And there's plenty to choose from, from the expected Full Moon collection (as much PUPPET MASTER, KILLJOY and TRANCERS as you could ever hope for) to a whole slew of grindhouse and exploitation classics (ALIEN CONTAMINATION, INSEMINOID, VIOLENT CITY and THE LAST MAN ON EARTH among others) and even some newer flicks from Wizard Studios, including this gem which instantly caught my eye. I have to admit I don't usually go out of my way to check many movies this side of the new millennium but with the title, artwork and trailer I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch PMS COP. Plus it was free so even if it did end up sucking I wouldn't be losing anything apart from a bit of my not-so-precious time.

The good news is that it didn't suck. Quite the opposite in fact.
PMS COP is about Mary (Hall), a cop with a bit of an anger issue who has been on the night shift with her partner James for a few years. After responding to a call of a home intrusion Mary and James chase after a clown who has broken into a woman's house and raped her. After the clown knocks down James and attacks Mary, she decides that this rapist scum needs a good beating. Unfortunately the ass-kicking is caught on camera and Mary's superiors are none too happy. Mary goes to therapy for her anger problems and her therapist refers her to an experimental program which will apparently 'cure' her PMS which is causing her aggression. Unfortunately the experiment involves medication in conjunction with an implanted chip which was in a\its former life a failed military experiment. And we all know how experimental military technology turns out in these type of movies...

Long story short the experiment goes wrong (bet you didn't see that coming!) and Mary's aggression increases. Now PMS COP is on the loose and when her medical handlers try to reign her in she decides that she doesn't want to cooperate. Add in some super-strength mutation and you have an hour and a half of brutal (but strangely sexy) revenge fuelled mayhem. Officer Mary is on the beat, and watch out bad guys because it IS her time of the month.

There's nothing really new here, in case you were wondering. Science-gone-wrong, military technology, profit-hungry, unethical corporation, it's all pretty heavily explored territory. But you know what? That doesn't matter one fucking bit because it's never been done quite like this before. And for a purported budget of around $30,000 (according to IMDb) the filmmakers have done a pretty impressive job of stretching that out. The effects and gore are nicely done, it has a nice soundtrack, the pacing of the film is pretty even. The acting is a bit hit or miss but for a low budget indie effort it's actually above what I normally expect, and the titular character herself is impressively played by both Heather Hall (as pre-experiment Mary) and Cindy Means (as the PMS COP). But most of all it's entertaining and elicits the kind of feeling that I used to get from old exploitation flicks from back in the day. If I have one real criticism it's that I would have liked to have seen the mayhem spread city-wide rather than mostly in one building, but that's hardly a complaint at all. Highly recommended if you're looking for a fun modern take on classic exploitation.

EVILSPEAK (1981) Review

Directed by: Eric Weston
Written by: Joseph Garofalo, Eric Weston
Starring: Clint Howard, Don Stark, R.G. Armstrong, Joe Cortese, Claude Earl Jones, Lynn Hancock

"DATA INCOMPLETE... HUMAN BLOOD REQUIRED. THUSE SPAKE THE COMPUTER"

Home computers were really starting to capture people's imagination in the 80s and as usual the film industry found ways to capitalize on their popularity. As a result we got movies like WAR GAMES, WEIRD SCIENCE and of course TRON. Basically anything was possible when it came to computers and so we had movies where people could hack into NORAD from the comfort of their own homes, people who could use a pc to construct the 'perfect woman' and even computers with their own intelligence. But do you know what all of these movies were missing? A big ol' dose of the occult. Thankfully EVILSPEAK managed to remedy this situation, combining ancient satanic cults with primitive DOS-based graphics. What more could you ask for?

Stanley Coopersmith (Howard) is West Andover Military Academy's least popular cadet. A typical day for Stanley involves being bullied by his fellow cadets - lead by Bubba (Stark) - and punished by the instructors for any kind of misstep from being late for class to losing the academy soccer match. Everybody hates Stanley (the coach even suggests to Bubba that Coopersmith might meet with an unfortunate 'accident' so that he can't play on the team). As a result he always finds himself punished with extra duties (like cleaning out the hog pens - although why a military academy keeps potentially dangerous boars is a mystery) and it's one of these punishments which leads him to the cellar below the academy's chapel. While tidying the cellar under the watchful (and usually drunk) eye of Sarge (Armstrong) Stanley finds a hidden room filled with ancient books and other occult objects including a human fetus in a jar.

One particular book Stanley takes an interest in was written by Esteban, a satanic cult leader exiled from Spain in the 16th Century. After translating the book (and suffering yet more abuse from his fellow cadets) Coopersmith discovers that with a computer he can perform a black mass which will summon the soul of Esteban and rain down vengeance on his foes. And in what can best be described as a gender-reversal of CARRIE, Stanley the loser finally gets back at all who bullied him, and in some spectacularly gruesome ways I might add. In fact the final showdown is particularly reminiscent of CARRIE with Stanley's tormentors trapped inside the chapel surrounded by flames and a whole lot of blood.

EVILSPEAK has just about everything you could hope for in an 80s horror flick. Ancient satanic cults, decapitations, demonic boars disembowling a naked Lynn Hancock in the shower, TEMPLE OF DOOM-style open heart surgery, computerized black mass blood sacrifices and much more. The film might drag on a little for the first hour but the final half hour or so is so totally worth the wait. Locked in the chapel Stanley's bullies are subjected to the outcast as he channels the angry soul of Esteban, wielding a big fucking sword and dealing out some bloody fucking vengeance. 1981 was a fantastic year for horror movies but unfortunately a lot of people overlook this gem in favor of classics like MY BLOODY VALENTINE, THE PROWLER and HALLOWEEN II. All are great movies and EVILSPEAK deserves a place on the shelf right beside them.