The Devil Knows His Own – 2013 – Something I had not expected!

Gravestone Entertainment

Director: Jason Hawkins

2013

Horror

I had not expected this flick to be so well acted and to be filled with such genuine scares. It may not be true for every single shot and the actor won’t get any academy awards for their work but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something this scary coming out from a low budget film. There are plenty of films that try to be scary and use gallons of blood to achieve the effect, this one doesn’t! To tell you the truth it’s kind of a relief that the main thing this flick is built on is suspense. I’ve always loved suspense and all the best horror movies in history is based on suspense, not gore! I’m so glad this is old school in that sense!

The story revolves about these couple of siblings that inherits a house from their grandmother. They don’t have a lot of happy memories from her to say the least. In fact, all they have is memories of her molesting and abusing them, both physical and psychologically. She had them carry masks of their faces and even constantly told them that they were unwanted since their mother disappeared. All these memories comes back when they visits the old house once more for the funeral arrangements. They are both grown up now but still so very fragile and on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Some of the elements could be interpreted as exploitation, such as the sister being a lesbian and married to another woman. But it’s not like that at all, it just seems totally natural. It may have something to with the grandmother’s abuse of course as we learn that the sister has been “sewn up” during childhood. Is this a statement in the debate of genital mutilation? Could be, but it doesn’t matter if this is the intent or not. What do YOU think? There are no really sexual scenes to be found, almost no topless shooting and that kind of stuff. This movie doesn’t get caught in that trap!

The brother on the other hand have had drug related problems and guess what, he’s hooked up with a junkie. She’s on a cleaning up program with medication and stuff but still a problem child just like him. I think this could be an example right out of reality! And you could use this as a way to build the movie too. Visions caused by abstinence. But it doesn’t go their either, just for a short visit. It’s a bit cleverer than that and more like the classic suspense horror movies. Lots of inspiration may have come from The Amityville Horror since there’s a haunted house in the center of the story, I don’t know. Certain are that the stories have similarities.

There are excellent choices of music throughout the movie. Almost at all occasions it emphasizes on the suspense. A small minus is maybe that there also are segment where there should have been music. Silence is a great way of delivering suspense too but it’s hard to get it to work if the story isn’t absolutely top notch and by that I mean absolute masterpieces like Michael Hanekes Funny Games, the kind of stories that comes out in a movie maybe once or twice every year and no more. Extremely uncommon in other words!

The ending sequence is really something extraordinaire! Everything that the film has built up to that point gets released and we, the audience, stand amazed! After that the imagery is so arranged that we get something to think about too. A film that manages to do this properly is unusual, but this one nails it. I have no idea what to make of the final scene. It makes me wonder…

8/10

Sinister Visions – 2013 – A perfectly named anthology!

This is a five part movie. Each segment has a very sinister theme. Some are supernatural, some demented and some plain sadistic! So there are a variety of stories told here. I find it hard to connect them to each other but I’m not sure there is a general idea anyway. There doesn’t need to be as long as each part does its job. Five very different stories directed by three directors, Kim Sønderholm, Henric Brandt and Doug Gehl. It’s filmed on location in Sweden, Denmark and in the USA.

I feel that all the actors are a bit weak throughout the picture regardless of segment and director. But that’s to be expected from a low budget project like this. What you need to look for is other production values. The effects are generally good and in the first episode – Succubus, they are very imaginative. There’s not so much blood but there are a creature no one has ever seen before. You will be amazed! It’s not totally serious and I don’t think none of the segments are. Especially not the next one called My Undead Girlfriend. It’s almost a little too ridiculous for my tastes but it still delivers what it’s supposed to do so I won’t complain about it.

Mother Knows Best seems to have borrowed some of its plot from another famous movie. I can’t say which one without giving away some of the twist. Well, it’s fairly obvious anyway. The main character is obviously demented and the movie I’m thinking about is Psycho! There you have it! Now you have to figure the rest out for yourself. I wasn’t too impressed with this storyline since I found it a bit too easy to figure out. I would have liked it to be more sinister so to speak, a bit more wicked!

Almost without noticing the anthology then skips over to the next part, again with a demented theme. A bit different but still demented! This woman refuses to realize what is and what isn’t in A Woman Scorned. This is probably the most demented tale but actually my least favorite in the anthology. I don’t know why, it’s probably because it’s a bit low paced and that it comes right before the crescendo that the last story provide.

This is by far my favorite and the one with the least amount of humor attached to it! I like when you get a truly gruesome tale where the director hasn’t hidden anything under layers of humor. You could say that this is the part of the anthology or that they saved the best for last. Genital Genocide is about this sexual offender that’s about to get electrocuted. Sitting in the electric chair we get to see his crimes, he gets to see the audience disgust and we gets to see how badly they want to get their hands on him. He wants to trigger some commotion one last time and I think it’s safe to say that he succeeded!

5/10

Agent 88 – Deadly Alzheimer Assassins have never been more fun!

I got a chance to see an episode of this, as I understand it, web series last night. I laughed my ass off! Not only is it extremely well made, brilliantly acted and funny. It’s also high paced with no time to recover between hilarious takes. I short, I loved it!

You can get it here: Chill.com

Trailer: Sinister Visions - stay tuned for the review!

Horror anthology SINISTER VISIONS will be released on DVD on August 13 by Chemical Burn Entertainment and is available for pre-order at all major retailers right now. The official trailer has however just been released and it gives a pretty good taste of what is to come. Please view and enjoy.

SINISTER VISIONS consists of five grueling horror stories to make your bones freeze.

Are you ready for a terror attack combining both succubi, women possessed by demons, serial killers in electric chairs, aggressive zombies, avengeful crazy women, men with very deep emotional scars and ofcourse a fair amount of amputation and gore? Add a bunch of dark humor to the mix and you have SINISTER VISIONS!

SUCCUBUS is about a beautiful young blonde, Emma, studying to become an archeologist. On an excavation trip to Syria she finds something in the sand that is about to change her life completely. She hurries home hoping to be able to escape it, but she is about to get wiser.

MY UNDEAD GIRLFRIEND is a twisted story with a lot of morbid, dark humor, telling the story of the day Keith woke up next to his girlfriend who had out of the blue turned into a flesh eating undead and tonight he is about to meet her parents for the first time! This day is going to be a bit out of the ordinary!

MOTHER KNOWS BEST is the story about Carl, a somewhat shy man preparing for a date with his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca. Carl’s mother has quite a few objections about the date and she is not too shy to express them, though.

In A WOMAN SCORNED we meet Gail tied to a bed by Holly. Gail have had the nerve to start a relationship with Richard, who unfortunately is Holly’s former husband – and Gail does not approve at all!

Finally, GENITAL GENOCIDE presents us to serial killer Charles Albert Harris who, sitting on death row waiting for the switch to be turned on, takes us through his crimes while the audience of the court room listens. Harris wants a last reaction out of the audience that consists of many relatives of his audience – and a reaction he gets.

SINISTER VISIONS is a collaboration between filmmakers from USA, UK, Sweden and Denmark and features works from skilled writers such as Garry Charles, Stefan Bommelin, Henric Brandt, Rasmus Tirzitis, Cody Cather, Doug Gehl and Lars Egholm Fischmann while the directing has been in the capable hands of Henric Brandt, Doug Gehl and Kim Sønderholm.

Starring: Kim Sønderholm, David C. Hayes, Michael Harrelson, Debbie Overbey, Rob Douglas, Rick Dyer, Daren Palacio, Bart Overbey, Brian Weir, Liana Hubbard, Tori Montgomery, Pamela Ricardo, Peg Thon, Kat Herlo, Miriam Yeager, Nadia Bond, Lars Bjarke, Ralf Beck, Pontus Olgrim, Camilla Löjdström, Andreas Rylander, Stefan Jonasson, Babs Brinklund, Mehrnaz Bagheri Beiknejad, Mette Løvendahl, Toke Lars Bjarke, Nadine and many, many others.