Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. Before we dive into the reviews, here are a few news bits of worth.
After posting the Kickstarter page for HARBINGER DOWN a few days ago, I’ve been following the progress pretty closely and seeing it creep closer and closer to its goal. This film made by the FX folks behind ALIEN, TERMINATOR, and tons of other films we all love and whose work was glossed over with CG imagery in the recent THE THING remake promises both Lance Henricksen and practical effects the like of which we rarely see these days in films. Now it looks like it’s reached its goal! It’s so cool that this project got the final support it needs. If you want to continue donating, the Kickstarter is open a few more hours! The campaign raised over $100,000 in these final three days alone, which is no small feat, so congratulations to everyone at HARBINGER DOWN! Now go make a kick ass practical effects horror film!!!
Here’s a preview of the film!
Another Kickstarter that looks to be a good one is the one for PERSONAL DEMONS, a film written and directed by Adam Cosco. It doesn’t have vampires or zombies or even witches--just a good old psycho moving next door to a troubled writer. The teaser trailer below gave me both thrills and a couple of chuckles. And if it did for you too, skip on over to their Kickstarter page and show some support! Best of luck to the PERSONAL DEMONS crew!
PERSONAL DEMONS Kickstarter Trailer from Adam Cosco on Vimeo.
No self-respecting horror fan in the Phoenixville, PA area should miss this one. The 14th Annual BlobFest will be taking place July 12-14th. This celebration of 1958’s THE BLOB culminates with a “Run Out Reenactment” from the Colonial Theater, which sounds like it would be too cool for words--or, if this occurs at rush hour, could be something rather problematic. Either way this seems to be an amazing event celebrating one of my favorite sci-fi films in the city it was filmed. The second feature of this fest is THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957) about (what else?) a giant praying mantis which causes a lot of trouble and eats a lot of people. Find out more info on this amazingly blobby event here!
Finally, I’ve got a new teaser trailer for the film, THE NIGHT VISITOR which describes itself as: When a suburban couple hires a new age spiritualist to help with their troubled marriage, her advice to video their lives 24/7 to help reunite the family turns out to reveal their son is having conversations with an unseen entity calling itself the Night Visitor.
The film is currently in post and more info about it can be found here and on more info about it can be found here Facebook here!
On with the horror reviews!
(Click title to go directly to the feature)
ALL AMERICAN HORROR: GATEWAYS TO HELL (2013)
KISS THE ABYSS (2012)
HEMMORAGE (2012)
SADAKO 3D (2012)
THE DINOSAUR PROJECT (2012)
DETOUR (2013)
WARM BODIES (2013)
And finally…LIGHTS OUT – THE LITTLE PEOPLE!

ALL AMERICAN HORROR: GATEWAYS TO HELL (2013)
Directed by William BurkeWritten by William Burke
Find out more about this film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
I’m not going to spend much time on this one. It’s a documentary style set of ghost stories following a set of paranormal investigators who both recite the histories of such haunted sites as The Devil’s Stairs, Gallow’s Hill, and Waverly Hills Sanitarium, most of which have been covered to a greater extent on GHOST HUNTERS and shows like that. If you’re a sucker for these shows, then most likely you’ll find these mildly amusing, mainly because of the historical significance of the sites explored.
What you most likely will find somewhat humorous are the amateur ghost hunters roaming around these spooky grounds. One of the Scooby Doo teams even has a medium who reads the energies in the air. What’s funny is that these groups of investigators take these investigations for really realsy. Seeing some housewives walk around in the woods talking about K2 meters and orbs rings in as both sad and entertaining all at once.
Add some really bad special effects and you’ve got a lot budget collection of shorts that may mildly entertain and spook slightly.

(Find this film on Netflix here)!
KISS THE ABYSS (2013)
Directed by Ken WinklerWritten by Ken Winkler & Eric Rucker
Starring Nicole Moore, Scott Wilson, Scott Mitchell Nelson, Douglas Bennett, Ronnie Gene Blevins
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Take elements from Mary Shelley’s classic and mix them with a modern heist story and you’ve got KISS THE ABYSS, an ambitious little pic that despite its budget actually reaches most of the big goals it sets for itself. With some snappy practical effects and a pretty kick ass premise, I was surprised how much I dug this little indie number.

Yes, when the plot is explained it sounds hokey, but this one is played pretty straight. The dour mood runs throughout with only the bumbling brother and the creepy hermit scientist providing some breaks in the drama, but even those moments are of the blackest kind of humor. The hermit scientist, played by Ronnie Gene Blevins ,is pretty good too, and by good I mean, he’s good and getting you to hate his character.

All around, the acting in KISS THE ABYSS is not top notch, but it serves the script well. I’m sure a stronger cast would have elevated this film to another level. But with some top quality special effects and a clever spin on an age old story, KISS THE ABYSS is going to surprise you if you give it a chance.

HEMORRHAGE (2012)
Directed by Braden CroftWritten by Braden Croft
Starring Alex D. Mackie, Brittney Grabill, Ryland Alexander, Alex D. Mackie, Diane Wallace, Zachary Parsons-Lozinski, Samara Sedmak
Find out more about this film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Reminiscent of both CLEAN, SHAVEN and BUFFALO 66, HEMORRAGE is an effective thriller with strong performances from a fresh pair of lead actors and some truly impressive restraint on the part of the director. This is a tale of a man trying to crawl out of a pit of madness and discovering how slippery the walls truly are.


HEMORRAGE surprised the hell out of me and I absolutely never knew which way this one was going to go. I knew nothing good was going to come of the relationship between Ray and Claire as Oliver’s edges fray more and more, but part of me was hoping this bizarre little romance could somehow work out. This film is flooded with psychological horror and those interested in the mind and all of the dark twists it can bend will want to seek out HEMORRAGE when it becomes available to the masses.
Hemorrhage - Official Teaser [HD] from Braden Croft on Vimeo.

SADAKO 3D (2012)
Directed by Tsutomu HanabusaWritten by Kôji Suzuki (novel), Yoshinobu Fujioka & Tsutomu Hanabusa (screenplay)
Starring Satomi Ishihara, Kôji Seto, Tsutomu Takahashi, Shôta Sometani, Hikari Takara, Yûsuke Yamamoto, Ryôsei Tayama
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Sadako of RINGU, known as Samara in the American version of THE RING, is back. And this time, it’s gettin’ stupid.

Soon enough Sadako, as usual, has hair issues and loves to reach out at’cha. And since this is a three dee movie, there’s a lot of that going on. There are also lots of other in your face moments involving flying butterflies, shattering glass, and more Sadako reachin’ out at’cha! Not that 3D movies always take advantage of the third dimension, but these days, when you see 3D on the box, you think you’ll get some attention to differing planes. Nope, this is strictly FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 3D action here with stuff comin’ at you over, and over, and over, and over again.

Still, the size and scope of this film and the set pieces by far outweigh the depth of theme. In the end, they try to put the final nail in the coffin of the little creepy girl, but I’m sure, like Freddy and Jason, that freaky little girl will be seen again. Still, SADAKO 3D is only going to please the die hard RINGU fans, and barely at that.

THE DINOSAUR PROJECT (2012)
Directed by Sid BennettWritten by Sid Bennett, Jay Basu, Tom Pridham
Starring Richard Dillane, Peter Brooke, Matt Kane, Natasha Loring, Stephen Jennings, Andre Weideman, Abena Ayivor, Sivu Nobongoza
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
I loved this fun little found footager. Though just mentioning that this is one of those multi-camera, hand held films which reportedly was edited together from 10 hours of footage for no apparent reason is going to cause more than a few eyes to roll. But this film seems to have seen all of the mistakes most found footagers make and turns in a completely different direction when expectations dominate the alternative.

What works amazingly well is the CG in this film. As good as any of the JURASSIC PARKs, THE DINOSAUR PROJECT seems to do quite a lot with very little. It wouldn’t seem this was a big budget film, but man if those little baby raptor dinos don’t look real and in the action with the actors as they splash through the water. Same goes for the pterodactyl helicopter mishap. I think what makes this movie so effective is that I went in expecting another SyFy level schlocker and got a quite capable little adventure that never forgets that dinosaurs can be frikkin’ scary.

In the end, THE DINOSAUR PROJECT feels more like it owes a lot more to Jules Verne more than the Blair Witch as there is a real sense of JURASSIC PARK awe that you get with it as well as the high stakes adventuring where anyone and everyone is in danger. THE DINOSAUR PROJECT was a surprise; mainly because of the decent acting, surprisingly high production values, and of course the fantastically done dinosaur effects.

DETOUR (2013)
Directed by William DickersonWritten by William Dickerson & Dwight Moody
Starring Neil Hopkins, Brea Grant
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
The simplest of concepts sometimes can be the best ones. It’s all in the presentation and who the camera focuses on sometimes. In DETOUR, the concept is as simple as it gets. A man gets caught in his car during a mudslide while driving home from work along the California coast. Now, with BURIED, I was entertained through the entire film because Ryan Reynolds is an actor one can watch for an extended amount of time and still be interested. DETOUR takes a great chance with casting a relative unknown in the lead role of “guy buried in the car”, but it’s a chance that pays off.

Hopkins as Jackson is charismatic enough to make us feel as if we are right there next to him the entire time. This is also due to some great camera work by William Dickerson, who takes full advantage of every angle of the car, completely submerged in mud. Dickerson is able to convey a true sense of claustrophobia. Though BURIED relied on vast contrast between lights and darks to exude a sense that the walls were closing in, DETOUR does the same through the sound of creaking metal and the sight of sloshing mud pouring into the vehicle every time our trapped driver makes a wrong move, and it works just as well.

While most of the action happens in a single locale, not one second was I bored with DETOUR. Though most of these types of films begin to lose steam in the third act, this one used flashbacks and clever attempts to escape well in order to make the time pass. By the end of the film, I had gotten to know this character so well that I was rooting for him to be able to somehow get himself out of this predicament and back home to his life. And if I found myself rooting for that, I think DETOUR was a success.

WARM BODIES (2013)
Directed by Jonathan LevineWritten by Jonathan Levine & Isaac Marion
Starring Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, John Malkovich
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Now, I know this was probably a film most of you were torn about when it was released in theaters. I know I was. Do I go out and support a film that is basically TWILIGHT WITH ZOMBIES? On the other hand, I kept reminding myself, maybe this could be good. I mean it’s got John Malkovich and “HEY that’s Rob Corddry!” I mean, I liked ZOMBIELAND, right? And unlike many think, I go into films hoping for the best.

The main thing is that no matter how dreamy you try to make your protagonist, no matter how oceanic his eyes are or trendy his hoody is or hip his Josh Hartnett in H2O haircut is, what you still have is a fetid, decaying, rotting corpse. Zombies just aren’t sexy, except maybe Melinda Clarke from RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 and of course Linnea Quigley from the original ROTLD (both female characters, which maybe proves guys just aren’t that picky). My point is that the moment you show your protagonist eat brains, especially the brains of the female star’s dreamy boyfriend, it’s going to make most of the viewers find it hard to root for him. On top of that R (Nicholas Hoult) goes full on retard here, mumbling and stiff, making it really hard to understand what it exactly is that this girl sees in him.

There are moments of cool. Malkovich is, as usual, awesome as the no nonsense dad who literally meets his daughter’s boyfriends at the door with a gun. He’s basically the Bill Murray of this film if you’re looking at it in ZOMBIELAND terms. But while Murray’s role was inspired, Malkovich is given very little to do other than be the cliché hard-nosed military father. Here it’s just the Malkovich we all know and love SPEAKING. LOUDLY. AND. OVER-ENUNCIATING. EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. It’s even more of a shame the way they used Choddry, giving him very uninspired lines and not allowing the often brilliant comedian to shine and riff, as I’m sure he was itching to do so being stuck in a rigor most of the film. Still, the line “Bitches, man” was pretty great.

Look, I wasn’t expecting NECROMANTIK going into WARM BODIES. I know things had to be sanitized for a broader market. Still, I think had the film cared a bit less about pleasing everyone and taken a few more chances, it might have been more of a ZOMBIELAND which was much more of an across the board crowd pleaser. Instead, WARM BODIES plays it safe while trying to play it cool and call itself a zombie movie when it’s really about a girl who falls in love with a special needs boy. This movie is the shy girl who wears a hot dress to the party and then doesn’t know what to do when the guys hit on her. Malkovich, Choddry, and the bonies try their damnedest to make the thing cool and succeed minimally, but the sappy story between the dead guy and his necrophiliac girl is not going to do it for most of you who want a little bite in your zombie films. In the end, WARM BODIES is going to alienate its target audience early on by being too gross and do the same to the hard core horror fans for playing it safe in the latter half.
And finally…here’s another installment of the LIGHT’S OUT Radio Plays. This one is called THE LITTLE PEOPLE and it is another one of those classic chillers from yesteryear. Enjoy and remember, it’s later…than…you think!
See ya next week, folks!




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