
Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. This week we have another gaggle of ghoulish films of varying levels of quality. Ahead dwells vengeful bikers, killer caterpillars, curses, Mermen, ghosts, perverted landlords, transgender swordsmen, techno-horrors, and worst of all, Nick Nolte!
Only the brave should scroll down to the horror reviews!
(Click title to go directly to the feature)
The Boo Tube: METAL HURLANT Season 2, Episodes 1-6 (2014)
Retro-review: THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)
Retro-review: WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP (1965)
Retro-review: WITCHERY (1988)
Retro-review: THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991)
HOMICYCLE (2014)
THE GHOST CLUB: SPIRITS NEVER DIE (2013)
DARK AWAKENING (2014)
I-LIVED (2015)
DER SAMURAI (2014)
RETURN TO SENDER (2015)
UNFRIENDED (2014)
And finally…CBS Mystery Theater’s “The Follower”!


METAL HURLANT CHRONICLES Season Two, Episodes 1-6 (2014)
aka HEAVY METALReviewed by Ambush Bug
I reviewed the first season of SyFy’s modern adaptation of HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE a while back, and with the series becoming available in the UK (for more info on the UK release, click here), I figured it’s a good time to review the second and final season of the series this week. Check out my review of the first season here. As I stated in my previous review, I was surprised at both the production value and the solid storytelling used in the first season. Will that continue into the second? On with season two to find out…

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Jim Alexander
Starring Michael Biehn, Dan Cade, James Marsters, Florin Stancu
This is a well paced episode with too little Michael Biehn in my opinion. Biehn plays a grizzled sheriff of a Western town recanting a tale about an Old Timey surgeon (James Marsters) who gains the power to heal all wounds when a freak meteor lands near town. This one plays out like a classic EC horror comic with a pitch perfect and wicked little ending. Still, why have Michael Biehn in the episode if he’s just going to be whispering a story to an outlaw? I’d love to have seen more of him inflicting some interstellar justice, but still a decent episode.

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Stéphane Levallois
Starring Michelle Lee, Silvio Simac, Michael Jai White, Darren Shahlavi, Fabien Houssaye
This one is an expansive episode with a simple twist ending that really highlights the strength of both the production values of this series and the strength in the HEAVY METAL material it was mined from. The costuming and special effects really are great as a revolt is staged by robot slaves with humans fighting against their extinction against insurmountable odds. Yes, it’s TERMINATOR, but the cool designs of the monstrous machines make it feel like these creatures have been born from Clive Barker’s head rather than Cameron’s. This is a really good looking episode with scary monsters and a fun twist.

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky (comic book), Guillaume Lubrano
Starring Karl E. Landler, Marem Hassler, John Rhys-Davies, Scott Adkins, Marc Duret, Kamel Laadaili
Another good episode as the life of a queen is at stake and her loyal alien guard (Karl E. Lander) fights his way through a gauntlet of mercs, guards, and monsters in order to find a remedy for a poison the queen has injested. Again, the TWILIGHT ZONE twist comes late in the game here with a cameo by John Rhys-Davies, but this is high octane actioning, sci-fi-ing, martial arting of good caliber on display here. Some great alien designs and nice fight choreography are to be experienced in this cool episode.

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Guillaume Lubrano, James MacDonald (comic book)
Starring Scott Adkins, Lygie Duvivier, Kamel Laadaili, Karl E. Landler
Well, not all of these episodes are going to be good ones and this is the one that proves my point. A Han Solo type without Harrison Ford’s charisma (Scott Adkins) makes a deal with a crusty intergalactic loan shark to pay back his debt and teams up with another bounty hunter to do it. Things get twisted and it’s fun to see this episode tie into other episodes that have been going on in this series as it shares a scene with “Loyal Khondor” in a fun SIN CITY way. But for the most part Adkins just doesn’t have what it takes to be the charming Solo type here and it hurts the overall episode. The ending is rather weird and kind of lame as it feels just a bit too far reaching for the small scope of the episode.

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Fred Beltran (graphic novel illustrator), Brian Robertson (comic book)
Starring Frédérique Bel, Karl E. Landler, Guillaume Dolmans, Patrick Rocca, Dominique Pinon
Double and triple crosses are the flavor of this episode as sibling rivalry gets deadly once an alluring temptress is involved. Lots of sex and violence in this episode makes it all the more fun and some of the world-building designs which interconnect the episodes of this season make this feel like a small story in a much broader tapestry. While the acting is pretty stiff, I attribute this to the fact that most of the cast is French attempting to do English accents. Still, an immortal curse, an invading robot army, and some Medieval sword fighting makes this one a fun mash-up of an episode.

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano
Written by Marem Hassler (translation), Karl E. Landler(translation)
Starring Dominique Pinon, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Lygie Duvivier, Guy Amram, Grégory Basso
Wrapping up the season is an episode not unlike TOTAL RECALL, as Dominique Pinon plays a bored office clerk who pays a dream merchant to hook him up to a machine that gives him a more exciting life to experience. What makes this fun is that the worlds Pinon visits take place within the stories we have seen play out in previous episodes in this season, so it ties everything together into one fun package. I have to give it to this episode for finding a clever way to do that. It’s also fun because layers of reality are flipped and flopped numerous times so we don’t know who is the rat in the cage and who is the scientist throughout. Just when you think you know what’s going on, TWIST! It made for a fun way to finish off this inventive and resourceful series which made do with what it had in terms of scrappy practical effects and sometimes problematic stabs at acting. Still this entire METAL HURLANT series collected in this BluRay edition hit the mark more than it missed and is one of the more successful ScyFy productions I’ve seen in quite a while. Don’t expect TWILIGHT ZONE level of intellect and thrills, but this is one sci-fi series worth seeking out for those who want their science fiction in short bursts.


THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)
Directed by Arnold LavenWritten by David Duncan (story), Pat Fielder (screenplay)
Starring Tim Holt, Audrey Dalton, Hans Conried, Barbara Darrow, Max Showalter, Harlan Warde, Gordon Jones, Mimi Gibson, Marjorie Stapp, Jody McCrea, Wallace Earl Laven
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
A surprisingly dark undertone permeates an otherwise goofy monster movie and gives THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD a little more bite than I had previously remembered.

This is a damn goofy film. The monster is a giant puppet and isn’t the behemoth size of Godzilla (it’s more like the size of a horse), but it still manages to get its mandibles around divers and sunbathers who dare frolic near the beach. While the look of the monster is pretty terrifying with cold circular eyes and all sorts of weird pinchers spewing what looks to be sperm all over its victims, the articulation of the creature is what takes the terror right out of it. Seeing the awkward puppet slowly moving about just isn’t scary, so while stills of this film may make it feel terrifying, it really isn’t. That said, I never noticed the little snail shell that the creature has attached to its behind. It makes sense and does tie it back to the mollusk family, but it still looks more like a giant caterpillar more than anything else.

So while the film’s monster is not the most pants-shittingly terrifying, the danger this giant beastie packs is pretty potent. Maybe the reason why the creature is so successful in murderizing folks is that it looks goofy and moves like it would take forever for the creature to actually get to you in order to hurt you. Whatever it is, the dark undertones that were lost to me as a kid were front and center this time around in seeing THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD and I’m glad Kino Lorber enabled me to experience that through this Bluray rerelease.


WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP (1965)
aka CITY IN THE SEA, CITY UNDER THE SEADirected by Jacques Tourneur
Written by Charles Bennett, David Whitaker, & Louis M. Heyward(screenplay), (based on the poem by Edgar Allan Poe)
Starring Vincent Price, Tab Hunter, David Tomlinson, Susan Hart, John Le Mesurier, Henry Oscar, Derek Newark, Roy Patrick, & Herbert the Rooster!
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
Edgar Allan Poe by way of Jules Verne is the best way to describe this adaptation off the Poe poem CITY UNDER THE SEA.

If you’ve seen those old Jules Verne adaptations, you’re bound to get a kick out of this one as much of the marvel and mystery captured in visiting a completely foreign world is captured here as two unlikely investigators (a heroic Tab Hunter and comic relief David Tomlinson) falls through a rift in space and time and wind up in an underground city teetering on destruction as it borders an underwater volcano that is threatening to erupt. Once through the portal, they run into a lost smuggler named Sir Hugh (Vincent Price) and a group of men who have given up the ghost and are preparing to meet their inevitable end. The action isn’t the most high octane, and neither are the effects anything to scream about. All in all, this feels like a film built in and around the sets of other films and made to loosely fit a poem Edgar Allan Poe wrote.

Price offers up his usual professional performance making the inferior script read like Shakespeare and treats his character with a dignity it almost doesn’t deserve. Still, if you’re a Price fan, you’re going to want to soak in this as you will all of Price’s performances. But while the collaboration of Matthew Reeves and Price made for cinematic gold being loosely based on Poe’s THE CONQUEROR WORM poem, Jacques Tournier and Price didn’t really do the trick by adapting CITY UNDER THE SEA into this film.


WITCHERY (1988)
aka GHOSTHOUSE 2, THE HAUNTED HOUSE, WITCHCRAFT, EVIL ENCOUNTERS, WITCHCRAFT: RETURN OF THE EXORCISTDirected by Fabrizio Laurenti (as Martin Newlin)
Written by Harry Spalding, Daniele Stroppa
Starring David Hasselhoff, Linda Blair, Catherine Hickland, Annie Ross, Hildegard Knef, Leslie Cumming, Robert Champagne, Rick Farnsworth, Michael Manchester, Frank Cammarata, Kara Lynch, Jamie Hanes, Richard Ladenburg, & Ely Coughlin as Satan!
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
I haven’t seen a film with this flavor of batshit craziness in quite some time. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it does mean that WITCHERY makes for a pretty entertaining movie.

What makes this film good are a few of the horrifying death sequences. One woman is chained upside down inside of the chimney and the rest of the group do not know it and is burned alive when they light the fire. Both the positioning of the lady in the chimney and the effects as her skin is slowly burnt away are absolutely horrific and one of the most memorable scenes in the film. Another graphic, but effective sequence involves a ghost taking Leslie’s virginity which is reminiscent of THE ENTITY, though much cruder as we see the sticky mouthed demon attacking her in the dream realm.

Still for the effective horror imagery littered about this film, I say give this one a shot. If you don’t mind the Hoff doing what the Hoff does best (that’s hamming it up, if you don’t know), wretched dialog, an ending so sudden it will give you whiplash, and some unintentionally goofy moments, there’s a somewhat scary film under all of the mediocrity. I will say this; WITCHERY is definitely the highlight of this double feature as GHOST HOUSE was one of the worst films I’ve sat through in quite a while. Watching WITCHERY last at least ended this double feature on a high note.


THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Wes Craven
Starring Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Ving Rhames, Sean Whalen, Bill Cobbs, Kelly Jo Minter, Jeremy Roberts, Conni Marie Brazelton
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
While Wes Craven is responsible for some of the most influential horrors in modern cinema, THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS is not one of those films.

Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) is a street savvy kid who, like most people in his neighborhood, has fallen upon hard times. With his mother’s health deteriorating from the cancers, he teams up with Leroy (Ving Rhames) to break into the spookiest house in the neighborhood, owned by two whiteys who happen to be the landlords of the entire neighborhood. But after breaking into the house, Fool finds out that the unnamed Man (Everett McGill) and Woman (Wendy Robie) reside in a house of horrors with endless corridors, booby traps, and a basement full of freak children who haven’t seen the light of day in years. Trapped in the house, Fool befriends Alice (A.J. Langer) the abused perfect daughter of the Man and Woman who helps him elude their wrath in the walls of the house.

So basically, we have kids acting tough when they should be piddling in their pants. We have weird fetish wear and equipment inserted for no reason other than to be weird and make the monsters more outlandish and unrelatable. And logic is tossed right outside of the window. For example, the Man fires his shotgun repeatedly throughout the house, but firing the shotgun outside is a no-no. The mutant kids in the basement haven’t seen the light of day in years and have turned into zombie-like monstrosities, but when the film ends, they scatter into the night. How in the hell are these albino metal head looking freaks going to survive now that they are out of the basement and wandering the streets? Craven cares not about the answers to these questions. All intellect, psychological heft, tactile terror, and thematic depth put into A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is nowhere to be seen in one second of this film.

Everything from the horrifically bad and repetitive soundtrack to the flat lighting to the shoddy effects makes me want to toss this movie across the room. While I always hope for good things from classic directors, THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS was the indicator that Craven had gone Hollywood and left the smartly scary stuff behind him in favor of safe, remedial, and most disappointingly un-scary horror.
For those of you who like this film, I don’t hate you. This BluRay is filled with all sorts of bells and whistles in the special features from interviews to behind the scenes footage. So if you’re a Craven completist, a fan of the film, or just a glutton for punishment, there’s a lot that goes along with this disk to enjoy.

HOMICYCLE (2014)
Directed by Brett KellyWritten by David A. Lloyd & Trevor Payer (screenplay), Jennifer Mulligan (additional dialogue)
Starring Candice Lidstone, Peter Whittaker, Ian Quick, Donna St-Jean, Catherine Mary Clark, Veronika D'Arc, John N.E. Hill, Pavel Lubanski, John E. McLenachan, John Migliore, Duncan Milloy, Christina Roman, John Tomac, Anthony Quinn
Find out more about this film on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
This retro-Grindhousey nugget attempts to try to fool the viewer that it might be some lost VHS film you overlooked at your video store back in the 80’s but HOMICYCLE seems to lack the punch to bring something new to the table.

On the positive side, HOMICYCLE has some fantastic and gory effects and it isn’t afraid to wave a severed and grue-spurting stump in your face. Utilizing the spinning bike wheel as a means to saw off limbs and whittle away faces and filling crooks full of more bullets than necessary to end a life, the Homicyclist does dole out some pretty gruesome justice. As a throwback film which is trying to pay homage to horror of the eighties, it certainly encapsulates the trend of a lot of 80’s horror films which specialized in effects over actual substance.

Throwbacks are fun. Making a film that feels like it’s been unearthed from a forgotten time is cool, but I’m more interested in a film that can make it feel like it’s from another era and uses some kind of modern storytelling sensibilities to make it feel watchable today. I didn’t get that from HOMICYCLE and one could say that this wasn’t the intention of the film, but if you’re going to rehash something, an original spin on things would make it much more digestible. As is, there is a reckless sense of no-fucks-given here in HOMICYCLE and the gore keeps it from being boring, but I was left wanting something more than just that.

THE GHOST CLUB: SPIRITS NEVER DIE (2013)
Directed by Hank BlumenthalWritten by Hank Blumenthal & Jason Nunes
Starring Enisha Brewster, Jeph Cangé, Alexandra Chen, William Forsythe, Jason Mac, Jason Nunes, Clark Sarullo, A.C. Smallwood, Chase Wainscott
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Anyone who has watched a ghost hunting show and wished that once, just once, something could actually happen and for it to be caught on tape, might be the right audience for the low budgeter THE GHOST CLUB: SPIRITS NEVER DIE.

As a fan of those ghost hunting shows, I appreciate films like this which actually appeases that ever-growing beast inside of me that gets frustrated every time the smallest creak or trick of light is treated like the greatest discovery of paranormal history in these reality shows that are scattered about the cable box. If I squint right, I can make believe that these actors playing investigators in a reality ghost show are actual investigators and finally, I get to see something happening. As far as the way this film is set up, it does go through the motions to make the whole thing feel like a ghost hunting show, so as far as setting up the illusion of being real, THE GHOST CLUB succeeds.

The powers behind this film have gone the multimedia approach and made supplemental material available through various sources. Accompanying the release of THE GHOST CLUB: SPIRITS NEVER DIE, you can check out a “reality series” focusing on The Ghost Club team (first episode can be found here). Plus you can download an app to your Android which will help you in finding ghosts yourself by clicking here. Finally, a comic series/online blog called The Skeptics Diary follows the leader of the Ghost Club, which can be found here.

DARK AWAKENING (2014)
aka NEVERMOREDirected by Dean Jones
Written by Dean Jones & Josh Edwards
Starring Jason Cook, Valerie Azlynn, Lance Henriksen, William Pifer, Lauren Sesselmann, Robert Crayton, Tracey Coppedge, Gil Newsom, Viktor Hernandez, Vanelle
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Some very good effects and a pitch black tone elevate this low budgeter a bit and makes DARK AWAKENING almost worthwhile to seek out.

First and foremost, though the budget to this one is low, the effects here are top notch. There are a lot of great practical makeup used for the ghosts that elevate this one to another level in terms of scares and gross out scenes. But not only are the effects creepy, but writer/director Dean Jones props the camera up to highlight these effects to make them damn scary by angling the camera just right and taking advantage of some really creative cuts and reveals. Casting the horror effects in such a good light definitely makes an otherwise flat looking movie with some rough edged acting view a whole lot better.

So while this is a low budgeter and those who don’t have the patience or stomach for that type of filmmaking might be turned off by DARK AWAKENING, the effects and strength of story really made it all worthwhile for me. The directing does feel like it needs a bit of a punch as the non-effects scenes left me wanting, but there are definite scares and shadowy twists to be found in DARK AWAKENING.

I-LIVED (2015)
Directed by Franck KhalfounWritten by Franck Khalfoun & Brian Breiter (idea), Franck Khalfoun (screenplay)
Starring Jeremiah Watkins, Luis Fernandez-Gil, Christopher Mena, Greg Taieb, Sarah Power, Franck Khalfoun, Jan Broberg, Elaine Partnow, Jeremiah Watkins, Thomas Payton, Maja Miletich, Nic D'Avirro, Brian Breiter, Tim Paul Vordtriede
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Back and forthing between engrossing and utterly ridiculous is I-LIVED, a tech terror tale from the director of one of my favorite films a few years ago, the MANIAC remake.

The main problem with I-LIVED is that the setup feels much more like a modern TWILIGHT ZONE episode premise than an actual film. There’s an awful lot of setup where Josh is tooling around with the app and soaking in the benefits and it almost feels like the director lost track of time in the first hour and tried to cram way too much into the last half hour. So while the lead up to the switch between the positive aspects of the app and the more evil intentions is good, it feels a bit overlong and makes for a rather quick descent into horror. Franck Khalfoun does show that he is a capable director (he did this already in the amazing MANIAC remake), but something feels off with the horror here and it makes for a much less effective film. It’s as if the concept of what’s shocking is rather insulated here and twists and turns that are supposed to knock me on my ass really left me rather unfazed because of this disconnect.

The rather clichéd plot and even more clichéd ending does not help I-LIVED. There are moments where I felt this film really does a good job (setting up the relationship and breakup between Josh and his new girlfriend was pretty great), but Watkins lacked the strength to convince me of the shift when things go pear shaped and Khalfoun just didn’t lead me along by the nose as he did with MANIAC. Watkins does carry this film and is ok for most of it as long as the emotions aren’t too heavy, so here’s hoping he continues to develop his craft for a more convincing job next time. As for Khalfoun, I hope this is just a bump in the road for him rather than a sign that Alejandro Aja’s involvement was much more hands on than it seemed with MANIAC. I-LIVED is breezy and fun at times, but the lack of genuine and original scares really hurts it.

DER SAMURAI (2014)
Directed by Till KleinertWritten by Till Kleinert
Starring Michel Diercks, Pit Bukowski, Uwe Preuss, Kaja Blachnik, Ulrike Hanke-Haensch, Christopher Kane, Ulrike Bliefert
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Man struggling with his darker side is a theme commonly dissected in horror films. Everything from your classic wolf man story to every variation of Dr. Jeckyll & Mr Hyde deals with the inner battle. Freud identified this struggle as a clash between the animalistic id and the more rational ego which was constantly occurring in every man’s head throughout his day to day life deciding whether to think through a problem or pounce and tear the head off of it. Set against the thematic backdrop of man’s struggle with his sexual orientation, DER SAMURAI is ripe with symbolism and thematic depth.
Jakob (Michel Diercks) plays a suburban policeman lives a relatively quiet existence building model neighborhoods and playing cards with his grandmother who he lives with. A man-child of sorts, Jakob is not taken seriously by anyone in his burb. The gangs laugh at him and his boss and peers in the police department belittle him. When a wolf from the surrounding forest begins to threaten the suburb, Jakob chooses the path of least resistance and decides to lure the wolf deeper into the woods by feeding it, hoping that it will prefer the leftovers from the butcher to the trash of the neighborhood which endangers the villagers. This act of kindness is not taken as such by his peers in the force who continue to laugh behind and in front of him for his gentle demeanor. When a sword arrives at his home in the mail, Jakob is perplexed, but he becomes even more perplexed when the sword’s owner calls to have Jakob deliver it to him. What he finds in the abandoned residence is a long haired man in a white dress (Pit Bukowski) hunched over in front of a mirror, making animalistic noises and tempting Jakob in ways he never even considered.


DER SAMURAI is not an easy film to watch. It’s gory and brutal and involves questions, answers and themes some folks are just not ready or willing to talk about. But it is a fantastic piece of cinema with gorgeously orchestrated transitions between scenes and violence that is both beautiful and blood drenched all at once. Pit Bukowski gives a memorable and bestial performance as the samurai, a movie monster that deserves recognition. And writer/director Till Kleinert delivers in DER SAMURAI a horror film unlike most but also a horror film in its truest, most basic form about a man against a monster inside of him. This is such an absorbing piece of cinema that respectfully, will be simply too much for some.

RETURN TO SENDER (2015)
Directed by Fouad MikatiWritten by Patricia Beauchamp, Joe Gossett
Starring Rosamund Pike, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick Nolte, Camryn Manheim, Alexi Wasser, Rumer Willis, Illeana Douglas, Stephen Louis Grush, Donna Duplantier, Ian Barford, Billy Slaughter, Scout Taylor-Compton, Liann Pattison, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff Pope, Keir O'Donnell, Lucas Boffin
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
While it attempts to pull on heartstrings and flip expectations, RETURN TO SENDER turned out to be just a step and a half above the production values of your typical Lifetime movie.

If RETURN TO SENDER has a main fault it’s that it feels like it wants to be a big scale movie but in actuality has a small scope. I mentioned Lifetime in the opener because a great portion of this film feels like one of those films with a message pieces rather than a horror film. The rape itself is very much in the realm of horror, but any rape depicted on screen is disturbing to me. But for most of the time after, this is a slow film that winds you up because it really does a decent job of convincing you that Miranda is actually falling for her rapist. This showing up in a horror column pretty much seals the deal that things get dark by the end, but for the bulk of the film, you’d think this was a blossoming romance between a damaged girl and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who just happened to have rape her.

RETURN TO SENDER is a really weird film. Not quite hard enough to be horror, not quite fluffy enough to be a Lifetime movie of the week, but landing somewhere in between as it plays with very tough questions about the relationships between assaulters and their victims. While it ends on an extremely terrible pun, the tone of the whole film had me invested as it really takes the viewer to uncomfortable areas, but it hesitates just long enough to lessen the bite most horror fans will want from it.

UNFRIENDED (2014)
Directed by Levan GabriadzeWritten by Nelson Greaves
Starring Heather Sossaman, Matthew Bohrer, Courtney Halverson, Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Will Peltz, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki, Mickey River, Cal Barnes, Christa Hartsock
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
Basing a film on modern technology is risky business. Most of the time, as soon as the film is made, some new improvement has occurred and the tech used in the film is now obsolete, making what should be a moment of tension rather laughable at the antique terminology and tech used. That said, it can also be used as an interesting form of a time capsule, capturing how tech obsessed we all are and how reliant we’ve all become to staring at a computer screen much of our waking hours of the day. Through the right lens, this could make for some potent horror and UNFRIENDED utilizes our online obsessed culture pretty remarkably and tells a pretty compelling tale to boot.

What makes this film more successful than OPEN WINDOWS is that it keeps things smartly simple. The movie takes place over one Skype conversation shared by a bunch of friends. While one would think watching a Skype conversation unfold over an hour and a half would be an exercise in tedium, we are given just enough personal information between the characters utilizing other means of communication such as Facebook massaging, emails, YouTube, online chat forums, and personal files on the desktop to make these characters more interesting and worth watching. Writer Nelson Greaves seems to be tech savvy enough and skilled enough with narrative to dole out the information in little bits so it doesn’t feel like an expository dump and director Levan Gabriadze laces together a pretty tight story as the film flips through various social media forums deftly doling out this info. There are a few moments of drag time, for the most part, this is a film that moves at a pretty brisk pace as the tech savvy kids flit from one social media avenue to another, figuring out the mystery of who this is and how they can confront it at light speed.

I could put on my old man trousers and say that this is an annoying movie focusing on kids who are addicted to social media and I could see those who take that stance and aren’t able to empathize with these kids as they undergo this online horror. I can understand that. I was of the last generation not to have online access to everything as a kid. I too feel the way kids navigate through social media and live every second online is often the stuff of nightmare as I see face-to-face interactions becoming a consistently fading trend. But even if you do feel this way, you might get a cathartic experience seeing these kids bite it one by one. Either way, through catharsis or just sheer enjoyment of a film that utilizes modern technology, UNFRIENDED had me from the beginning and was strangely compelling the whole way through. I also think it is one of the few films that really captures the online obsessed culture in a smart way that hasn’t been done before. I don’t want to see more movies made in this format, but this time around UNFRIENDED was successful in making me invested and keeping me there right up until the end.
And finally…keeping with the theme of Facebook, I dug up this old timey radio play called “The Follower” which played on the CBS Mystery Theater. This creepy little gem is narrated by E.G. Marshall and stars Jerry Orbach. Fans of IT FOLLOWS will definitely a charge out of this one. Be sure to listen with the lights dimmed low. Here’s “The Follower”…
See ya next week, folks!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/writer of wrongs/reviewer/interviewer/editor of AICN COMICS for over 13 years & AICN HORROR for 4. Follow Ambush Bug on the Twitters @Mark_L_Miller.


Interested in illustrated films, fringe cinema, and other oddities?
Check out Halo-8 and challenge everything!
Look for our bi-weekly rambling about random horror films on Poptards and Ain’t It Cool on AICN HORROR’s CANNIBAL HORRORCAST Podcast every other Thursday!