Prime Time: A Warning To The Curious (2013)

First of all, this has nothing to do with the famous ghost story by M. R. James. Let's make that clear right now. That is a classic tale. This is a slice of hot garbage. It may be the easiest review I have written in some time, considering all I need to do is string together a load of expletives and drop in the names of the cast and crew in between them.

The plot is so thin that it's almost translucent. It's a found footage film. A group of amateur ghost hunters, who apparently go ghost hunting most weekends, go to an abandoned location. From there, they are directed to another abandoned location by someone who doesn't seem at all weird and simply there to move the plot on. It's not long until the camera starts picking up what could be evil spirits. Oh, and there's a record on a turntable that everyone decides to play and listen to, basically doing The Evil Dead tape player spiel, but so much worse. At least it gave some work to Danny Webb anyway (credited as "The Voice"), who is probably the only person involved in this that I don't now hate.

Written and directed by Ali Djarar, with him also taking on every role behind the scenes (although locations were used almost as they were found, and it seems that very little else was needed)

Shot in a very short amount of time, and for a very small amount of money, what you have here is a prime example of someone mistakenly thinking that it is very easy to get some people and cameras together in the same place and just make a found footage film. I’m not surprised to see what this is the only film from Djarar, which I would suspect he funded entirely himself, and it stands out as an object lesson in how not to do this kind of thing.

Most of the runtime is full of scenes that play out for too long, don’t have the right focus, and continue to be boring even when the sense of creepiness is supposed to be building. Bearing in mind that so many of these films gradually get scarier and scarier, leading to that standard third act use of night-vision, the fact that most of this film is shot in that night-vision style is one glaring mis-step that typifies how much Djarar misunderstands the kind of film he is trying to make.

I will be polite to the cast, mainly because none of them are memorable (certainly not for the right reasons). One actor playing a detective may be the worst of them all, but I think that has as much to do with the awful script and presentation than his performance. At least he is a character that viewers can always identify, unlike the identi-kit mix of ghost hunters who all look far too similar when wandering about a dark and empty building.

Ironically, this does at least manage to serve as a warning to the curious. If you are curious about making your own horror movie, and if you think found footage is an easy and cheap way to get a good result, then be warned. This shows you just how bad the end result can be, and it is enough to make me never want to see anything else that Djarar might try to make.

2/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Yule Love It: Christmas Presence AKA Why Hide? (2018)

A group of friends get together for Christmas, which leads to inevitable disagreements and tension, as well as moments of bonding and fun. The usual Christmas mix. That's the basic premise for this seasonal horror that uses the holiday as an excuse to isolate some adults in a house in the middle of nowhere, letting viewers spend some time with them before an evil presence decides to mess with their heads while trying to kill them off, one at a time.

Charlotte Atkinson is McKenzie, the main character being kept in good cheer by her visitors. It's her first Christmas since the passing of her parents, and her friends want to help take her mind off the loss. McKenzie also had a sister when she was a little girl, but her sister disappeared one day . . . somewhere in the area surrounding the house that everyone is due to stay in.

Directed by James Edward Cook, who also co-wrote the script with Karen Taylor, Why Hide? (which has also been retitled recently with the much better name of Christmas Presence) is a film that almost does enough wrong in the opening third act to make it unwatchable. I wouldn't be surprised if some people gave up at about the 30-minute mark, missing out on the better stuff still to come. And some of the better stuff is very good indeed, with individual moments and scares proving to be surprisingly effective. When an unseen, or smoke-formed, presence starts to terrify the characters, things quickly go from bad to worse to mind-breaking insanity for the victims. Yet, there are still moments that try to ruin your enjoyment, including twists that are all too predictable and an ending that will have most viewers rolling their eyes as they watch it unfold and realise that it's quite simply an easy cop out (sorry, but it is).

The cast don't help, they're never being as good as they could be. Atkinson isn't even a strong enough lead, sadly, and there's not enough talent available in the pool of Elsie Bennett, Lorna Brown, Mark Chatterton, Orla Cottingham, and William Holstead to make up for it. I'm not saying any of them are awful, they just don't work together well enough to make a strong ensemble. Danny Webb stands out, despite his small amount of time onscreen, but his final moment is enough to make you want to throw something at the screen, which is again the fault of Cook and Taylor.

Ultimately disappointing, but worth a watch for the stronger moments interspersed throughout, Why Hide? is at least a horror film made by people trying to do something a bit different, which is commendable. The fact that it tries and fails still makes it better than a hundred other horror movies that are happy to just repeat what we've already seen again and again. I'll be interested in seeing what Cook does next, and hope he either lets someone else do the writing or works with someone who can recognise and call out the more obvious errors of judgement.

5/10

Here's a Christmas triple-pack of horrors.
Americans can get this double-pack.

Attack Force (2006)

Barely, and I do mean just BARELY, ahead of Ticker, this Steven Seagal movie was a pain to sit through and seemed to drag on forever and ever. It has almost no redeeming qualities and is one of the very worst in his entire filmography, which is really saying something.


But, before going any further, I shall be fair to the film and share this titbit from IMDb trivia - "Screenwriter 'Joe Halpin' is quoted in the book "Seagalogy: The Ass Kicking Films of Steven Seagal" as saying that Attack Force had originally been written and filmed as "Harvester," a sci-fi/horror movie with Seagal and his men battling an invading force of vampire space aliens. After Seagal, Halpin and director Michael Keusch had delivered the finished sci-fi film, the production and distribution company decided to eliminate the sci-fi space-alien elements and replace them with another plot having about a super-addictive drug that turns its users into superhuman killers. They called back a few of the lower-paid actors for re-shoots, re-dubbed the majority of Seagal's dialog via ADR, totally re-edited the film and changed it into the Attack Force we know today. Seagal and Halpin were not involved."

That means that the blame for this pile of drivel cannot be entirely placed on the shoulders of Seagal (who co-wrote as well as starred in the thing), director Michael Keusch or Joe Halpin (who came up with the story idea and co-wrote the screenplay with Seagal). There is a lot of terrible dubbing throughout, the plot is a dull and meandering mess and there isn't any great action to keep fans happy.

But the guys named above can still share some of the blame because, surely, a lot of the scenes that they created are still in the movie and none of them are any good. At all.

Lisa Lovbrand, David Kennedy, Matthew Chambers, Danny Webb and a number of other people embarrass themselves onscreen in this nonsense about Seagal and his pals taking on a bunch of super-soldiers. My attention was only ever held when the lovely Ileana Lazariuc was onscreen (and if she'd had more screentime the film may have managed to almost double up to a 3/10 rating).

Sadly, despite the troubled background of the film, audiences can only judge events onscreen by what they're given and, at the risk of repeating myself, all that is on show here is terrible dubbing, a dull and nonsensical plot and a distinct lack of action to even keep undemanding action fans happy.

An absolute, indefensible stinker.

2/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Attack-Force-DVD-Steven-Seagal/dp/B000LV6MA0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325792613&sr=8-2