Theresa Derwin's terror-tree.co.uk

Welcome to the first in a regular post where I share with you what I get up to on a Saturday night (down boys)!

As a child, Saturday night was always horror night, so I’ll try my best to watch films you will want to watch, or warn you of films you really don’t want to watch! And maybe you’ll join me one evening.
Last Saturday I started with two films; The Possession and The Bigfoot Tapes. So here, for your entertainment is . . .

The Possession
Producer: Sam Raimi
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis
Running Time: 92 minutes
Release Date: 21 Jan 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Clyde) and Kyra Sedgwick (Stephanie) play estranged parents to two girls. The youngest girl buys a mysterious wooden box with her Dad at a garage sale and starts to hear encouraging voices from it. And that’s when things get really interesting! Of course I did want to ask if the child had ever seen Hellraiser or Seven. Don’t open the box! Never open the box!
The tension builds slowly in this horror flick, and there are genuinely scary moments. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is always reliable and Natasha Calis as the young girl Em, with some behavioural issues (think Linda Blair) is very convincing.
The scares start small and I have to admit I jumped a few times. The soundtrack is a little OTT, and there is a famous line from an equally infamous possession film used near the finale. It was also slightly ruined with a predictable ending, however overall it was a good solid horror film and addition to the sub-genre.

The Bigfoot Tapes
Producer: Stephon Stewart
Starring: Stephon Stewart, Davee Youngblood
Running Time: 82 minutes
Release Date: 6 May 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

This addition to the found footage films starts with a record of a call to 911 reporting a dog being eaten by a creature. The next scene we meet the ‘director’ of a Bigfoot ‘documentary’ as he pursues the caller of the 911 report. There are some technical errors regarding the colour of the abominable snowman mentioned, but only a geek like me would notice (having a cryptozoologist as a friend). The obligatory couple tag along with the ‘director’ played by real-life director Stephon Stewart on the search for the big hairy fella. The scenery is beautiful (a great advert for the tourist board) and the film rolls along at a reasonable pace, but it isn’t quite in the league of Troll Hunter. With the prerequisite rednecks/hill billies hanging around at Elk Creek Campground as the crew track down the oldest folklore legend in the USA. The dialogue is strangely authentic, with lines such as “the goats are tasty, so’s chicken.” Curiosity kept me watching, though a religious and poetic redneck was a little hard to buy. However the subversion of the stereotype (see Deliverance) works well. The Bigfoot visuals when they come along are slightly dodgy, but not too bad. Things get really tight for the film crew when they are abandoned in the backwoods. The question I always ask with these films is ‘would they still be filming lost as they are?’ When BF turned up on camera when their backs were turned, I really wanted him to do a dance routine like the Pandas in the Kit-Kat advert.
Overall, again I enjoyed this film, my only issue being a gratuitous scene near the end. The script and direction was good and it was kind of fun. Worth the effort.

The House of Wood
Author: Anthony Price
Publisher: Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd
Page count/size: 214pp
Release Date: 4 March 2013
Reviewer: Andy Angel

Three years ago Rachel James was caught up in terrible events at the House of Wood that ended in tragedy. She survived and left for college, vowing to never return to Willows Peak.

Move to the present, and the death of Rachel’s parents changes things – she has to return for the funeral and on approach to the town she sees the last thing she expects………….someone is rebuilding the House of Wood!!

This is a cracking tale of horror and possession in the style of the books I was reading when I first discovered this genre many years ago. No vampires, no werewolves, no zombies, just a tale that creeps up on you, and once it has a hold, doesn’t let go ’til the last page is turned.

While the deaths are being investigated Rachel has to stay in town and meets ‘new guy in town’ Doctor David Cochrane, a psychologist. She agrees to talk to him about the ‘event’ over dinner and it is here that the story really picks up a couple of gears.

During the evening the whole story comes out (in flashback), the atmosphere grows tenser, and the book gets more difficult to put down.

I must say, I thought I knew where the story was going. It seemed the author was leading the story one way, but in the end he wrongfooted me, and I am glad to have been wrong.

The climax was strong and fast paced, the resolution believable and satisfying.

And then……………The Epilogue – WOW!

The Corridor
Director: Even Kelly
Distributor: Signature Entertainment
Release Date: 25th Feb 2013
Reviewer: Kate Middleton

I found the Corridor an enjoyable film, it made me jump, and gave me goose pimples. The characters were funny, serious and scary and I found myself just staring at the screen in places and going WTF. I also got the wrong idea by looking at the film as if the lead character is just as crazy as a bag of cats. More fool me.
It seemed to start out like a horror film with the ‘Cabin in the Woods’ setting and I thought it was just going to be another predictable horror film. It wasn’t and that’s great it was something different something that didn’t give answers or explanation and left me wanting to know more.
The quality of the film could have been better; there was unnecessary camera shake and the sound levels were way off I had to keep turning the volume up. One of the great things in this film is that they show something that I find alarming, visual sound, coming from characters especially when it sounds unnatural. Freaks me out. It’s spooky and supernatural and it just generally makes me feel uneasy which is great. It’s a horror film after all.

Creakers
Author: Paul Kane
Publisher: Spectral Press
Page count/size: 29pp
Release Date: April 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

In the latest Spectral Chapbook by prolific author Paul Kane, following the death of his Mother, Ray moves back to her house to renovate it and sell it on, so he moves into the building to start work on it. He brings along his sleeping bag and equipment to stay there during the restoration period. As an experienced house re-builder, Ray knows that those old places that make noises in the night are called Creakers, so he expects some noise during the night, but not this much. The noises and the things crawling over him at night are not normal. The reader can feel his growing tension and fear as the noises and creaks in the house grow and grow.
The story falls into that nice tradition of anthropomorphic horror, in which objects take on human personification and become the objects of horror, bringing back painful memories of his home, his childhood and his Mom.
Filled with squirmy uncomfortable imagery, this is cheap as chips chills! Give it a go.

http://spectralpress.wordpress.com/

Devils of War
Director: Eli Dorsey
Distributor: Signature Entertainment
Release Date: 15th April 2013
Reviewer: Theresa Derwin

It is Nazi occupied Poland in 1944 and the Nazis are kidnapping women and experimenting with the occult to raise a demon army. A special elite force has been sent in to extract the undercover agent.
From the off, the director attempts to play with all of his toys, shooting in slow mo, through binoculars, adopting shaky cam – you name it, he does it.
The film starts with a nubile perky blonde tied to posts whilst German Thorn reads (with an American accent) from what is obviously a very dodgy scroll as someone slits the blondes throat. And speaking of blondes, the German female officer is obviously there for little more than titillation; there is oodles of gratuitous nudity, flesh shots of cleavage, thighs and bum, a scene involving fetishism and a blonde virgin peasant who offers her virginity to an American soldier in order to save her life. To say the least, the representation of women in this film offended me.
But that’s not all! Oh no, the B-Movie dialogue, bad acting, the scene in which part of the set wobbles and the attempt to take its visual style from the far superior Iron Sky gives you an idea of what to expect. Add to this a soundtrack that blends spaghetti Western with bad horror and you know what you’re in for. Oh, and the Lesbianism which added no value whatsoever. Oh, and the very stereotypical black character Black Hercules. Oh – oh how I could go on.
The strange thing is I watched it to the end, like a bad car crash you just can’t stop watching.
I watched this film for you . . . to save you from losing an hour of your life. I’ve lost that time and I’ll never get it back. Worse still, I watched it with my Dad who is 78 years old – he can’t afford to lose an hour of his life.
Let me just summarise with a little dialogue to keep you amused and informed:
“Ve haf no more virgins, ve vill haf to make do wiv vat ve haf.”
Yes, quite.