6 Australian horrors you should know about

To my audience out there in Australia, or just to anyone that loves the Aussie accent or foreign cinema in general, I have compiled a small list of Aussie horrors you may have overlooked.  Make sure to add these to your list of must-see films. I’ve also provided short review and trailers so you can know anything your heart desires.  All you need to know though is that I’m a horror master and I would never steer you wrong in the horror movie recommendation area. Have you seen any of these films or not? Feel free to leave feedback in the comments, I always respond!

1.Snowtown Murders

This movie was more shocking, disturbing, and intense than actually scary.  Based on a true story, Jamie is taken under the wing of his new father-figure, who ends up being a deranged killer that brainwashes the entire family.  He leads them to do acts of unspeakable violence and its a shocking transformation that the whole family goes through.  There’s lots of bloody imagery and the story will leave you with a pit in your stomach.

2. Primal

5 backpacker go on a trip; pretty self-explanatory the type of movie you’re about to get into.  However this one takes a twist and combines the vampire/creature genre with the campy/nightmare vacation genre.  The acting is good, the effects are good, the story has more twists and turns than you would expect.  This one from down under shows Aussies why they just shouldn’t leave their own country.

3. Wolf Creek

This movie is a bit of the opposite of Primal, showing backpackers why they should travel in any other part of the world besides for the outback in Australia.  Again, this is an easy film to “genre-ize”, one of those teen/ college kidnap/survival films.  However, this one is so much more.  The gore and torture inflicted by our psychotic bogan killer is really brutal and he’s an absolute ruthless fucker.  The helpless backpackers cry out in agony and you can’t help but to watch through nearly closed eyes.  The sequel makes for a great one too, and what’s even scarier is that this was based off a true story.

4. Apocalyptic

Finally a found footage film that didn’t suck and wasn’t completely filmed on an ipad/iphone. This genre is still somewhat new and untouched (a little bit). This takes the religious/ exorcism/ possession genre and mixes it together with the newly found cult genre.  I like the cult genre, as mind control and cults are a real thing that exist in the world; there are some crazy cults out there that brainwash and can make its followers do crazy things (I’m sure we all remember how the Manson family turned out).  The cult genre truly is freaky, and to an extent, the effects of found footage always get to me as well.

5. The Loved Ones

Originally, the Harry Styles lookalike is what drew me to the film.  I must profess my love for this doppelganger and how heartbroken I was to see him tortured so ruthlessly.  Again, this film can fall quite easily into a genre which may be a problem for some horror viewers as its nothing mind-fucking and truly chilling.  However, i gotta give it credit, this movie is pretty damn good.  All the characters are likable, the plot is pretty original, so I guess not really your typical prom horror, and the gore and blood is pretty full on.  This my be my favorite of the bunch.

6. The Babadook

Easily considered a modern horror classic (by others not by me), I was actually disappointed by this film, but couldn’t help putting it on the list. This got quite a lot of attention at Sundance and pretty much every person but me has had something good to say about this film.  Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood to be watching a horror whenever I chose to watch this film, but I’m not really willing to give it another go and give it a higher rating.  Hopefully many of you have seen this since this was such a big hit out on the horror market and you can beg to differ with my opinion, but I just thought most of the movie was hype and build up. However, as unconvincing and cynical as this mini review was, I would still say check out this movie and see it for yourself.

The Canal

At this moment in time, I’m not sure what’s making me more excited; the fact that I know that I am going to re-watch The Canal once I’m done writing this review or imparting my wisdom of this newly found gem of a horror for you to discover.  The Canal has definitely got to be one of the best horrors I’ve seen this year, and totally unexpected as well.  David is a man who, unbeknownst to him, is descending into madness as he discovers his wife is having an affair.  His wife disappears and he immediately begins suspecting his own house of possessing powers strong enough to take her away from him and his son.  When he is found not to be a suspect during the police investigation, things take a turn for the scary, weird, and disturbing.  Can I just say, this is the first time I have found myself feeling scared while watching a film in years?  This film will genuinely scare the shit out of you.  On top of that, its so cleverly put together and such a mind fuck that I just loved it and can’t recommend it enough.  There wasn’t much gore and there was nothing perversely disturbing about the film, but I just loved how unique and actually scary it was.  I had to give this one 4.5/ 5 stars.  I would give this one 5/5 stars, but there was just nothing too fucked up or over the top about it. Any film that I’ve given 5 stars to is usually some necrophilia gore splattering blood fuckfest, to put it lightly; but this film was so tame with how controversial it was that I would actually say there was nothing controversial about it. 5-star films always have that controversial factor to it, but this one just lacked it.  However, I would say the ending was a total disturbing mindfuck.  I think regardless of your taste in horror, everyone needs to check out this film. From the second you tune in, the movie just keeps getting better and better, which I find doesn’t happen in films much these days. Sometimes the plot loses you, sometimes you wish you could skip through a part; but in this movie, I wanted to watch every single second of it, even when I had my hands over my eyes because I was so scared.  I’m telling you, this movie is just amazing.  I hope you guys find this movie as awesome and highly rated as I did, please let me know your opinions in the comments!

5 goriest movies

Do you ever feel like you just can’t seem to have enough blood and gore in your films?  Do you often find that you are NOT spending the majority of your horror movie watching time cringing and looking away? Fear no more horror fiends and friends alike.  I have compiled a list of absolute NASTIES.  I myself, found I had to look away more times then I would like to admit with these movies.

Seed

Where to begin with this movie? Just overall FUCKED. Such a disturbing, psychotic, extreme movie. Lots of blood and merciless brutality on the end of the serial killer.  This one definitely hits you from all angles; messes with your mind, pulls at your heartstrings, puts a pit in your stomach, is disgusting to watch, and even grosser to think about.  Lots of scenes really made my heart beat fast with just how shockingly gross they were.  I would recommend skipping the first 5-7 minutes of the film.  Its seriously just unpleasant nastiness and seems to take away from the film rather than add to it. Please be warned though, this movie does contain some (fake) animal gore.

Cannibal Holocaust

You’ve got to give this film credit, it was WAY ahead of its time in the horror movie world.  The idea of your plane crashing into the remote part of a jungle with only a cannibalistic tribe as “companions” is terrifying. Fast forward, and there you are deep in the jungles of South America being hunted and captured in order to be fed to this savage tribe.  The movie looks so real, which is what is the most disturbing. The acting is good and the effects are extremely practical, making it pretty believable.   Again, this film also contains animal gore (apparently real), you’ve been warned!

Dead Alive (AKA Braindead)

This film is a great laugh and not to be taken seriously.  However, that doesn’t take away from just how bloody disgusting it is! This film is as funny as it is gross.  The story line is great and the creative ways in which the characters are murdered and dismembered are just hilarious.  Great mix of humor, guts, and horror.

Human Centipede 2

Just thinking about this film gives me a bad taste in my mouth.  What a pile of garbage.  At the same time though, if you want to challenge yourself and push your limits of what you think is grotesque, give this one a try.  Such a gross out film, that seemed to be its main purpose.  If you can watch this entire movie without looking away once, congratulations, you have officially “out-gored” me.

Headless

Rather than go into detail with what this film is about, I figure I’d just have you do the research yourself.  It saves me from one AWKWARD movie review. I will say this though, this has to be one of the most extreme horrors I have ever seen, not for the weak of heart or stomach. Cannibalism is present, which is actually the least offensive thing I found about this movie. Once the pornographic scenes started, things got weird. To say the least. I found myself closing my eyes, plugging my ears, and wishing I was in a different place for about 70% of that film.  That’s a new record, folks. Lots of blood, among other things to see here.

Kill List

Not since A Serbian Film or Irreversible have I seen such a shocking and disturbing film.  I just finished watching Kill List and I am completely on my ass, and still almost out of breath.  5 out of 5 starts no doubt, this movie takes the cake for movies that are beyond fucked up.  I am officially in love and hope that anyone reading this post has either seen it already, or has plans to see it in the near future.  If not, this is a top priority for all horror, gore, and disturbing film fans.  The film is based upon the lives of two hitmen, Jay and Gal who decide to take up a job offing people in order to help them with their financial troubles.  Jay is already kind of losing it from a traumatic experience serving in Kiev (which we never find the details out about), and is pretty much teetering on the line between insanity and normalcy.  Between the yelling matches between him and his wife Shel and the brutal beatings he gives those on the kill list, you can tell things are looking bleak for him.  The first assassination on their list is a priest.  Controversial, but not very entertaining.  Their second assassination is a librarian.  At this point, things get interesting.  Gal and Jay stumble upon the librarian’s collection of home films and discover he is a pedophile, pervert, and rapist.  Although it doesn’t actually show what is contained in the footage, the audio from the videos and the reactions from Jay and Gal are enough to let the audience know that these are some brutal sickos and we should be THANKFUL we did not have to witness what was on the film.  This sends Jay over the edge and transforms him into a cold, sadistic killer.  Instead of taking the traditional route in hitman killing (aka using a silencer and 50 pounds of saran wrap), he chooses a hammer as his weapon of choice and fucks this pedophile librarian up.  The brutality was intense, to say the least.  I couldn’t believe how graphic it was watching him bash this guy’s brains in.  On top of that he really loses it when he tracks down his accomplices (who are not on the kill list) and gives them the hammer treatment as well.  It is clear now that Jay has transformed from husband/father to violent killer.

For the first hour of the movie, I have to admit it was slow moving.  I kept checking how long was left in the movie because there really was no climax up until the end.  Halfway through the movie, I wasn’t too impressed with how everything had turned out because it came off as more of a violent thriller than a horror.  I felt like I was waiting and waiting for that twist to come and knock me onto my ass.  It dragged on, and for the most part I was just waiting to be scared.  In fact, I almost wanted to deduct half a point from this film, but the ending makes it all worth it.  Now, what type of person would I be if I ruined the ending of one of the greatest movies I’ve seen this year for you guys?  I’ll keep it short, simple, and vague.  At the hour mark, shit started getting scary, real scary.  The background music was over-the-top amazing, in that it truly set the mood and got your heart racing.  The movie takes an extremely strange twist, and the unexpectedness of this twist make it incredibly creepy and puts you on the edge of your seat.  All the unknown variables in the movie are what make it so scary and I guarantee you will end this movie not being able to get out of your seat for a few minutes because you literally got the wind knocked out of you.

I feel like a lot of people might disagree with my rating of the movie, in that they rated it lower than me due to the slow moving-ness of the plot and the questionable ending that really has no proven explanation.  Yes, the plot began getting boring because there was so little moving the story along, but when the “BAM” moment happens, it gives you a run for your money and leaves you with your jaw just hanging there.  My justification for the 5 out of 5 stars rating is that the twists in the ending were so shocking, unexpected, unexplainable, and even perverse, that this made all the boring parts of the movie worth it.  If you have seen this movie, please post in the comments, as I would love to have some discussions with other viewers about what a mindfuck this whole thing was.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m expecting I will be the first person you will contact upon completion of this movie.  Only watch if you dare……

Thale

Oh Thale, I had so much faith in you and you failed me.  From the second I peeped the trailer I had high expectations of this movie and thought it might be the breath of fresh air I needed from the repetitive slasher genre I have not been able to pull myself away from.  Sadly, I was disappointed because I set the bar high for this one and it didn’t meet my expectations…. solid 3 out of 5 stars. However, I would recommend this movie because I still LIKED it.  The movie had potential but I found that it didn’t deliver as much as I thought it would.  Obviously the storyline was extremely original, the acting was really amazing, visually I was very stimulated, but the story line still fell short because I felt like it lacked excitement and action.

The film starts out with Leo and Elvis performing their daily duties at their job.  They work for a cleaning crew that seems to specialize in crime scene cleanup.  Poor Elvis has quite the weak stomach and cannot stop vomiting at each gruesome scene he stumbles upon.  Because I’m a total sicko, I obviously liked these parts and was intrigued each time they showed what he was actually cleaning up.  The movie wasn’t overly gory, in fact barely gory at all, but what I did witness was still great.  The movie starts getting scary when they are called to clean up an old cabin in the woods.  Obviously when you mix the aspect of abandoned cabin and scary ass forest, you know shit is gonna go down.  What I loved, is it doesn’t go down the way you think it will.

As Elvis and Leo start picking up around the house, they discover a door that leads to an old and dusty cellar (typical).  The cellar is complete with the mysterious creepy, dusty, abandoned set-up that you would ordinarily see in a horror film, except this time there is a bathtub filled with water.  At first it seems unsuspecting until Thale pops out and scares the living shit out of everyone (including me).  At first they think she is just some chick that has been held captive in this basement for x amount of years and begin feeding her and clothing her.  Through a serious of recorded tapes they find in the basement, it is revealed that she is actually a mythical creature called a Huldra and she possesses magical powers including the ability to heal anything she touches and also the ability to transmit memories and thoughts to any human she touches.  Now this is the point in the movie where everything began to fall short.  Instead of there being a climax/ major conflict, you learn her background story which really isn’t all that interesting.  She gets captured by an old man when she is a little girl and he raises her and takes care of her, end of story.  After discovering that she is a creature and not a human being, I thought that shit was gonna go down and the story was gonna get crazy… I was wrong.  The rest of the story is kind of smooth sailing and there is not enough action to really satisfy.  The first half of the movie and the buildup was so amazing, that I couldn’t believe it just fell flat at the halfway point. Ya some cool violent bloody shit happens, but nothing that is really memorable.  I’ll admit, there are a few good scares and this movie is perfect to watch in the dark.

Thale is not the over-the-top movie you’ve been looking for.  It truly is completely average but the only reason I would recommend it is because it is so different than any other horror that has been released.  Nordic folklore is obviously not a subject most horror movies tend to touch upon and I loved the scary twist they put on an ancient tale.  I love learning about other countries, and there’s always something so captivating about folklore because these tales have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years.  This movie isn’t going to put you on your ass with its amazing-ness, but I would definitely recommend it because it was so indie and actually extremely beautifully made considering the low budget.  I wouldn’t put this high on the priority list of scary flicks to watch, but if you’re looking for something new and original with an actual good storyline, check it out! I’m not saying you WON’T regret it, but I surely hope you don’t its kind of a gem.

Wake Wood

Gorror fans, if it wasn’t for you I would have taken the first available fork I could find and stabbed my eyeballs out so I could have prevented myself from watching this absolutely horrible movie.  Complete spin-off of Stephen King’s “Pet Semetary” but nowhere near as great.  This movie is an abomination to horror, so please whatever you do, don’t see it!  The movie starts out, literally within the first minute and a half, with 9-year old Alice being eaten alive by some savage dog.  Although it may sound borderline cool and gory, it was actually the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen and it seriously just looked like blood was being splattered on her in different camera angles.  At this moment, I knew I would be in for a hellish ride and I immediately began searching for a sharp object with which I could use to gouge my eyes out.  If only I would have found that sharp object……..

Anyways Patrick and Louise, both with the personalities and emotions of a cardboard box, “grieve” the death of their only child.  And by grieve I mean show as little emotion as possible while going around and doing nothing.  In fact, none of the characters really “do” anything, they are merely just there to add to the scenery.  The dialogue didn’t do anything for me, the acting didn’t do anything for me, hell, the blood didn’t even do anything for me.  Unacceptable!  By some random turn of events Patrick and Louise stumble upon some type of cult/ gathering in their small town that specializes in resurrecting the dead.  The only catch is, they are only allowed 3 days with their loved one until they must be put back into the ground.  At this point in the movie, the genre shifted from quasi-horror to full-on comedy.  Get this: in order to bring back Alice, her parents must use a freshly dead body, coat it in a layer of manure/ shit, set it on fire, and then do some other chanting bullshit.  At this moment I was practically in tears, and then it got even better.  The feces-covered corpse then gives birth to a very bloody and also very naked Alice. Awkward.  I wasn’t sure what the fuck I just watched, but I figured if I was half way there and hadn’t resorted to stabbing my eyes out yet, I could sit through the last half of the movie.

I think the point of the story was for Alice to come back to life as some possessed little kid.  But because the acting and the dialogue were so horrific, she was the same bland little girl she was before Fido decided she looked like a good meal.  Despite her being devoid of any emotion or personality, 70 pound Alice manages to kill 3 adults who cannot fend against someone 30+ years younger than them. That came off to me as a bit strange.  The characters in the movie literally sat there as she did whatever she had to do to kill them.  No screaming, no opposition, not enough blood, stupid camera angle, I can go on and on.  This is where I began getting confused, and for the life of me I’m not sure what explanation I can give for what I witnessed on film.  Basically, Alice’s 3 days are up, they re-kill her, re-bury her, and for some reason she drags Louise down with her.  I’m not sure why this happened or what meaning it had, but Patrick decides he needs to go through the same “Pet Semetary” bullshit he just went through with Alice so he could get his wife back for 3 days. I’m not sure why this movie was even classified as horror, seeing as it doesn’t even have the potential to scare a 5 year-old.  I easily gave this movie 0 out of 5 stars, there were literally no redeeming qualities to even make this movie semi-enjoyable.  You can all thank me later for the fact that I just spared you from watching one of the most horrible movies of your life.  I took one for the team, cuz thats just who I am.  Now please, spread the word to stay as far away from this film as possible.

The Loved Ones

After viewing the trailer for The Loved Ones, I really thought I would be in for yet another Aussie treat.  Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed and only think I will be giving this movie 3 out of 5 stars.  If you picked up that this movie was extremely disturbing, you are correct.  Lola, the main character, not only has a severely fucked up almost incestuous relationship with her father, she suffers from some pretty heavy emotional issues which cause her to partake in the brutal torture of kidnapped prom dates.  Now, I’m not sure how many of you have been turned down when asking somebody out, but I have more times than I’m willing to acknowledge.  Lola takes rejection as an excuse to just go completely apeshit, to the point where some of the scenes in the movie border torture porn.  I, on the other hand, prefer the “handle of Smirnoff followed by copious amounts of Taco Bell” route, Lola– take notes.  Anyways Lola and her father has some type of fucked up relationship thats a bit much for me to explore, but he is the one who kidnaps the boys and brings them back to their trailer for Lola to torture and kill.  Sexy-ass Brent, as I like to refer to the other main character in the film, is just too damn sexy (or lucky/ strong/ smart would suffice) to be killed off by this sadistic body of hormones and her nutjob father.

The scene that takes place at the dinner table is amongst one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen.  It is perverted, sadistic, and just overall uncomfortable, even hard to watch at times.  Like I said, Lola is just beyond psychotic and the acting is done very well, I was legitimately creeped out.  What I DIDN’T like about this scene, was that I thought it was unnecessary.  You receive more background information on Brent rather than Lola, and I feel like this scene almost had no meaning because there is no explanation as to why Lola is the way she is.  She’s just this crazy fucking bitch that likes to have mock proms at her house and torture her kidnapped prom dates until they eventually die or are turned into, yes you guessed it, zombies.  There’s no backstory as to why she’s obsessed with prom or what type of rejection lead her to do this, it just is.  And zombies…… really? Does every abduction movie need to turn into the kidnappers force-feeding their victims some type of “zombie solvent”?  I thought that was pretty pointless and actually took away from the movie.

As always, the gore was really cool and cringeworthy, I think I actually closed my eyes for part of it, which is surprising considering I have no soul and eat torture porn for breakfast.  That was the only really awesome part of the movie.  Another really disturbing and unique part of the movie was Lola’s prom photo album.  Apparently this whole “kidnap a prom date and throw a mock prom in my dad’s trailer” has been going on since she was 6 years old, and she has the photos to prove it.  Its definitely an overwhelmingly disturbing thought to think about children under the age of 10 being subjected to the torture you see Brent go through.  That was a truly creepy part and didn’t really sit well with me.  Otherwise the lack of backstory made the movie seem kind of pointless and there was no emotional attachment I felt to the characters.  Brent was sexy as fuck, I would probably watch the movie again just so I can shamelessly check him out for an hour and a half.  Maybe if you really love the Aussie accent and you are just looking for your typical kidnap/torture film, you could tune into it.  But otherwise, I’m not going to go ahead and give my recommendation for this one, its too average and lacks any sort of complexity.

Primal

Every once in a while, a movie comes along and knocks me on my ass because it simply goes ahead and does the unexpected.  That is exactly what Primal did, and I was pleasantly surprised to see an original movie.  The zombie/cannibalism thing has always been a huge hit, especially when executed properly.  Although I only decided to give Primal 3.5 out of 5 stars, I would recommend it because it was a new spin on an old horror movie element: zombie-ism.  Seeing as this is an Australian film, and I’ve always been quite pleased with the movies I have seen from them, I already knew I was in for a treat (mainly because I had the chance to tune in to 2 hours of the sexiest accent known to man).  I would have to say, the movie starts out pretty typically.  Five friends decide to take a camping trip/ adventure tour in some seemingly abandoned and uninhabited neck of the woods. Like I said, typical.  Obviously shit starts going down, there’s a few scares here and there, but then a completely new concept is presented and the movie takes a turn for the better.  “Monstrous” bugs turn them into cannibals.  After they are exposed to the leeches, their health slowly starts deteriorating with just the right amount of blood, gore, and pain.  They are soon transformed into what seems like a half beast half human (or something — think 30 Days of Night).  Their cannibalistic tendencies terrorize the remaining few that have not been infected, and the game of cat and mouse is actually very interesting.

I’m not going to say the dialogue and plot were particularly entertaining, I mean, when I say this is a typical one of those “5 teenagers head out to the woods and get fucked up and other bloody shit” I mean it.  There was really nothing that special about the movie other than these cannibalistic “beasts”.  I liked how this movie took the whole “infected” element and made the characters transform into creatures that I’ve never really seen on film before.  Every time there’s some type of infection in a movie, the result is always zombies. Always.  But the fact that they made the infection result in the transformation into some type of neanderthal cannibal was pretty badass.  Instead of the zombies doing the slow zombie walk or whatever other approach they take to eat their victims, Primal had their infected ones act animalistic and made it look like a hunt for prey rather than zombies just nomming brains.  Like I said, its not the greatest plot, but if you’re looking for something original, bloody, cool, and badass I would say go for it.  Otherwise, if you are a sucker for a super intelligent plot or an actual meaningful movie, I would say skip it.

Three Extremes

Three Extremes is a compilation film of 3 shorts by 3 masters of horror, Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, and Chan-wook Park.  I’m not sure whats going on between me and my connection to the film, but its definitely not there.  I decided to give this film 2.5 out of 5 stars because I simply could not stay interested.  There could be many contributing factors to my rating; maybe I didn’t pay enough attention, maybe I wasn’t in the “scary movie watching” mood, maybe I’m on overload with the scary movies, maybe I’m sick and tired of reading subtitles cuz damn American movies don’t excite me at all.  No matter what “excuse” I come up with, there’s really no way for me to justify my 2.5 rating other than the movie just wasn’t interesting enough.  I expected that at least one of these shorts would be scary and having me jump out of my seat.  Instead I found that the shorts were strange and disturbing (which I love obviously) but didn’t have enough umph to it to make me feel passionate about writing about it and recommending it to others.

The thing I like about Asian films is that they tend to be more risque and mind-blowing than movies I have seen from other countries.  The acting in this film was good, the plots were good, and the gore was spot on.  The shorts were creepy in all the right spots and the visuals were very striking.  Even though I would consider this film good and recommend it to lovers of Asian film, my issue with the movie was that I didn’t feel a connection to it.  I’ve only seen one compilation film before and I loved it.  This film though, I didn’t feel like I had enough time with the characters or the stories to make a connection and have it make a permanent mark on my brain.  I honestly think if the shorts would have been made into full-length movies I would have liked them more.  There was not enough action and suspense in the shorts to make them exciting and truly great.

If you are into Asian horror, I would say watch this movie.  Otherwise, I would say skip it.  There are way better shorts out there that get the job done in its 30 minutes or less running time.

Thale

Has anybody seen this movie yet? I’m thinking about watching it soon, it looks interesting 🙂