Ditched (2021) - Nice concept

An ambulance carrying some dangerous prisoners crashes late one night, leaving both police, paramedics and convicts stuck in the woods.  Then things get worse when they discover there are those waiting for them in the darkness who have lethal intentions towards them.

It's a low-budget flick which is effectively one main location, i.e. the stricken ambulance where the survivors of the crash try and make it out alive.  I know it's a nit-pick, but the film is well too stylishly lit for deep in the woods during the middle of the night.  Bright neon lights of all colours seem to light up every scene which - although looking pretty - just doesn't seem real.

But, apart from that very minor gripe, the cast do their jobs well enough.  There are some revelations as the characters try to figure up what they're up against and why they're here.  The budget is low.  I was almost about to turn the film off when I saw what was waiting for them in the woods, but the film quickly pointed out that those lurking in the shadows weren't supposed to be anything you - technically - couldn't see in real life, so I gave the film a pass.

It was entertaining enough.  The main antagonist over-acts a bit and sometimes comes across as a little 'too British' (I have no idea of the actor's ethnicity, so I have no idea whether he was putting on the accent.  It's not a bad story if you're watching it on a streaming platform - just be sure to ignore the plot holes and the ending is a little vague (but I may just have missed something). Perhaps I wasn't in the mood to be very forgiving on this one as the fact that the computer generated blood effects seemed to be the 'wrong way round' in my opinion, i.e. a pistol shot to the head completely destroys the whole human head whereas a shotgun blast to the face leaves the victim completely intact, minus some blood spatter at the rear.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

The Nanny's Night (2021) - It tried

'The Nanny's Night' is a film made in Spain where the actors all speak English.  It's rare that I'd start a review with that fact, but I feel it's kind of pertinent because clearly English isn't the actors' native tongue, therefore not only do the lines come across as a bit 'off' and 'stilted,' but at times I struggled to even hear what they were saying (I guess that's where subtitles really come in handy).

A young woman takes a job as a nanny for the night to an - almost teenage - girl (a premise which made me wonder as the girl is clearly old enough to look after herself, yet she requires bedtimes stories etc, making her out to be much younger than she obviously is).  During the night, blood flows.

It's marketed as a 'horror comedy' yet I'm afraid I barely picked out anything that made me smile until at least halfway through.  There are a few pop culture moments and bits where the characters appear a bit 'self referential,' but, apart from that, there aren't many laughs to speak of.  Every now and again something jarring will happen like a cartoon segment out of nowhere or some text written on the screen in comic format.

It's typically low budget, set entirely in the house for 90% of the film and there's not a lot of special effects or gore to really make it stand out.  The set itself is nice and well-lit with colourful lighting everywhere, but it feels like Spain have tried to copy Netflix's 'The Babysitter' which did the whole thing a lot better.

It's not a long film, but it does drag in places - they ever try to pad the runtime with the characters watching the - copyright free - 'Night of the Living Dead' from the late sixties (that's probably the best bit).  There are a few moments which act as 'twists,' but I felt those were unnecessary - just watch 'The Babysitter' instead - at least you'll be able to understand the characters.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

The Scrotum (2019) - Short, but not very sweet

I've seen a lot of horror films where a lot of different types of monsters chase a lot of... well, pretty similar teenagers, but I never thought I'd be watching film about a killer... er, 'male appendage' shall we say (hey, the clue is in the title!).  The closest I guess I've seen was 'The Killer Tongue' back in the nineties.

The title basically tells you everything you need to know about the film, but, if you want any more, a couple who are out camping run into some toxic waste when the man decides to shave 'down below' in the water.  This causes one of the most hard-to-watch scenes any man will ever witness when the guy on screen uses a cut-throat razor to saw off... I'll leave it up to your imagination.

However, it doesn't end there (I wish the film ended there).  Instead, the bl00dy pair of male dangling bits decide to chase and murder everyone they come into contact with.

Most of the hour-long movie is effectively one random stranger wandering through the woods before coming into contact with our titular monster and then coming off second best.  We sometimes get 'point of view' shots from the scrotum's perspective and it's something similar to 'Evil Dead' where you see that thing in the woods constantly chasing Bruce Campbell about the place.  I guess I'll never be able to watch any 'Evil Dead' movie again without wondering whether what Ash sees is actually a disembodied scrotum coming to possess him!

And that's about it.  Some stranger is killed.  Move on to the next until we're finally back with the girl who were met at the beginning of the film.  Yeah, I guess it's a novel premise and - yes - that scene with the cut-throat razor was genuinely horrific, but even for a short film like this I can't really recommend wasting an hour of your life just for one gory scene then a 'rinse and repeat' format which follows until the end.

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

Risen (2021) - I'd rather the human race gets wiped out by aliens than watch this again

Oh, dear, where to begin.  There's a trend in modern Hollywood films to make everything totally comic - even moments that are supposed to be serious (Marvel films, I'm looking at you).  However, if ever there was a 'yin' to that particular 'yang' it would be summed up by 'Risen' - the slowest alien invasion film I've ever witnessed.

Okay, so not every alien invasion should be action-packed like 'Independence Day.' I've seen plenty that are slower and more thoughtful - and just as enjoyable.  However, this one is just too damn sombre and serious for its own good.  The characters just walk around looking like they're going to the gallows.  I get it - it's an apocalyptic type of film and you don't want gags every other line, but this is just soooo damn serious, I can't use the word 'serious' enough.  

The film isn't short either - nearly two hours.  You can pretty much skip the entire first hour.  A meteor crashes into a small American town killing the thousand or so inhabitants.  Only the victims 'rise' soon after, meaning much of the hour is spent peering at them in hospitals through windows, then followed by people talking about what to do or what they've seen.

The 'aliens' first take the form of the 'black goo' from 'The X-files' which hasn't really had a starring role since 'Prometheus' so it's nice to see it make a come-back here, but it would have been more heartening to see it pick a better role than in this.  You get long drawn-out scenes of silence where you can effectively use your remote control to send these into 2x or 4x speed, just to get them out of the way.  Then, the 'aliens' progress into their own form of human with really cheesy blue contact lenses in and they too just stand there, staring.

I guess the film is supposed to be deep and meaningful and the ending sort of reminded me of 'Interstellar' - and I didn't really 'get' either of the endings.  Only that in 'Risen' it had some of the worst CGI explosions I've seen in a long time.

I know this is supposed to be deep, gritty and realistic - and having films like that are fine (even a nice break from the wise-cracking commercial output), but if all that means is that you're left with 'dull and boring' then I guess I'll take witty one-liners over this bore-fest.  Oh, and I love it how the film is so cheap it can't even use the 'Google' name when filming a character using a very familiar search engine!

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

Stay Out Stay Alive (2019) - Could have been worse

I thought I wasn't going to like this low budget horror film - nothing new about the plot - five friends go camping in the woods of a wildlife preserve when they encounters something not particularly nice and also supernatural.

It starts off with the cliche of the teenagers stopping off at an out-of-the-way local business and encounter the quirky local who gives them pertinent information regarding what is going to be coming their way.  Of course the teens disregard the advice and the movie takes place.  The acting was pretty bad at the beginning, but weirdly it actually got a lot better as the film went on and there were even a few instances of 'backstory' with the characters.  It got me thinking: when was the last time I knew what a person in a horror film did for a living?

Some of the cast are just about likeable as characters, but one particular couple really made me question how the two of them ever got together as they're the most opposite characteristics I've ever seen on screen.

The main part of the story takes place down a mine.  One of the characters falls down and gets trapped and the other four have to rescue her.  Only, once they're down there, they find leftover gold from the goldrush days and what follows is the way potential riches can corrupt and generally tear friendships apart.

Yes, there is also a supernatural element, but I was surprised at how little this is used.  It could be because this film obviously didn't have much of a budget and any ghosties would take quite a lot of the money to bring them to life realistically.

Overall, there are worse horror films out there and this one could just be worth a watch if you've got nothing else.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Morbid (2022) - One story x4

On Halloween four - not very likeable - teenage girls get together round one of their houses and play a mysterious boardgame which brings out their worst fears.  Simply plot for a simple film.  There's really not much on offer here.

The opening was quite promising with two young boys trick or treating the girl's house - I genuinely laughed at the gag at the end of that scene.  However, that part of the film was just a throw away to the main meat of the story.

The rest is about the four girls, only one of which you really get to know anything about in terms of character and backstory.  The other three are just there to er, get scared and act bitchy I guess.

For a short film it takes a while to get going and when it does it's effectively the same film/scenes played out four times, i.e. once per protagonist, as they're individually stalked through the same house by their own personal fears.

There's not an awful lot of gore here and the most expensive 'special' effect in this low budget effort seems to be a colour-changing LED bulb that's constantly flashing over the set.

That's about it - not much to say about something that effectively repeats itself multiple times, none of which is that scary, gory, s3xy or fun - which is probably what you're hoping for in a horror movie.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Halloween at Aunt Ethel's (2014) - Trying too hard

When I first switched this film it actually seemed like it had a lot of promise.  It's a kind of slasher/horror film where an old woman (Aunt Ethel, in case you hadn't guessed) in an American town is thought to abduct and kill kids while they trick or treat on Halloween.  A reasonable enough plot for a low budget horror movie (unless you think too hard about how this woman can operate while everyone knows and no law enforcement agency has thought to look into how dozens of children disappear forever on the same night every year for decades when around the same house).

It's self-aware stylishly shot, but the script just isn't as funny as it thinks it is.  The cast aren't recognisable and they're trying their best with what they're given, but they just come across as overacting in every scene.  Maybe if the script was better you can ignore the scenery-chewing element, but while neither is strong it's actually quite hard to watch.

Plus it seems a lot longer than it actually is.  It's only about an hour and ten minutes, but you get long scenes of characters texting each other and s3x scenes which are just there because the actors clearly didn't mind (or were paid well enough!) to indulge in.

Perhaps the worst acting (and make-up!) come from 'Aunt Ethel' herself.  I get how villains can be 'larger than life' in their sadistic kills (ala Freddy, from the 'Nightmare' franchise), but she overacts more than the rest of the cast put together and she's not funny, intimidating or even horrific in appearance. 

Not much happens in the first half of the film and the humour is pretty low-brow.  If it has one high point it's the 'milf' who actually made me laugh when she was on screen.  It may be short, but it feels long.  There are a million better movies to watch on Halloween.

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)