Quake – Film Review

Posted on November 30, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Tinna Hrafnsdóttir

Writer: Tinna Hrafnsdóttir

Starring: Anita Briem, Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir, Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðsson, Bergur Ebbi Benediktsson

Rating: ★★★

Quake recently received its world premiere at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. It’s written and directed by Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, who also co-stars in the film. It’s a drama about loss, grief and losing independence.

Saga (Anita Briem) is a novelist who is struggling to meet the deadline on her new book. After being granted an extension, she suffers an epileptic seizure while walking home with her son. It leads causes her life to change massively, as her family have to watch over her, and her son is taken by his father to be looked after. The seizure has caused memory loss, while at the same time Saga is starting to remember things from her childhood that had been locked away for years.

The opening of this film is really gripping, it grabs your attention from the first moment it starts. It’s a little over ninety minutes in total, but absolutely flies by. Hrafnsdóttir wonderfully creates the sense of bewilderment and confusion caused by the memory loss with the cuts in the camera. When Saga first wakes up from the seizure in the hospital you really get the bewilderment that she is feeling. A lot is happening, and it feels very jumpy, so you’re not completely sure what’s happening and how much Saga is aware of.

After Saga can go home, she has to have family looking after her and more importantly her mother and ex-husband have agreed that he should look at her son. She’s completely lost her independence and can’t see her son when she wants to. It’s a hard adjustment that Saga doesn’t want to make and you can really feel her pain. She’s being told that she can’t drive, and her life isn’t going to be normal. Her doctor tells her that there isn’t anything they can do to ensure she doesn’t have a future seizure, even with more medication. There’s a real sense of hopelessness.

The memories from childhood that Saga starts to remember is the catalyst for the second half of the story. Her mother disappears, like she does every year, and no one seems to know where she’s gone. Saga starts to investigate this by herself, leading to a shocking twist that changes everything up to that moment.

While the twist is satisfying and does carry the film to the finish line, it does feel a little too long by that point. The terrific opening momentum isn’t kept up and the mystery takes a long time to really get going. Once it does the ending is good, but it takes way too long to actually get there.

Quake is about a traumatic event that turns the world of Saga upside down. It’s a really good drama that does a great job at capturing the feelings of the main characters, it’s just as great as it could be.

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Films from my Parents

Posted on November 30, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Some of my favourite memories of childhood is the films I watched with my parents. My mum let me watch things like Alien, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Leon, The Ring, while my dad showed me The Godfather part 2 (I then watched the first one with my mum), Scarface, Casino (and much later Goodfellas), Seven and Apocalypse Now.

A lot of people would think that I was probably too young for a lot of those films when I watched them, around 10 years old. I remember watching Aliens and my younger brother coming downstairs, at that point he would have been around 8 or 9, and getting scared so we had to turn it off and continue it later. I don’t think I was too young, I enjoyed watching them a lot. Some of them are among my favourites, but more importantly it is the memories that I still think back on fondly now.

The first time I remember being ill at my dad’s house we watched About an Boy and Forest Gump on the TV back to back. More age appropriate, but still my first time watching either. I loved both and have seen them multiple times since. The first film that I remember giving me nightmares was The Ring. I still have faint memories of the dream. A girl locked in a chest that was carried up a lighthouse, she would stay alive as long as no one let her out. I don’t remember much more, but I know it scared me at the time. I can still feel that deep fear inside when I think about it. These are important memories to me.

I will never forget my mum showing me all of Tarantino’s films, including True Romance and then Luc Besson’s Leon and Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise shortly afterwards (It’s probably a bigger span of time than I remember to be honest, but that doesn’t matter). To me these films are all linked together like some kind of tapestry of 90s action films that I discovered in the mid 2000s and I will never forget watching them with her.

There was one night, when my mum was going to bed and Hot Shots started on some channel. I’d never seen it, and mum told me to watch it, it’s good. So I did and loved it. I then got a DVD double pack of both films, which I watched and re-watched. This led me to Airplane! 1 & 2 as well as The Naked Gun series. Hot shots 2 and Naked Gun 3 are both 2 films I will never grow tired of.

Watching an endless amount of war films with my dad is something I will never forget. From Apocalypse Now to Saving Private Ryan and Platoon. With how many we watched, it almost feels like we could share war stories.

I don’t miss much from my childhood, but I do miss watching my parent’s favourite films with them for the first time. Those are memories that mean the world to me.

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Slumber Party Massacre – A Smart and Self-Aware Remake – Film Review

Posted on November 29, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Danishka Esterhazy

Writer: Suzanne Keilly

Starring: Hannah Gonera, Alex MgGregor, Schelaine Bennett, Mila Rayne, Rob Van Vuuren, Masali Baduza

Rating: ★★★★

Slumber Party Massacre is a remake of the 1982 film of the same name. The original was a parody at first, before the studio turned it into a more serious slasher film. The new remake feels closer to a parody with many references to the genre and clever moments.

In 1993 a group of girls at a slumber party are brutally attacked by the ‘Driller Killer’, with only one survivor, Trish Devereaux (Masali Baduza), who manages to push him into a lake. Around thirty years later Trish’s daughter, Dana (Hanna Gonera), and her friends set out on a trip of their own. After their car breaks down they end up in a cabin near a lake and the events are eerily similar to what happened to Dana’s mother.

It’s so many tropes of slasher films rolled into one. Slumber Party Massacre is the initial film, the sequel and the reboot all rolled into one. It starts in 1993 with the original killings that starts the story, it then jumps to the modern day with the next generation returning to the scene of the massacre, which would usually be reserved for the sequel, and then it gives you enough twists that makes this completely new (without going into spoilers). It’s reminiscent of the recent Halloween reboot from 2018 with the daughter of the ‘final girl’ from the opening scene as the main character.

The writing is perfect. It tricks you into thinking this is going to be a generic and dull slasher film that we’ve all seen a ton of times since the 1980s, and then it reveals its full hand in a twist that will make you sit up straight and pay attention. It’s incredibly well played and really self-aware of what it’s doing. There are so many cliches and tropes that are presented in different and fun ways. The whole thing is a blast right up to the conclusion. It’s hard to talk about without giving spoilers.

The effects are pretty decent with more than a couple of stomach churning moments. There are a few deaths that are really creative and that’s what you really want from a horror film. It’s not the goriest of the most brutal film going, but it’s definitely something to watch with a group of friends. It would make a very good Halloween night film. There’s a lot of humour, a lot of kills and the film is so charming that you can’t help but love it, especially the acting, which is hammy in the best way possible.  

Slumber Party Massacre is a surprisingly fun and entertaining slasher film to add to the year of horror that is 2021. It’s a must see for any horror fan and something that more than earns a cult following.

Slumber Party Massacre will be available on Digital Download from 13th December

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Black Christmas – Film Review

Posted on November 29, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter
Black Christmas (2019) - IMDb

Director: Sophia Takal

Writers: Sophia Takal and April Wolfe

Starring: Imogen Poots, Lily Donoghue, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Caleb Eberhardt, and Cary Elwes

Rating: ★★★

The original 1974 Black Christmas has gone down as one of the greatest horror films of all time. It inspired John Carpenter’s Halloween, as well as being given some credit for starting the slasher genre. The 2019 remake will probably not hold the same legacy in fifty years’ time, but it’s still fun while it’s on.

Riley Stone (Imogen Poots) and her sorority sisters perform a song at a frat party, highlighting the sexual assault that happens in colleges. It causes a stir and the next night they find they are being stalked by a masked assailant, who is trying to kill them. Riley and her friends have to make a decision to either stand and fight or run.

Sophia Takal’s version of Black Christmas is more about the social commentary than actual horror. The main character was raped at a frat party and the police wouldn’t believe her, it’s what inspires the song they sing at the end of year party and why they are being hunted by the masked attacker. It wears it’s themes on its sleeve with very little subtlety, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The party scene with the song works and gets the point across.

The characters are also likable, and the film spends enough time with them before the actual horror starts so you get to know them and want them to survive. The first half of the film, where it’s just character building and setting the scene is really good, then the attack goes into full force, and it just fizzles out.

It’s not really scary. There are a couple of good jump scares, and people do die in horrific ways, but you just don’t really feel it. It does hit the way it should do, and it feels hollow. Especially when it turns to the supernatural, which feels like it comes out of nowhere and the main character just instantly believes it. It’s a complete gear-shift and doesn’t feel right. It would have been scarier if it was just the frat hunting them down in revenge, not the weird cult/possession thing that the frat has become.

The first half is great and while the second half does disappoint, it’s still entertaining. It’s a solid slasher film, but it feels like it could have been so much more.

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Free Hand for a Tough Cop – A Restoration of an Italian Crime Classic – Blu-ray Review

Posted on November 28, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Umberto Lenzi

Writer: Umberto Lenzi, Dardano Sacchetti, and Elisa Briganti

Starring: Tomas Milian, Claudio Cassinelli, Henry Silva, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Robert Hundar

Rating: ★★★½

Fractured Visions is bringing Free Hand for a Tough Cop to the UK on Blu-ray for the first time ever. Umberto Lenzi’s classic crime story has be remastered in HD and couldn’t look better. The set is packed with special features, including interviews with the cast and commentaries. There’s also a new translation on the English subtitles.

A young and very ill girl has been kidnapped, and it’s crucial she is saved and taken to hospital as soon as possible. Inspector Sarti (Claudio Cassinelli) breaks out Sergio ‘Monnezza’ Marazzi (Tomas Milian) from prison in the hopes that he will help him save the young girl. Together they stop at nothing to bring the girl to safety, before her time runs out.

This is an action-packed film that races along. It’s only ninety minutes, but so much happens in that time. The pacing is so quick as it jumps from beat to beat, never slowing down. It’s not too fast to let you enjoy it and you get enough time with the main characters to get a real sense of who they are. This is easy watching where you can just watch the action and crime as the heroes try to save the kidnapped girl before it’s too late.

Speaking of crime, there is a lot of it in this film. The police inspector breaks Monnezza out of prison, in a silly way. He literally walks in and knocks him out, then just carries him out the gate. There’s a train robbery that goes wrong, a couple of recurring characters who beat people with a brick inside a tissue box and even a political assassination that gets in the way at one point. So much happens that when you get to the end, it’s hard to figure out how they fit it all in such a short run-time.

There are a few car chases in the film that are really well made. You can feel the speed as they glide down roads and fly around corners. It feels dangerous and looks awesome. Behind every scene is the most 1970s cop score you could imagine. It’s genuine and honest theme that is typical of something a cop film would parody now.

Free Hand for a Tough Cop is a funny, over-the-top action film. The characters are great, the car sequences are excellent, the music perfectly fits. It’s an all-round good time.

Free Hand for a Tough Cop is on Blu-ray 29 November from Fractured Visions

Pre-order from Fractured Visions: https://www.fracvis.co.uk/

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