Video Nasties: Axe (1977)

a.k.a. Lisa, Lisa; California Axe Massacre

Year Re-Released: 2005 (uncut)

Axe supposedly takes place in a secluded and isolated farm, where a psychotic girl named Lisa cares for her paralysed grandfather. This isn’t quite true. The first half of the film basically follows three criminals doing some stuff. I’m really not sure what it is they are doing. At first they kill a couple of guys for some reason, and then they go to a convenience store and throw tomatoes at the clerk, then play a bit of William Tell with her.

When it gets to the 25 minute mark we finally arrive at the secluded house. But it’s only after some faffing around that the criminals meet Lisa. They decide to stay low here, and Lisa doesn’t put up much resistance.

It’s a while after this that stuff actually starts happening. After 40 minutes of nothingness we have attempted rape, which causes Lisa to murder the criminal. With a straight-edge razor. I thought this film was about an axe?

Well, it does turn out there is a murder committed with an axe. One. That’s it. What a jip!

But I’ve spent far too much time looking at the plot. In fact, I think I’ve spent more time looking at it than the film does because this film is boring as hell. It takes 40 minutes for something to happen and that isn’t exciting. There’s no tension and no excitement.

None of the characters are likeable. Lisa is just bland, two of the criminals are basic criminals and the other is pathetic and wimpy. There’s not a single moment spent on character development. We never get to know these characters or why they are doing the things they do. This is especially true for Lisa, whose psychosis is never explained. Maybe if the film spent more time on its characters rather than doing sod all we might have something to care about!

With all this said, though, the film is hilariously bad. The editing is terrible. At one point blood is meant to appear on a mirror, so they put a few frames of this in the middle of Lisa looking at the mirror. The way the camera shifts is so obvious it’s pitiful. In addition to this we have terrible acting from all present. Horrific scenes just come across as humorous.

I think maybe this film is a Video Nasty for one of two reasons, one more plausible than the other. I doubt it was due to the “rape” scenes, which are so badly shot that it doesn’t look like rape. No, I think it was more likely to be due to the title. Axe just sounds like it has an ungodly amount of violence. But it doesn’t.

Surprisingly for a film that is 68 minutes long it feels far too long. And when we consider that if we remove the start and end credits the film is more like 62 minutes long then that’s even more surprising. 62 minutes of rubbish.

Final Verdict: 0/10

Flash Game Reviews: Shift

In my mid-teens I played a lot of Flash games. They were free and could often be amazing. In fact, I have played some Flash games which were far superior to most console games I’ve played. Some Flash games you could tell were a labour of love and others you knew were just shat out for one reason or another. These reviews on Flash games are my tribute to the people who made these games and caused me to spend a lot of my time playing them.

One of the biggest names in Flash games is Armor Games, the company that annoys me and my spellchecker because it is spelled with the American version of “armour.” In 2008 a game was released by “Tony” (Antony Lavelle) who makes games for the site. This game is Shift.

Shift has no real story. It’s a puzzle platformer. You are Subject 32763 and you must get from the first screen to the last by puzzle platforming. That’s pretty much it. The entire premise of the game. But that’s fine. With my Flash games I don’t require deep story or anything, I want a fun game to play.

And fun it is! As it’s a puzzle platformer you obvious jump from one platform to another and the puzzle aspect is trying to figure out how to get there. The way this is achieved is so simple yet so ingenious. Just press the Shift key. When you do that the level turns around 180 degrees and your character goes upright in this new level. So where you would initially have this:

all you have to do is press Shift and you get this:

 and then you can complete the level and go onto the next. So simple, yet so clever. It also makes for some very interesting ways to solve the level.

To advance to the next level you need to get to the door, but sometimes you will have platforms blocking you. To get these out of the way all you need to do is collect one of the various keys on the level and you’ll have a path set out for you. Again, simple but effective.

The look of this game is also great. The simple black and white motif allows you to instantly recognise which part of the level you are on. Also, the simplicity just suits the game itself. It’s a simple game that plays amazingly.

The music playing in the background is great too. Very simplistic but fun and it fully immerses you in the game itself. The entire game has a cheek about it, constantly throwing insults and jokes at you and... wait a second. It’s Portal. This game has been influenced by Portal!

A simple puzzle platformer that is still somewhat challenging and has great audio, simplistic visuals and some omnipresent entity that mocks you. It even has a “The cake is a lie” thing going on!

Well, the game seems aware it’s influenced by Portal. I’ll give it that, though the references to Portal do annoy me (as they do with most games). But even if it is influenced by Portal I don’t mind. Some of the greatest things out there are almost directly influenced by other great things. And this game is great! I really advise playing it if you haven’t already. It isn’t a very long game, but it is worth it if you have a few minutes spare.

Plus, this game is great for another thing: it has brilliant sequels!

Final Verdict: 8/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

This film really confuses me. I don’t quite know what to think about it. It isn’t confusion in the same way as A Nightmare on Elm Street confused me. Everything seems established a bit better in Freddy’s Revenge and some things make a lot more sense. No, I’m confused because I’m not sure to what extent I like or dislike this film. I suppose actually writing about it will help me get my thoughts around it.

For one, I’m pretty sure the ending of the first film has been retconned to “everyone died and Nancy went insane” but that isn’t made entirely clear. That at least gives a simple ending to the first film and allows the events of the original to make more sense. Not sure if I like this, though.

Then we have the fact that our main character, Jesse (Mark Patton), seems to be slowly getting taken over from the dream world so that Krueger (Robert Englund) can commit murders through him. That should bring in some more psychological horror aspects as Jesse doesn’t know when he will become a violent killer. But Jesse never seems entirely phased by this. Only when he is changing into Krueger or just killed someone does he actually seem scared at all. Not only this, but it also means nothing really happens in the dream world. This makes the first film being about killing the kids in their dreams almost pointless.

However, it does lead to some creepy scenes and does build a little bit of tension. It is also an interesting concept, not being able to control oneself and becoming some violent supernatural killer. But this never comes up often enough, with Jesse being mostly himself throughout the film. There’s little to no tension. Thankfully, it does build up to a scene of violence and death, but this is all too little too late. And at the end Krueger is defeated by the power of love (cop out) and then everyone acts like nothing ever happened.

Oh, and then Freddy’s hand bursts out some girl’s stomach and the school bus goes careening off somewhere. THE END!

I’m going to go ahead and say I am not going to look forward to the ends of these films. I think they will all turn out disappointing.

But I have to say that overall I do find that this film does some things a bit more right than the original. It’s more clear cut, less confusing and a lot less ridiculous. Nonetheless, I think I have to say that I don’t really like this film. Barely anything happens in it and the overall climax was a bore, just to have some lovey-dovey nonsense come along and ruin what should be some epic ending, what with Freddy running around and all.

Which, to be honest, was another problem. Freddy getting out properly and doing things ruins the supernatural feel of the character. He no longer just has power in dreams and the outside world to a lesser extent. No, now he just goes right ahead and kills people in the real world. In trying to make a better story they seem to have ended up with a less creepy villain.

So I guess I’m less fond of this film. What I liked the most about the previous movie, the villain, has been stripped down to just a normal killer, in a way. The pacing of this film was terrible, at times plot points would go nowhere and there's the tiniest amount of tension or suspense. I realise now I have focussed mainly on the plot, but not what happens within the film. This is mainly because nothing happens in the film, but there is a bare bones plot in there somewhere. It’s hard to talk about a film like that.

Hopefully there will be more to talk about in the later films, be it good or be it bad!

Final Verdict: 3/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t quite understand the popularity of this film. Maybe it isn’t this film in and of itself, but rather the franchise. But A Nightmare on Elm Street holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, this seems to be mostly from horror reviewers, but the point still stands: this film is popular.

Maybe it’s the villain. Freddy Krueger, only really referred to as Fred Krueger in this film. Freddy is a pretty good villain. He is scary looking and pretty eerie. He doesn’t speak much, but when he does it’s either funny or creepy. The fact that he seems to toy with his some of his victims before killing them suits the character and the mere fact that he is a child murderer would be disturbing to some.

At first I was quite upset that Freddy didn’t actually seem to get much time on screen but that really works for his creepiness factor. The less you see him, the more you fear him. Sadly, when it comes to the climax he seems pretty useless and is comically taken down at one point by a sledgehammer (come on, he’s some supernatural being!), which takes away from his legitimacy as a fearsome villain.

The acting in this film is also another positive for this film. All of the actors are pretty good, especially the leading cast, such as Heather Langenkamp as Nancy, and Johnny Depp. Langenkamp is the heroin of the film and she carries off her role perfectly, unlike the girl who gets killed first, played by Amanda Wyss.

So we have two positives, but why does this film confuse me?

Well, it’s the execution of the plot. You see, Freddy is dead, killed by the parents on Elm Street because he was a child murderer and got off of prison on a technicality. So now he is getting back at the parents by killing their children in their dreams, where he has power. It's a very interesting a good basic plot to the film.

But I find that it all falls apart when we see Freddy affecting things outside of the dreams. One of the characters is killed off by being hanged by his bed sheets in a police station cell. How does he do this? Does he have control over anything to do with the bed? Depp’s character is clearly awake when he is killed, blood gushing up to the ceiling from a hole in his bed in a ridiculous manner. At the end of the film he gets out of the dream and tries to kill the main character.

By the end of the film we have all of the characters alive again, together in a convertible. Then the cover comes up and it’s in the design of Freddy’s shirt, the doors all lock, the windows all go up and the car drives away. The Nancy’s mum is then waving them off and suddenly Freddy’s clawed hand busts through the door and drags the mum in. The End!

What? What happened there?! Was this all a dream? I get the feeling that this is like some sort of Inception dream within a dream within a dream/which reality is reality and which is the dream stuff going on. I have no idea what happened at the end there, nor what happened before it. The movie has made no effort to explain these things and instead just leaves me sitting here feeling confused.

This is why the popularity of this film confuses me. Conceptually it's really good but it just fails in execution. Freddy’s powers are confusing and the events of the film are questionable. It’s such a shame because A Nightmare on Elm Street does a great job at building up tension and suspense, but this is all sadly taken over by confusion as the film goes on.

And when the better version of this film is the parody from The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror VI then there may be some issues with the source material.

But maybe when I think A Nightmare on Elm Street is popular I’m thinking of the franchise, and not the initial film in the series. I’m sure I’ll find out as this series continues.

Final Verdict: 4/10

Video Nasties: Don’t Look in the Basement (1973)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

a.k.a. The Forgotten

Year Re-Released: 2005 (uncut)

Before we look at this film let’s look at the synopsis on the back on the DVD case doesn’t help the film at all, boasting “twisted fantasies which includes urder”. Oh boy, I can’t wait to find out what “urder” is!

Don’t Look in the Basement is set in Stephens Sanitarium, possibly the worst mental health institute in the US as patients are free to roam around the secluded building. This is in the hopes that they will just somehow snap out of their fantasies just because they get to act them out. Sounds like not only would that reinforce these behaviours, but it also sounds extremely dangerous, which is exactly what it is.

In the 9 minute lead up to the opening credits appear one of the dangerous patients attacks the chief doctor with an axe and another crushes a nurse’s head after the patient thinks the nurse is trying to steal her “baby”. Now with these two out of the way one doctor is left, but that’s OK because a new nurse is on her way. Then the film gets tedious and boring.

The biggest problem with this institute is that some of these people are clearly dangerous. One character seems to take it upon himself to call judgment on everyone and is violent about it. Another is a Sergeant, but he doesn’t do anything, though is most probably volatile due to having shellshock from the Vietnam War. The woman with the doll is violent towards people who she deems threatening.  

Some of these people also feel like they shouldn’t be there, aside from a man called Sam, who has the mind of a child. We also have some guy who just comes across as a nasty person, not insane. There’s also an old lady who just seems like an old lady.

There’s also a nymphomaniac who really shouldn’t be in the institute. The premise of “living out fantasies” can only go so far with her, as she is unable to act upon them because no one will have sex with her, therefore the chief doctor cannot cure her. I think she is only there to increase the creepiness factor in the only genuinely creepy scene where it is implied that she has had sex with a fresh corpse.

The reason I have been talking about the patients so much is because this is pretty much all the film is about: looking at insane people for 70 minutes until the climax of the film. It isn’t entertaining and isn’t scary or creepy. It’s just boring,

When the climax does finally come along there is a clever twist where it turns out that the doctor currently running the institute is actually one of the patients and that the nurse is the only sane one there. Then people just start dying for no real reason. The not-doctor kills one of them, then the necrophilia scene, then the nurse finds the chief doctor in the basement and kills him in fear, then the patients go to kill the nurse, then Sam saves her, then they go to kill the not-doctor, she dies, nurse escapes through the basement, Sam comes back and kills them all for killing the not-doctor, the end.

Seriously, that’s how it ends. Stuff just kind of happens and then THE END!

I suppose I can kind of see why Don’t Look in the Basement a Video Nasty. It has some nudity (two occasions where breasts appear) and some violence, along with the implied necrophilia (it is implied, though the box says necrophilia is in it). So those are some reasons it may have been banned, but there’s nothing really solid to go on here.

I don’t really recommend this film. If you want a slasher  this isn’t the film for you and if you want One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest critique on mental institutions in the US then I can’t say you’ll get that here either. Just watch something else and you’ll be more entertained. Not only this but this film never tells you what “urder” really is. That’s just disappointing!

Final Verdict: 1/10

Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)

 THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Oh, man, this movie was something special. I kind of love this movie. It has nothing to do with it being good or having a good story or anything like that. No, I love this movie because it so bad that it is hilarious and fun to watch. Really bad and really fun!

This finale feels like some sort of self parody, not a serious end to the franchise. It seems as if the people who made this movie were having a laugh and giving the finger to people who truly cared about this series.

The movie suffers from many things. One of these things is bad acting. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is comically transparent and evil - though he always was – but now it just feels ridiculous. Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) always wears the same facial expression and Detective Matt Gibson (Chad Donella) was impossible to take seriously due to the terrible acting.

On top of this we have a nonsensical plot. Someone (Sean Patrick Flanery) claims to have escaped Jigsaw’s game and has released a book to show how great he now finds life. Of course, this guy is a phony, but no one seems to understand this. Surely someone would examine the scars on his body or have questioned him thoroughly or something to expose him. Also, this book is mean to have been released and all within the timeline of the films. This doesn’t seem likely to me.

Of course it is him put in the game, where he is given some of the most impossible tasks so far. So impossible we realise this series has given up and just started killing people willy nilly.

Which is why it is now a slasher flick. Oh yeah, Hoffman goes around shanking dudes just because. Obviously he learned nothing from Jigsaw, making everything in the previous films pointless.

So, basically, this franchise has now lost all of its identity just for blood, death, gore, violence and a body count. This is even the first Saw film (and, of course, last) to have an opening death scene that is never brought up. And this death scene takes place in public, for some reason, where a bunch of idiots just crowd around and watch as people show how terrible they are at acting.

Oh, and it turns out Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) is alive and is now the new Jigsaw. Only took them 6 movies to bring him back for a terrible twist ending. We now have no idea what Kramer’s legacy really is because there is no legacy shown. We can’t assume anything because we aren’t given the appropriate material to base a judgement on anything. It’s stupid.

But despite all of this I loved this film, purely because it was so bad. It was almost glorious in how it tried to ruin the series. It isn’t quite up to par with Highlander II levels of ruination, but it goes for it.

But here we are, at the end of this series. What have I learned?

Well, for one, don’t let unfounded prejudices stop you from watching films, you might be pleasantly surprised. Also, that torture porn is somewhat lucrative, but mostly idiotic in this day and age. And finally, the Saw franchise is completely mental!

Final Verdict: 1/10

Saw VI (2009)

THIS REVIEW IS TRYING ITS HARDEST NOT TO SPOIL A SINGLE THING AND HOPEFULLY IT HASN'T, BUT HERE'S A WARNING JUST IN CASE!

I’m shocked I’m about to type this, but here we go: The 6^th Saw film is my favourite in the series. Seriously, I am not kidding. When watching the utter tripe we got from the 4^th and 5^th films, with a lacklustre 3^rd film, I thought the last two films would be awful!

It’s weird to think that, as I watch the Saw films, I think it should be a TV show. All of them seem like they should be hour long episodes in an American TV series. The flashbacks remind me of Lost and the crime segments remind me of CSI. Yet if it was an American TV show then it would have been cancelled because of Saw IV being so badly received, so not all would have turned out well for it.

I honestly don’t want to spoil any of the plot for this movie. It is great as a standalone piece of cinema. What I can say is the general premise of the film, as well as the opening. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has got away with pinning the Jigsaw copycat killings on Agent Strahm and is now assisting Jill (Betsy Russell) in carrying out John Kramer’s (Tobin Bell) final requests. This consists of making a man play a game where he has to decide on how much he values other people’s lives. Even saying that I have spoiled it slightly, but it’s okay, it is deeper than that.

The tests in this film are pretty damn good. They are simple, yet effective, not unlike the very first film’s game. They all consist of difficult decisions that weigh heavily on the subject’s mind when trying to figure out what to do in such a short period of time. The tests are honestly extremely suspenseful, unlike the tests in the other films, and you feel sorry for the man when he is trying to complete them.

The directing in this film has got a thousand times better, so much so that I feel I have overcome my epilepsy and motion sickness. The acting is so much better and the twists make sense and are suspenseful. It’s hard for me to comment on anything in this film without saying “I really liked it.” Well, Hoffman is transparently evil, but I’m OK with that.

Just... go watch this film. It’s great.

Now to watch the one that had the worst ratings. 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, eh? Pretty bad... Ah well, at least it’s the last one!

Final Verdict: 9/10