A collection of not-so-recent films this time around. We’ll start with the very weird “Horns” from 2013 and then watch an old Italian film, “Night of the Devils” from 1972. “Rec 4: Apocalypse” wrapped up the series, at least so far, and we’ll talk about how that finished. We’ll tag along with some unfortunate Bigfoot hunters in 2012’s “Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes” and then finish up with the fact-based documentary “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” from 2012.
And, of course, we have more excellent short films for you!
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Mainstream Films:
2013 Horns
Directed by Alexandre Aja
Written by Keith Bunin, Joe Hill
Stars Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella
Run Time: 2 Hours.
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
There’s a murder mystery, and a guy with the abilities to solve it. This one is a lot of fun, with dark humor, action, and romance. We never find out why these things are happening to Ig, the main guy, but it doesn’t really matter. Just go with it.
Spoilery Synopsis
Ig Parrish narrates about how in love he was with Merrin Williams. We cut to him waking up on the kitchen floor after drinking too much. He’s got an amazing record collection, and he thinks of her. There are dozens of reporters outside with protestors, “You will burn in Hell!” and other signs. He’s accused of killing Merrin.
He drives to his parents’ house, and the reporters follow him. Parents Derrick and Lydia are there, along with his brother Terry. They talk about Lee Tourneau, Ig’s lawyer. He still denies having anything to do with her death. Lee shows up; the lab that was processing the evidence for the case has burned down mysteriously.
Ig goes to the local bar and talks to Glenna, who clearly likes him. That night, there’s a candlelight vigil for Merrin. Dale, Merrin’s father, thanks them all for coming. He blames Ig for the murder, too. Ig gets drunk, smashes the shrine, and pees on it. He later complains that everyone in town, when they saw him, saw the face of the devil.
As Ig wakes up the next day next to Glenna, he’s got some bloody bumps on his forehead. Even as he looks in the mirror, the horns grow longer, and yes, Glenna can see them too. She starts acting weird, and then she starts eating all the donuts– strangely.
He goes to the doctor about the horns. There’s a woman there who wants to kick her own screaming child, or maybe abandon her. She wants to leave her husband. She tells him all her secret immoral desires. The receptionist just wants to scream at the mother, and he gives her permission. It seems that everyone wants Ig’s permission to do bad things, and they confess bad acts and bad thoughts. The nurse also overshares. The doctor mentions that every time he looks away from the horns, he forgets that they’re there.
The doctor sedates Ig before cutting off the horns, and Ig dreams of his childhood with his friends and how he met Merrin. Ig does a crazy, risky stunt– he rides down a log trough in a shopping cart and nearly dies. Lee, however, ends up losing several fingers in the process of the chain of events. Young Ig shows Merrin to his treehouse in the woods, and they’re followed by Terry. Years pass, and they’re still together.
Ig wakes up at the doctor’s office, and he’s still got his horns. The doctor and the nurse both got distracted by sex in the middle of the operation. Ig drives to the church to ask the priest what to do. The priest says he’d really like to just string Ig up and kill him.
Ig goes to see Lee, but Lee doesn’t see the horns. “Maybe the horns don’t work on good people,” Ig wonders. He goes home to his mother, who sees the horns and wishes he’d gone somewhere else with his problems. She’s really tired of him making her feel bad. People just can’t help but to tell him the absolute truth. His father never doubted for a minute that Ig murdered Merrin; he had the lab burned down.
Ig decides that maybe he can use his newfound “truth powers” to make the real killer confess. When the reporters get too close, he finds that he can do some pretty good “suggestions” as well. He goes to the bar and demands that anyone who knows anything about Merrin’s murder to speak up. He gets some random confessions and one guy who wants to expose his penis to the world. The bartender rants that he wants out and sets his own place on fire.
We flash back to Ig buying a ring and going out with Merrin to a diner. Lee and Terry wonder if he’s not rushing into things. Merrin, on the other hand, says she’s moving to Los Angeles and they need to break up. She says she might be in love with someone else. They argue and split up just as Terry arrives. The next morning, the police arrest Ig for murdering Merrin.
Ig goes to the diner and talks to Veronica the waitress, who admits lying to the police for attention. He then goes to the club where Terry is performing. Glenna admits she’s always had a crush on Ig, and she only stayed in town because of him.
Terry, however, admits that Merrin left the diner with him, leading to another flashback. Terry and Merrin left the diner, but she got out of the car and left through the woods. He waited in the car until morning, when he found a bloody rock in his car. What did he do? He walked to the treehouse and found the body. Then he threw his bloody shirt and the rock in the river water and didn’t tell anyone.
Terry still denies killing Merrin. The police show up and try to arrest Ig for fleeing the county. In the morning, Lee gets Ig out of jail again. Ig notices that Lee is wearing Merrin’s cross. Lee admits that he was the one Merrin wanted to run off with.
Ig goes to see Dale, Merrin’s father. He doesn’t seem to see the horns either, but he freely admits that he’s still sure that Ig killed her. About this time, snakes start following Ig around. Ig tries to file down or break off the horns, but they’re really tough. He decides to use his new powers to find out the whole story.
Ig returns to the diner and the lying waitress. She gets into her car, but so do a bunch of snakes. The snakes bite her repeatedly. He doesn’t get any new information, but a little revenge doesn’t hurt. He gets rid of the police using his power of suggestion, but with a lot less blood. Ig confronts Terry about not calling the police when he found the body; he never even tried to help Ig with the police. Ig tells him to take all his drugs, and he can’t help himself. Terry hallucinates all kinds of nasty things before he passes out.
Ig calls Lee to meet him at the docks. They argue, and Ig pulls off Merrin’s cross. Now, Lee can see the horns. “I never meant to kill her.” When Ig grabs Lee, he gets a flashback to Lee and Merrin talking about her going away to California. We also see him follow Terry and Merrin in the car and then follow her into the woods. Lee started to kiss her, and she put up a fight. She had never been interested in Lee, but he’s been infatuated with her for years. He then beat her to death with a rock.
In the present, Lee and Ig fight, and Lee gets the upper hand. “Love made devils of us both.” Lee puts Ig in his car and pours gasoline all over him. He then lights it up. Ig, on fire, drives off the dock into the water, and the car promptly sinks.
Ig’s parents, in Terry’s hospital room, watch the police talk about Ig’s apparent suicide after he confessed murdering Merrin to Lee. His lawyer, Lee, was the only witness. However, we soon see Ig walking out of the ocean. His horns are longer, he’s charred, and his skin is now bright red.
Ig stops by Dale’s house and tells him he knows who really killed Merrin. Ig offers Merrin’s cross to her father, but he gives it back. When Ig puts it on, he looks perfectly normal again.
Iggy goes back to the treehouse and finds a letter to him from Merrin, in Morse Code. She explains that she couldn’t marry him not because she didn’t love him but because she had terminal cancer. She didn’t want to put him through that. She only wanted him to hurt enough to break up, but she really wanted the best for him.
Ig goes to see Lee, who doesn’t remember his admission or even the fight from yesterday. Terry is there with a police officer; they know the truth now. Lee grabs the cops gun and kills him. Terry gets shot in the leg. Ig pulls off the cross, wanting his powers back, and he quickly gets them, fire and all. He’s the full-on Devil now. The Devil, by the way, is bullet resistant, which Lee soon learns. Lee still doesn’t stop, stabbing Ig with a pitchfork, which does some damage
Lee looks around, and the snakes are everywhere. They crawl all over him and then… inside him. The Devil, on the other hand, is bleeding out from the pitchfork wound as Terry rushes over to help his brother. Ig dies.
Ig and Merrin are together in paradise now… and forever.
Brian’s Commentary
This was fun. The whole horns, snakes, and truth powers make it seem very much like Ig was guilty all along, but he still swears he didn’t do it. So what was all this for? It just gets weirder and weirder since we don’t actually know what’s going on. Even after the mystery is solved, we don’t get any explanation as to why Ig got those weird powers.
It’s good, but I have a lot of questions at the end, like… Why?
Kevin’s Commentary
This was a unique way to solve a murder mystery. Like Brian said, we don’t find out why Ig grew horns and developed powers. The only choice is to go with it and enjoy the movie. And enjoy it, I did. This was my second viewing, and I liked it even better this time around.
2014 [REC] 4: Apocalypse
Directed by Jaume Balaguero
Written by Jaume Balaguero, Manu Diaz
Stars Manuela Velasco, Paco Manzanedo, Hector Colome
Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a direct sequel to the second movie and even brings in a little bit from the third prequel movie, so the series is tightened up a bit. They move out of the building in the first two movies and all the events take place on a ship in the middle of the ocean, still giving the element of isolation and being trapped. It loses some of the found footage element and switches to more of an action horror film. It’s quite good, a little step down from the first two movies.
Spoilery Synopsis
We hear a news reporter talking about an entire building being closed off due to a mysterious virus as credits roll. There may only be one survivor, a reporter who went in as the outbreak started.
Guzman and Lucas move through the building planting devices as they go upstairs. They only have four minutes to evacuate, but they run into an infected fireman who slows them down. Two of their own men get bitten, and they shoot them. They hear someone upstairs, and it’s Angela. They don’t have much time and lead her outside to safety. Yes, this continues after the second film of the series as Angela, possessed by the demon, gets out.
We cut to Angela in the hospital not long after, and she’s strapped to a table. Dr. Ricarte asks if she remembers anything, and she says she doesn’t. We see that she’s on a ship. Guzman is here as well. There's an old woman there, and she has no idea where she is. Angela breaks out of the infirmary, and the doctor authorizes the men to shoot if necessary. She runs into Guzman, and they both make it up to the deck but then the doctor comes up and says it’s OK, her tests are all clear.
Ricarte explains to Guzman that they are here to investigate the infection, and the boat is the best way to provide isolation. He says there was another outbreak at a wedding near Barcelona (the third film) but they’ve contained that one.
Guzman talks to Captain Ortega, who runs the boat. Goro is the pilot who runs the bridge. The power blinks on and off; the boat is old. The power has been acting funny since the passengers came on board. There’s no communications either; the bosses shut all that down. Nick, the IT man, explains about the video camera they found.
Guzman reconnects with Lucas and the senile lady, the sole survivor from the wedding. Guzman says the scientists are hiding something, why is there so much security?
Nick repairs the camera and starts watching the video that Angela brought in her camera. He watches on the security cameras and tells Guzman that there are a bunch of cages in the lab, along with even more security. Meanwhile, the ship heads into a storm.
Angela comes up to the bridge and is shocked to hear they have her camera. Nick says that in about an hour, he’ll have the whole tape decoded and readable.
Meanwhile, down in the lab, someone reports “The host is gone!” Ricarte orders them to lock everything down and says someone let it out. At the same time, in the galley, a rabid-looking monkey attacks the cook. The monkey dies, but the cook is bitten.
The old woman asks Lucas to talk to the cook; she’d like something special because she’s having trouble eating. The cook attacks Lucas, clearly infected. Up on the bridge, Goro starts feeling ill; he ate what the cook was making. Dr. Ricante says they have an antiviral that he wants to test on the cook.
Guzman Tases the cook as Ricante injects him with the cure. Somehow, it only makes the virus stronger. Nick watches the outbreak spreading on the monitor. Lucas admits that he brought a blood sample from someone in the building, and that’s what they infected the monkey with.
The captain and Nick lock themselves into the bridge while the engineer locks up the engine room. Guzman, Lucas, Angela, and the old woman try to make it to the bridge and end up fighting zombies. The engineer beats a zombie to death, but there’s damage to the ship.
Guzman gets to the bridge and tells the captain to head home, but the engines are broken, so he can’t. He asks if Nick can hack into the scientists’ computers. In the lab, Ricante says they need the original strain in order to have any hope of making a cure. He’s about to set a timer for the self-destruct bomb when they start looking at the apartment footage. They read about the Medeiras girl who started all this and about her possession. They all see the original host infecting Angela with a big parasite/worm. That’s the source of the virus!
Ricante comes to the bridge with armed men; he wants Angela, who doesn’t know what she’s got inside her. They explain the situation to Guzman, who tells them to take Angela. Someone opens the bathroom door and Goro comes out, infected, and attacks the soldiers. Angela uses the opportunity to escape. The captain runs off as well.
Angela grabs an ax and starts smashing the video cameras so Ricante can’t find her. Nick callsher on the radio and says he’ll help her. Then she releases the cook from the freezer, and he wonders which side she’s on.
Lucas and Guzman arm themselves with fishing tools. Angela grabs Ricante and says he’s wrong about her; she’s not infected. She bites him to prove it. He then tests his own blood and it’s clean– neither he nor Angela are infected. Ricarte says the parasite left Angela when it found a better host.
As Angla accuses Guzman of being the host, Ricarte sets the 20-minute self-destruct. Guzman dumps Angela into a hold and then runs off. Lucas and Nick head for the engine room to start the backup engine and fight zombies along the way– with a motorboat engine.
Dr. Ricarte runs into Nick; he’s got an inflatable life raft to get out before the ship explodes. Nick knocks out the doctor and then uses the boat motor to chew up the monkeys who have been harassing Angela. Except Guzman whacks Nick from behind and starts to put the parasite back into her. Nick sheets him before the parasite can make the whole transfer.
Zombies chase Angela and Nick across the deck. They jump overboard and inflate the raft. Nick somehow brought the motor with him, and they drive away from the big ship just as it explodes and sinks. We see the parasite in the water, intact and still alive, go into a fish…
We cut to Nick and Angela in the back of a car. The driver looks back and says, “Some party, eh?”
Brian’s Commentary
Although the third movie didn’t feel like it was connected to the first two, this one included it in the plot, so that makes it a bit more official. This one doesn’t bother with the whole “Found footage” thing like the previous ones did, this is just a regular action movie.
It’s a step down from the other three, but it’s not awful. It’s not bad enough to account for it being the end of the series.
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked it quite a bit. I appreciate that they kept the feeling of isolation and being trapped by moving it to a ship, but it lost something knowing more about what’s going on and why. It’s less scare and tension and more action - and not the found footage method - so it’s different from the first two. It was still pretty good, not as good as the first three. They could easily make more.
1972 Night of the Devils
AKA “La Notte Dei Diavoli”
Directed by Giorgio Ferroni
Written by Eduardo Manzanos, Romano Migliorini, Gianbattista Mussetto
Stars Gianno Garko, Agostina Belli, Roberto Maldera
Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s very similar to “Black Sabbath” from 1963, but it’s not considered a remake. They both draw from the same source story, "The Family of the Vourdalak" story by Alexey Tolstoy. We thought this movie was the better of the two, and it holds up pretty well for entertainment value.
Spoilery Synopsis
After the credits, we open on a man stumbling through the field, obviously wounded. His clothes are all torn, and he soon passes out. He’s taken to the hospital and hooked up to a testing machine. He hallucinates skulls, exploding heads, and naked women getting their hearts torn out.
The man survives, but has total amnesia; he may not even remember how to speak Italian. The tests don’t show anything wrong with him now that he’s rested and recovered. The Inspector comes by, but he has no idea who the man is. The doctor says the man is fine during the daytime, but he gets very agitated in darkness.
A woman comes to the hospital and says she knows the man, whose name is Nicola. He came to town on business, and he seemed perfectly normal when she met him last week. Sdenka smiles when she sees Nicola in the hallway, and he gets terrified and fights the orderlies until they sedate him. Sdenka leaves, but forgets her purse.
Nicola lies in bed and has a flashback. He’s driving his car out in the country and almost runs into a woman. When he gets out of the car to help she’s vanished, but the car’s broken. As he walks down the path, he hears weird howling and cries. Some gravediggers see him walking past the cemetery; there’s a funeral in progress. The body they bury is in a bloody white sheet.
Nicola keeps walking and soon comes to a house. The man from the funeral arrives and says he just buried his brother. He invites Nicola to stay there overnight, and he’ll help with the car tomorrow. Everyone in the house closes and bars all the windows and doors as it’s starting to get dark outside. The old man’s son, Jovan, enters, and he’s surly; he might be able to fix the car when the sun comes up. Sdenka is there as well.
The family hears someone pounding at the door, but the old man says it’s just the wind, but it’s obviously not. Sdenka mentions never having seen a television, which Nicola finds interesting. She shows him to a spare room, and he asks why the windows are barred; she just says not to open them at night under any circumstances.
Jovan and his father argue over who’s fault their current situation is, and the old man says they need to watch out or they’ll all become the walking dead.
Outside, the strange woman that Nicola saw earlier starts digging in that fresh grave. She cuts herself and bleeds into the grave. At the house, Jovan comes onto the dead man’s wife, his aunt. Nicola can hear the whole thing from his room.
In the morning, the men help Nicola with his car, and they walk past the cemetery. The old man decides to go, “I cannot live with this curse any longer.” Jovan says if the old man fails, it’ll destroy the whole family.
The old man wanders into a barn where that silent woman has been hiding. She kills him.
Back at the house, the little girl tells Nicola about the evil witch who lives in the woods; Grandpa went to kill her by piercing her heart with a stick. If Grandpa comes home after six o’clock, he will have become like her, and Jovan will have to kill him. Jovan, on the other hand, warns Nicola to leave as soon as he can… but then the clock strikes six, and the old man comes in, cut up, but apparently alive. “The curse has been broken,” he says. He even brought back the witch’s hand for proof.
Nicola hears someone skulking around near the children’s bedroom, and Sdenka checks it out. Jovan thinks maybe Nicola was drinking a little too much. Sdenka clearly likes Nicola and wishes he wouldn’t be leaving tomorrow morning. A sex scene arrives out of nowhere.
In the morning, the car is fixed, but Jovan learns that little Irinia went off into the woods with Grandpa last night– after dark. Everyone goes out looking for her. Jovan realizes he should have killed the old man after all. Grandpa Gorca returns, and he’s not looking healthy anymore. The little girl is not with him. Jovan tears the old man’s shirt open, and he’s got a big wound. Jovan then impales the man through the heart until his eyes bleed. The old man dissolves as they all look on.
We cut back to Nicola in the hospital, going mad remembering all this.
Jovan explains to Nicola that he had no choice, but Nicola wants to bring in the police. Sdenka begs Nicola to forget the whole thing, but he gets in the car and leaves, driving past little Irina, who walks out of the woods toward the house. Elena hears Irina and runs to her. Irina is clearly dead now too, and she bites Elena on the neck. As Jovan comes looking for them, Elena sits up.
Nicola goes to town, finishes his business, and talks to the man there about the ignorant, hard headed locals he met in the forest. He goes to see the policeman for the area, he was fired for being too superstitious. The man explains that it wasn’t murder, Gorca had become a vourdalak, an undead creature. This sort of thing happens fairly often in this area. He tells Nicola to go and take Sdenka away from that terrible place.
Nicola does go back for Sdenka. He finds the house all messed up with no one home. Sdenka’s door opens, and she says everyone is dead. He wonders why she’s so cold and has blood all over her neck; she wants him to stay with her forever. He sees the others staring in the window at them. Nicola sees that he’s in a very bad position and slowly backs away. The car stalls not very far away, right next to the two little dead children. Yes, the whole family are vampires now.
Everyone fights, and Nicola eventually kills Jovan, Vlaado, and Elena and then drives away, leaving the evil children behind.
In the hospital, we see Sdenka sneaking around and eventually coming into Nicola’s room. She’s still in love with him. He runs into a maintenance room and works to get out of the straightjacket he’s in. He stabs her through the heart and she dies. The orderlies come in and grab Nicola, who swears he’s not a murderer. The doctor turns Sdenka’s body over, and she’s not decomposing like the others– she was alive after all– until Nicola killed her!
Brian’s Commentary
This is clearly based on the same legend as the Vourdulak story from “Black Sabbath” (1963). It’s exactly the same story, but this one is much more fleshed out and detailed. It’s good!
Kevin’s Commentary
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. I think it added to it watching it in Italian with subtitles rather than a dubbed version. It moves well, and wasn’t too long. Thumbs up.
2012 Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes
Directed by Corey Grant
Written by Brian Kelsey, Bryan O’Cain
Stars Drew Rausch, Rich McDonald, Ashley Wood
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
When a documentary crew teams up with a Bigfoot expert, things go south when it seems like they are the ones being hunted. But it’s a little more complicated than that as they try to figure out how to get out of their predicament. It’s on the low budget side, but well made and entertaining overall.
Spoilery Synopsis
Sean Reynolds comes out of the bank with money to finance his new Bigfoot documentary. Darryl Coleman is there to film the whole thing. Robyn will be the producer of the show. Sean is a skeptic, but Robyn believes all the “woo.” Curtis, on the other hand, is their regular sound guy, but he’s reluctant to go out and spend weeks in the woods. Camping in the woods is a “white folks thing,” so he refuses to go. He recommends Kevin go with them instead; Kevin is clueless and smells bad, but he agrees to go.
They’re going to interview a guy in the woods who claims to have a dead Bigfoot body. Sean insists that they film at all times– “Fill those cameras up!” Kevin wakes up and he knows all about the guy with the Bigfoot as he’s become an Internet sensation.
Carl Drybeck’s land is way out in the country, and they get lost on the way there. Drybeck meets them in the woods after they get stuck. “We don’t want to be travelling after dark.” Sean pays him $75,000 to do the show with Drybeck, who insists on collecting their cellphones and making the crew wear black hoods over their heads. Yeah, he’s weird, creepy, and paranoid.
When they reach Drybeck’s camp, Kevin immediately insists that they’re all going to get hacked up by a serial killer. Robyn, however, gets started on her rituals to purify and welcome nature. She senses something large moving in the woods. Drybeck’s assistant LaRoche is there, and he looks suspicious.
Drybeck explains that the wildlife has been getting aggressive at night, and he’s installed an electric fence. As they sit around the campfire, the old man tells them his best Bigfoot story. He tells about running into the 9-foot-tall monster many years ago. They hear branches cracking in the woods, and Drybeck insists they all go inside.
Sean is skeptical, and he asks Drybeck some tough questions. Drybeck has theories as to why no one else has ever produced real proof of Bigfoot’s existence. Drybeck has done his own research about Sean’s trip to a mental hospital.
Suddenly, the lights go out. “They’ve gotten to the generator,” yells Drybeck. They hear something growling outside the house. Everyone smiles and runs outside. They find the fence has been sabotaged with a large log thrown into the power cable. Sean and Darryl go to the van for more batteries, but a tree nearly falls on them, so they return to the cabin. Something outside bangs on the walls and everyone is terrified except Sean, who thinks it’s LaRoche out there. Everyone eventually goes back to their cabin for the night.
Sometime in the morning, Drybeck drives off in his Jeep, leaving everyone in the camp. Sean insists that they can still get plenty of footage without him. They find a bad odor and really large scratches on the outside of the cabin, and Sean uses all this for the tapes. They also find footprints of both Bigfoot and… sneakers.
Robyn finds a Bigfoot nest, and Kevin freaks out and quits on the spot. Sean sets up game cameras on the nest and the footprint area. Everyone argues for a bit about staying; Sean agrees and wants Kevin to walk to the van and bring it to the cabin, while wearing a bodycam.
Night falls, and neither Kevin nor Drybeck have returned. Robyn wants to go outside and do some kind of sage-smudging ritual. Everyone hears something in the woods, and Robyn gets a good scare as something drags her through the woods.
Drybeck is there all of a sudden, and he yells for them all to get back to the cabin. Sean immediately accuses Drybeck of doing all this. LaRoche has been attacked, and Drybeck has been trying all day to get him to a hospital; there’s no way out on the road. There’s more arguing. They get their cellphones back, but no one has reception. Darryl drives Drybeck’s car, but all the roads really are blocked.
In the morning, Drybeck offers to take them to town on the back road, and they can stop where he’s stored the dead sasquatch. He shows them a preserved finger in a jar. Robyn talks to Drybeck alone, and she feels that the sasquatch was trying to protect her from something. “What are they protecting us from?” He makes light of that.
Robyn locks herself in the cabin with LaRoche while the men hike the trail that Drybeck takes them to. LaRoche wakes up long enough to mention that there’s a camera out his car, and she watches a video that Kevin made as he walked to the car. Kevin is brutally killed on camera. She rushes outside and starts the generator that powers the electric fence.
Drybeck explains that the body is hidden in a sea cave and is only accessible at low tide; he’s very paranoid. They get to the box that holds the body, but Drybeck hears something and goes to investigate. Drybeck rushes them out, saying “They’ve broken through!” Darryl sees something huge, but it’s not clear.
Back at the cabin, something pulls LaRoche through the window, and Robyn gets out Darryl’s gun and waits. She runs to the car, but something kills her and drags her away before she can get there.
In the woods on the way back to the cabin, Sean and Darryl watch as Drybeck is impaled way up high in a tree. Sean and Darryl are a lot less skeptical after that. When they get back, all they find of Robyn is the gun. Darryl grabs a shotgun and runs off into the woods, crazy, and when he comes back he shoots himself in the head, not completely effectively.
Sean is alone now. He sees a really bright light outside along with the roaring. “People need to know!” He shouts. He looks out the window and sees Bigfoot, which he describes for the camera. Except the light shining in the windows is awfully bright. He opens the door and shouts, “It’s not a Bigfoot! It’s not a Bigfoot!” and we see something with green eyes get him.
Brian’s Commentary
The trailer for this one wasn’t promising. The budget is fairly low, but otherwise, it’s really well done. It could be a hoax or maybe not all the way up to the last few minutes, and even then, we’re left wondering what the full story was. And no, we never do get a good look at the creatures.
It’s pretty good!
Kevin’s Commentary
I appreciated that they added another layer of depth to it by not just having Bigfoot be real. Which is the problem with cryptids and aliens and so forth. If one was really real, any or all of them could be. They made a lot out of what they had to work with, and it’s pretty entertaining. I enjoyed it.
2012 Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith
Stars Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, Dominic Cooper
Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s pretty cool how they work real people and real history events into a vampire story. At least loosely based on the real thing. This is full of action, and violations of the laws of physics, and was pretty entertaining even on our second viewing.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s April 14, 1865. Abraham Lincoln, President, writes in his journal about his struggle with darkness. He leaves his entire written record of his life to his friend, Henry…
We flashback to Abe’s childhood as his black friend, Will, is abused by his owner. His whole family is against slavery, and his father gets fired because of it. The boss, Mr. Barts, is creepy.
Abe watches as Mr. Barts comes into their cabin one night, and the next day, his mother gets ill from a strange disease of the blood. She soon dies.
Nine years later, Abe still wants revenge. Abe listens as Mr. Barts talks to Adam, one of his associates, who says they “have a lot of mouths to feed.” Abe shoots Barts, but his gun jams. The second shot works just fine– except Barts isn’t human! Barts, now with huge fangs, attacks Abe, but runs off when Henry grabs him from behind.
In the morning, Henry explains that he’s a vampire hunter, and he wants to recruit Abe as one as well. They have a whole conversation about vampires being real. Abe’s weapon of choice is an ax. He teaches him that real power comes from truth not from hate. He also explains all the rules of fighting vampires. Abe practices heavily with his ax as he learns the ways of the vampire hunters.
Abe learns that vamps hate silver and mirrors. Sunlight isn’t a big deal, they can be out during the day. He learns about Vadoma and Adam, who made all the vampires. Also, most of the South is run by vampires, and they need to keep the monsters at bay. In 1837, Abe goes to Springfield to do his job. He gets a job with Joshua Speed, a storeowner and meets Mary Todd, whom he immediately likes.
It doesn’t take long before Abe encounters his first vampire, who gets the drop on Abe. Abe gets captured and tied up, but uses his ninjalike powers to kill the monster and bury it in the woods.
Joshua and Abe get invited to a ball, and Mary is there as well. She says she’s been waiting for someone with an adventurous life.
Abe soon learns that vampires are just about everywhere, so he keeps really busy. He tells Mary about his night job, and she laughs at his joke. They get really close, but Abe always remembers Henry’s warning not to have friends or ties to people.
Down South, in a big plantation, Adam and Vadoma read the news about six headless bodies being found. It must be one of Henry’s disciples.
Abe gets reacquainted with Will, who has been freeing slaves and got into trouble with the law. They quickly both wind up in jail, but Mary gets her father to help. Afterward, Abe starts giving speeches and working on being a lawyer– and maybe even politics.
Henry warns that Barts knows about Mary, and he’s likely to hurt her to get back at Abe. As they battle, Bart literally swings a horse around to his Abe. In an epic battle in a herd of wild horses, the two men demonstrate their abilities. Abe shows that his ax has more than one way to kill, and he makes Bart pay for what happened to his mother.
It’s all going well until Abe learns that Henry, too, is a vampire. He gets a flashback to Henry’s origin story. He ran into Adam and his crew alone on the road and Adam himself beat Henry and turned him. Henry learned right away that it was simply impossible to kill his own kind; “only the living can kill the dead.” Abe leaves Henry alone on the street, not killing him.
Abe and Mary get married. Will, Henry, Joshua, and everyone is there. Elsewhere, Adam sees Barts’s body and wants Abe’s head. They kidnap Will and insist that Abe meet them. On the way to New Orleans, he lets Joshua in on the whole vampire thing.
In New Orleans, they notice that there aren’t any slaves. Where are they? They soon learn; black folks make good eating for vamps. Abe goes in alone to save Will, and the place is crawling with vampires. He kills a bunch of them until Adam and Vadoma get the best of him. Adam explains just how old he really is. Adam actually wants to turn Abe against Henry.
It’s all looking very grim until Joshua drives in on a horse drawn carriage and breaks everyone free. Abe, Joshua, and Will make their way to the Underground Railroad, where they eventually get back up North.
Abe debates Senator Douglas, who is pro-slavery. Henry says freeing the slaves would be bad, since the slaves are all that keep the vampires at bay. Abe decided to go into politics to work on the larger issues, eventually becoming President of the United States.
Civil War breaks out, and Abe frees the slaves. Vadoma sneaks into the White House and talks to Willie, Abe’s young son. Soon after, Willie has a blood disease that Abe is very familiar with. He dies, but Mary wants Henry to bring him back from the dead. She knows all about Abe’s history against the undead.
Meanwhile, in the South, Adam pledges vampiric support to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. Vampires are more or less unstoppable on the Gettysburg battlefield.
Abe sets up a “silver drive” to make enough silver bullets for the army. He also opens up his case and retrieves his dusty silver ax. He, Will, and Joshua board the arms train and wait to defend it. Henry shows up to warn them that Joshua has betrayed them all; the vampires are on the train.
Will is attacked and kills several vampires with silver bullets, but there are plenty more on the roof. Will and Abe work together to kill vamps. Finally, Adam himself gets into the fight, and he’s way tougher than the others. He bites Abe until Henry gets involved.
Meanwhile, Vadoma sets the bridge on fire ahead of the train. Adam looks for the silver on the train, and there isn’t any. The whole train is a trap; Joshua didn’t betray them at all.
The train goes over the bridge, and it all gets a bit ridiculous. Just a little. Until Adam dies and Henry saves Abe and Will from certain death. Will explains that the silver actually all came to the front on the Underground Railroad…
Mary spots Vadoma in the soldier’s camp and shoots her with little dead Willie’s silver toy. The soldiers use the silver to defeat the vampire army.
We cut to some time later, when Abe gives a speech; the war is over. The vampires have all fled America. Henry suggests how much Abe could do with limitless time, but has to leave for the theater and hands his book over to Henry. “Vampires aren’t the only things that live forever,” Abe tells Henry.
We cut to the present, where Henry is still recruiting vampire hunters in the modern day…
Brian’s Commentary
The whole concept is a joke, but the movie is mostly played seriously– except for the over-the-top superhero antics of Abe. The vampires, with their huge CGI fangs, look fairly cool. The very juicy slow-motion battles are a lot of fun too, but aren’t even remotely believable.
This is more of a superhero film than a horror movie, but it’s still fun!
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s heavy on action and makes Abe Lincoln seem superhuman. So heavy on action that it overshadows the horror, but it was pretty entertaining. This was my second viewing, and I still enjoyed it.
Short Films:
2008 Short Film: Next Floor
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Written by Jacques Davidts, Phoebe Greenberg
Stars Simone Chevalot, Luc-Martial Dagenais, Kennether Fernandez
Run Time: 11 Minutes
Watch it:
What Happens
A group of people gather for dinner. As the servers present the food, we see that this is the gourmet version of everything, even some really strange animals. The various people seated around the table get more and more excited, eating faster and faster.
Where will this gluttony end? To what depths will they go for their appetites?
Commentary
Other than the head waiter, no one speaks in this. You just have to watch to see where it leads, just like the waiter.
This was an early film by now-superstar Denis Villeneuve, and it was clear even then that he was very talented. It’s well shot, well paced, looks great, and it’s weird enough you’re always left wondering.
2018 Short Film: The Cost of Living
Directed by Tom Nicoll
Written by Zach Newby, Tom Nicoll
Stars Lorna Nickson Brown, Jonathan Coote, Liam Harkins
Run Time: 4:27
Watch it:
What Happens
Tess closes the door on Graham, the landlord’s face. They can’t afford the place since her boyfriend lost his job. He points out that at least Graham hasn’t raised their rent, so he’s not such a bad guy. Graham, however, waits outside for Tess to leave the apartment. Maybe he’s not such a good guy…
Commentary
Oh. I did not see that coming– but I guess Tess did!
How far would you go to pay the rent?
It’s short, it’s very clear what’s going on, and it’s all very well done. I liked it!
2023 Short Film: Pablo, Honey
Directed by Jamie Yuan
Written by Jamie Yuan
Stars Charles Craddock, Christopher Dunne, Lindsay Santoro
Run Time: 10:38
Watch it:
What Happens
Emma talks about how lonely she had been getting before she finally met her new boyfriend, Pablo. Her life is much better now, thanks to him. She’s out of work and running low on funds, so she needs to get a roommate, which displeases Pablo, who wants Emma all to himself. There’s an additional problem since Pablo isn’t human…
Commentary
It’s very well-filmed. The stuff in Emma’s apartment flies around with perfectly comic timing, and I laughed a few times. I saw the ending gag coming a mile away, but the presentation was still hilarious. Definitely worth a watch!
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