First I´d like to thank James Eaves for providing me with a DVD-screener.
3 interlocking stories from the dark days of World War 2. A soldier on a suicide mission. A supernatural investigator on her most dangerous assignment yet. A troubled family with a monster in their bomb shelter. Battlefield Death Tales is written and directed by James Eaves, Pat Higgins and Alan Ronald. The first story is Medal Of Horror and is written and directed by James Eaves. The acting is pretty bad. The camerawork and editing is decent but the battlescene is just silly, frankly it looks like shit... If you´re gonna try to pull something like that off you need to be aware of your limitations even if you are ambitious. I know several independent flicks that has managed to create quite good world war 2 scenes (often with the help of willing reenactors). The weird and eccentric fightscene (small spoiler) between the german and the japanese zombie is ridiculous, overlong and actually made me think of pressing the fastforward button on my blu-ray player. Some cool ideas but a big disappointment as it´s overlong and incoherent.
The second story, Harriet's War is written and directed by Alan Ronald. The acting is pretty bad with one or two exceptions one of which is Lara Lemon as paranormal investigator Harriet Price. The camerawork and editing is pretty decent. There´s no creepiness init but what works in the second story is the concept and the steampunk gadgets which are pretty nice.
The third story, Devils of the Blitz, is written and directed by Pat Higgins. Yet again the acting is pretty bad. The camerawork and editing is decent and the scenes supposedly taking place in the warzone are really bad and cheaply made. The story is confusing but there are some nice ideas to found in it. Battlefield Death Tales is a big letdown in the gore department as there´s only brief gore and it looks very cheaply made. The monster make-up fx design in the third and final story, Devils of the Blitz, is.. well let me put it this way. I think that they bought a rubber puppet monster and it looks like mediocre to say the least.. In the T & A department there isn´t much to report...
Battlefield Death Tales is also known as Nazi Zombie Death Tales but in my opinion that the title is missleading, this isn´t zombie flick but this is the distributors fault no blame should be placed on the filmmakers..
This review is based upon a DVD-screener supplied by James Eaves.
Rating: 1 out of 7. After Bordello Death Tales of the same directors I had some expectations that the filmmakers would have improved craftmanship between the two movies but while Bordello Death Tales actually had two short stories that were pretty good this anthology only has one and that´s Harriet's War which is the best of the three stories.
/JL
First I´d like to thank Midnight releasing for providing me with a screener.
A film crew follows the story of a young girl from the Midwest who went to Hollywood with aspirations of becoming a successful actress. When she failed to find work, she arrives in Austin purportedly to star in what she believes is a soft-porn film. However, after discovering the contents of the screenplay, the film crew comes to realize that this is no ordinary film and in fact, it could lead to horrific consequences for this naive young girl. Slaughter Creek is written by Michael Z. Gordon and is directed by Brian Skiba and Liam Owen. The acting is good, there is one or two exceptions, and I´d like to give special praise to Marissa Joy Davis who is very good as the innocent and naive Alyssa. The camerawork and editing is pretty good, large parts of the flick is shot point of view so there is a large portion of shaky cam. The editing is sometimes a bit confusing. The audio was pretty bad in a few scenes which lead me to turn the volume up to maximum. The soundtrack is excellent and helps to set the mood, I actually felt quesy during a couple of scenes (no gore, no sleaze but it just felt unsettling). There is some very brief gore. There is some T & A which appears during some girl on girl action, considering the topic the lack of T & A is quite a letdown.
Slaughter Creek will be released 11/20/2012 by Midnight Releasing on region all (Region 0) DVD.
This review is based upon a passwordprotected online screener provided by Midnight Releasing.
Rating: 6 out of 7. I enjoyed this, it´s well made (if you can stand shaky cam) and has a interesting plot. I hope to see more of Marissa Joy Davis in the future, she was great in this.
/JL
First I´d like t thank Ryan Nicholson for providing me with a screener.
Two years after a high-school prank involving flesh-eating acid nearly kills popular teacher Mr. Balszack, the graduating class of Sloppy Secondary holds a ’24-Hour Famine’ charity event on school grounds. But there’s an uninvited guest at this event, masquerading as the school’s handyman mascot, and he’s got an insatiable hunger of his own. The power’s cut, the doors and windows are chained shut, and now it’s not just cheerleaders who are getting nailed! Has Mr. Balszack come back for revenge? Is his sad tale just a cover for a brand-new psycho? Can the Nailer be stopped before the whole Class of 2011 goes six feet under? Famine is written by Jeff O´Brien, Taylor Nicholson and Ryan Nichlson who also is the director. The acting is decent, it´s professionally shot and edited and in my opinion this has the best cinematography so far when compared to Ryan Nicholson earlier movies. The soundtrack is good but the use of Heavy Metal is a matter of taste, but I think it is used to a good effect to accentuate the killers rage in the killscenes, let´s just say we´re talking "overkill". There is plenty of intentional bad taste comedy in Famine, it might no appeal to everyone but I like it. Now I know that many are wondering if it´s a gorefeast. Yes it´s very gory and graphic and it´s all practical fx. And as I mentioned we are talking overkill here... it gets really messy. I love it!
In the T & A department Famine is actually surprisingly restrained compared to the previous Ryan Nicholson/Plotdigger Films as there is only some brief topless nudity. But similar to Ryan´s earlier movies many of the women have skimpy outfits and are real cock teasers..
This review is based on a online screener provided by Ryan Nicholson
Rating: 7 out of 7. My first thought as I started the VLC player was "bring it on" and I´m very pleased to say that we are in familiar Ryan Nicholson/Plotdigger Films territory. I enjoyed this a lot! It´s good, gory fun.
/JL
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