European Horror Movies

The Brides of Dracula (1960) Review

December 17, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Synopsis: Vampire hunter Van Helsing returns to Transylvania to destroy handsome bloodsucker Baron Meinster, who has designs on beautiful young schoolteacher Marianne.

My Quick Review: The Brides of Dracula is the second in the series of Dracula films produced by Hammer from the late 50s to the early 70s. It’s also the only one not to have Dracula appear in the movie (the title is really misleading).

Like most of the Hammer productions, Brides of Dracula makes the best use of colors and lightning and the sets are impressive. The acting is superb in this one as well, even if Christopher Lee’s presence is still greatly missed.

The story is quite unoriginal though and,despite a short running time, the pace towards the more exiting end of the movie is frankly too slow.

It’s always hard to watch those classic horror movies back nowadays. We have been spoiled by so many great entries in the genre that, compared to a 60’s audience, it’s difficult not to wish for more to happen.

With that being said, contemporary filmmakers could take a lesson or two in set designs and overall direction. Unfortunately I can only recommend Brides of Dracula to fans of old school hammer productions.

My Rating: 6/10

Director: Terence Fisher

Origin: UK

Click Here to Get The Brides of Dracula on Blu-Ray

Naprata (2013) Review

December 1, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Synopsis: Inspired by an infamous online video clip of a son beating his mother, a television crew from Belgrade comes to a remote Serbian village to shoot a report on violence against women. Inquiring with the locals about the protagonists of the video, they encounter a local expert on supernatural phenomena and learn about a ritual of summoning an ancient demon, naprata. Wanting to capture the first authentic footage of something otherworldly, they change their plans. Excited by the prospective success of the recording, they defy the old saying that “it’s better to believe than to be convinced.”

Quick Review: Naprata is being coined as the first “Serbian Found Footage Movie” and, being a fan of found footage myself, I could not wait to see what was in store for me.

65mn later, all I can say is that this movie won’t be the “A serbian Film” of the found footage genre.

Let’s start with the good: Performance by everybody involved was convincing and felt legit for a fake documentary style movie. According to IMDb, all the dialog was improvised so kudos for the reality factor.

The folklore behind the story was also very interesting and could have lead to a much better story if we hadn’t wasted an expository painful 40mn prior to get to the meat of the story.

Yeh, you guessed it, like many other found footage efforts, Naprata takes way too long to go anywhere remotely scary or creepy. Quite nothing on screen will hold your interest until the end and only the last 10mn or so are remotely interesting.

So, while I applaud the intentions behind the movie and the genuine aspect of it, I can’t go behind the lack of actual scares or visual horrors on screen.

My Rating: 4/10

Director: Mladen Milosavljevic

Origin: Serbia

Grabbers (2012) Review

November 18, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Synopsis: When an island off the coast of Ireland is invaded by bloodsucking aliens, the heroes discover that getting drunk is the only way to survive.

Quick Review: The british have become masters of horror comedy in recent years, especially since the success of Shawn of The Dead. Grabbers the most recent entry in the genre.

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the quite serious tone taken by the events and, especially in the first half, there is a very good balance between genuine scares and humor. It’s a pity that once everybody starts drinking and a romance is developing between our two main characters, the plot is losing steam.

As a result, Grabbers never quite manages to elevate its promising material to more than b-movie type fare. What could have been another horror comedy classic is barely able to keep your interest level high enough, unless your alcohol level is closed to the one of its own heroes.

My Rating: 5/10

Director: Jon Wright

Origin: UK

Click Here to Watch Grabbers Online Now!

Dog Soldiers (2002) Review

November 2, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Synopsis: A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

Quick Review: Ever since I watched The Descent, I’ve always wanted to catch up on Dog Soldiers, Neil Marshall’s first effort. Now that I’ve seen it I’m kicking myself for not having watched it earlier.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Dog Soldiers is one of the best werewolf movie of all time, period. Maybe only second to “An american Werewolf in London”.

Right from the start there is a sense of urgency and hopelessness that grips you until the very end. Director Neil Marshall succeeds to keep our attention on a tight budget with only 2 main location throughout the movie. It starts as a military movie, with a great cast of characters by the way, and turns into “Night of the Living Werewolf” with our heroes locked into a house trying to protect themselves from their assaillants.

I loved everything about Dog Soldiers: the dialog sounds real (some local slang might be difficult to catch if you’re not used to it) and is, at times, hilarious, each actor does a good job at making us empathize with them, the editing is great and the script, while quite straight forward, is tight enough with no time wasted om overstretched scenes.

When watching Dog Soldiers, I understood better why The Descent was such a blast of a movie. Neil Marshall is, in my book, one of the best action-horror director working right now and he proved it again with Doomsday and the episodes he directed for Game of Thrones. Now I need to catch up with his last movie, Centurion.

My Rating: 7.5/10

Director: Neil Marshall

Origin: UK

Click Here to Watch Dog Soldiers Online Now!

High Tension (2003) Review

October 31, 2013 by Eric S. 2 Comments

Original Title: Haute Tension

Synopsis: Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on vacation at Alexa’s parents’ country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.

Quick Review: It’s interesting how the perception you had of a movie can change over the years. I first watched High Tension about 10 years ago and fell in love with it. It was a raw, brutal, unforgiving ride that started the new wave of french horror cinema that would bring us so many classics (Inside, Martyrs, Frontieres..).

Watching the movie again today, I had a much harder time appreciating it and could only focus on the negative aspects of it.

HUGE SPOILER WARNING!!! (stop here if you haven’t watched High Tension yet)

Now that I know the twist, I tried to check if there was any warning signs or clues throughout the movie that could have warned us. Except for one of the first line of Marie when she said she had a dream and she was chased by a killer, and the killer was her, there is nothing to make us think she might be the killer. And I’m fine with that. What’s not working though is that there are so many plot holes in that case, that the whole movie does not make any sense (where is the truck coming from, why are some of the victims reacting the way they do, what is in Marie’s imagination, what is not).

In retrospect it really does feel that Alexandra Aja and Gregory Levasseur only used the twist as a way to shock the audience, but there is not enough logic and ties-in with the rest of the movie to justify it. High Tension would have been the better movie if they had kept things straight with a classic villain (who, by the way is greatly played by the always awesome Philippe Nahon). On a side note, most of the movie follows the same plot than Dean koontz’s book, Intensity. A great read by the way.

END OF SPOILER

In 2013, the movie also suffers from 10 years of torture porn and a myriad of gory slashers that make it much less impactful than it was back in 2003.

So what’s left? High Tension is still very efficient and brilliantly directed. The score and music choices are spot on and contribute to make High Tension an entertaining piece of horror cinema. Not the classic I once thought it would be, but still a must-watch in my book, if only to see the birth of Alexandra Aja as one of the new master of horror.

Rating: 8.5 (first viewing in 2003), 6.5/10 (second viewing)

Director: Alexandre Aja

Origin: France

Click Here to Own High Tension on Blu Ray Now!