Driving late one night, a young couple are flagged down by an older couple who seem to need some roadside assistance. Sadly this act of kindness turns out to be a mistake when the older guy, Dennis turns out to be an escaped criminal and the young lovers are forced at gunpoint to help he and his girlfriend Lacey, flee ‘the law’.

But it’s while they’re stopped at a gas station that things get weird and horrible, as Lacey is approached by someone who appears to be the victim of a strange virus that has made their skin look all dark and smushy.
The affliction also forces the body to contort and look very freaky, causing some hysteria.
Dennis’ girlfriend is the first to be attacked by this ‘thing’ that has twisty arms, flailing legs and black bristles spouting from patches of decaying skin.
Soon she too is looking worse for wear, flopping around like a human slinky.

Trapped inside the gas station, the three survivors must overcome their differences to find an escape route and avoid a sticky, stretchy end.

Paulo Costanzo does well to take adopt the lead in this horror role, moving from his past comedic appearances in Road Trip and the Friends following flop sit-com Joey. Beyond the first 10 minutes, the tension is unrelenting and the mutating infection which is reminiscent of the paracite in John Carpenter’s The Thing is enough to put any horror fan off their tea.
The performances are good all round, with each of the cast conveying ‘edginess’ with natural ease. Shea Whigham’s man on the run (Dennis) epitomises ‘rogue’, meaning you can never be sure whose side he’s really on.

The gas station is an isolated and claustrophibic place (similar to that in The Mist), and the relationship between our main characters is well guaged and realistically hostile. Can the young couple trust their one time kidnapper? And can he trust that they won’t put a knife in his back at the first opportunity?

A major strength of Splinter is the unexpectedness of it all. It’s a highly unlikely and unexplained set of circumstances, but the character dynamics and terrifying threat help the viewer to overcome all that.

It’s hard to tell where you’d rather be. Outside with the weird twisty, infections monster, or inside with the angry red-neck who may have the infection anyway.

And the viewer remains in this area of uncertaintly for much of the film which is unnerving and refreshing, particularly from a film that didn’t get nearly enough spotlight given some of its qualities.
The special effects are nasty, the cast solid and Splinter is a prime example of Indie horror done well, and it’s sure to leave a lasting impression on those who watch it.

It really will ‘get under your skin’, just like the strapline says.

Movie Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Trailer:

The plot here is simple. On the way out of LAX a small passenger jet is forced to return following one of the travelers becoming violently ill, projectile vomiting all over the place.
As the plane begins its descent, the sick man takes an extremely funny turn, frothing at the mouth and going after the cabin crew as if they are a tasty ploughman’s lunch. After restraining this rather large and now insatiably hungry character and landing the plane, the remaining travelers must look for help. But they find the airport deserted and all exits locked. They have been quarantined!

Quarantine 2: Terminal begins a different direction for what appears to be an attempt to start a franchise. Quarantine was a shot-for-shot remake of the Spanish horror REC and is told via hand held ‘found’ footage. This installment bears no resemblance to this presentation style opting for a more traditional camera set up. It also bears no relation to REC 2.

A nice feature of this sequel is how it neatly ties in with the first Quarantine film. The events of that film are occurring as the events of this scenario are played out. We see news reports of the outbreak in the L.A. apartment block and those passengers who haven’t made the connection soon figure things out as their plague crazed fellow travellers launch themselves at them, all blood and froth.

The actors all perform admirably and surprisingly for a horror film, have their heads screwed on. The last thing you need when you’re trapped in a building is to be surrounded by fat headed idiots with not one iota of common sense between them. Fortunately the characters here are not complete dunderheads. Sure, one or two of them could do with an IQ injection, but most of the cast don’t go wandering off on their own, succumbing to a gruesome death that could have otherwise been easily avoided.
It is refreshing to sit through a film like this without clenching my fists, gnashing my teeth or rolling my eyes at the stupidity of victims who simply must rescue snuffles the cat from the dark crevice he’s just gamboled off into. While the cast portray realistic reactions to the unraveling crisis, we do have to put up with a Justin Beiber look-a-like. You just can’t win them all.

Quarantine 2: Terminal can be a little heavy handed. It begins by throwing about a whole host of possible culprits of the impending viral crisis. I found this a little unnecessary as we all know what’s about to happen. I don’t really care whether it’s caused by a man with a cold, a cat, some gerbils or a chap with a nasty case of the clap (unsubstantiated).
Fortunately all is made a little clearer towards the end, but when the whole picture is revealed it lacks any real impact and falls a little flat. It’s an interesting angle and it’s disappointing it didn’t get the more thorough exploration it deserved.

This sequel is sadly a case of same thing, different location.
There are two main problems here. Being a sequel of a remake it lacks any real impact. REC was an effective and claustrophobic experience packed with tension. The remake looked to replicate this feeling. With Quarantine 2: Terminal you know what to expect and sadly nothing new is brought to the table. New story elements are introduced, but as mentioned earlier, this seems too much of an afterthought and is not explored effectively.
My other complaint is the setting. The film starts in an airplane and then moves to the warehouse loading bay of the airport. You just can’t do all that much with an airplane, and a small one at that, as a setting, hence the decision to move the action elsewhere. But arguably the loading bay is worse. It’s too expansive and well lit (despite the obvious power cut). It just lacks the tension and closeness of the REC films.

I was also a little annoyed by the re-introduction of night-vision harking back to the source material. It’s almost as if the guys behind the film felt obliged to include it. It serves no purpose here. Just eat carrots.

The end of the film hints at more to come and there are seeds of potential that could be developed further.
It’s clear that anyone thinking of continuing the franchise needs to put a great deal of thought into it as there is a danger that this could just turn into a sequence of generic and lifeless (smirk) zombie outbreak movies.

Movie Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Trailer:

Now before your mouse leaps to close this page at the mere mention of the man behind such monstrosities as House of the Dead, BloodRayne and a myriad of other video game adaptations and ‘straight to DVD’ bargain bin bodge-jobs, remember its only ‘produced’ by Uwe Boll. And apart from fronting the money and perhaps sending a memo to the directors which said “make sure to have lots of gun fights, gore and Nazi’s” evidence of his involvement seems thankfully invisible.

As mentioned Eaters: Rise Of The Dead, to give it its full title, ambitiously tries to mix up blood and gore with a proper plot, and some real characterisation – a set of words Uwe Boll seems to lack in his very limited cinematic vocabulary.

As we discover in the excellently executed news footage opening, The Great Epidemic has devastated the globe turning its population into flesh eating undead monsters all because of a virus let lose by an anonymous and insane terrorist called the Plague Spreader.

As the world descends into chaos it is left to the lone survivors to try and carry on forming tight groups in order to survive. One such group contains two comrades in arms Igor (Alex Lucchesi) and Alen (Guglielmo Favilla), who spend their days hunting zombies which they bring back to be experimented on by a scientist named Gyno (Claudio Marmugi), who believes that he can find the cure to control the outbreak.

Roaming the land in search of unfresh meat for Gyno, Igor and Alen drink beer, kill zombies and philosophise while encountering a range of unhinged characters, such as an insane artist who paints zombie still lifes and a gang of neo-Nazis led by a dwarf Fuhrer.

Unbenounced to the pair however, the real danger is much closer to home as Gyno has his own agenda and plans for the virus, which involve Alan’s girlfriend and a disturbing vision of the future made in his own undead image.

Harking back to the early days and the Godfather of the genre, George A. Romero, Eaters intelligently starts off by building the atmosphere and the characters so that we feel something for them and the world they inhabit. Affecting women first the zombie plague has left the male characters alone in a world driven by testosterone and tension, where they are forced to get along with people they do not trust or like.

Igor and Alen are an excellent double act brought to life by the script and the actors who give them a real feel in such an unreal situation. Equally at home providing a much-needed element of dark humour as they are delivering gun-blasting action, much of the movie is spent with them and their musings on the world as it is and was are entertaining and believable.

Sadly for the movie what is unbelievable is the overall storyline, which follows an all too convenient arc linking all the characters and events far too simply over a ridiculously small geographic area – tying up all the lose ends and losing the audience in a suspension of disbelief that is several steps too far.

Made on a low budget, the special effects are reasonably well realised and the undead make-up suitably gross and grim.
As first time directors Luca Boni and Marco Ristori do a solid job, and if anything their failing is an attempt to take on too much.
In contrast to the story which is resolved too easily and completely the cornucopia of themes, which includes fascism, religion, philosophy, and the future of mankind overflows leaving no one area truly covered.

'The KFC bargain bucket just got better and better', Fred thought.

Overall Eaters: Rise Of The Dead is an ambitious project with two solid central performances and packed with ideas which succeeds in some areas and fails in others, perhaps due to the directors over enthusiasm and inexperience.

Don’t be put of by Boll’s name on the box if you like zombie movies. This is well worth a try.

Movie Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Trailer:

Eaters: Rise Of The Dead

Cannibal Apocalypse stars John Saxon (of Nightmare on Elm Street and Enter The Dragon fame) as Vietnam vet Norman Hopper, returned home from the war, struggling with the horror of all that he has seen – including the time saw two G.I.s eating some woman, which is bound to stick in your mind.
Anyway, back in the good old USofA, everyone has some therapy and Hopper goes home to be with his lovely wife and stare at some meat. From here it doesn’t take long before the cannibals are on the loose, biting and infecting others with their rabies-like disease.

The outcasts are hunted down and killed, frequently displaying their insides on the outside, just for us. That these voracious veterans don’t turn into mindless zombies is a good idea; that they turn other members of society into bloodthirsty bizarros, is also kind of interesting: the brutality of the Vietnam war shown at the film’s opening leads us easily to believe that this level of violence is not something to be discarded simply because the boys have come back home.
That the bloodlust spreads to different parts of society is a nice comment on the uncontainability of violence. These are all good ideas.

Unfortunately though, everyone in the film but John Saxon  – who can really fly the hell out of a radio controlled plane – has had to be overdubbed. Oh, and the music is weird – funky keyboards? Really? And it might be worth mentioning that the action is occasional at best, the plot doesn’t quite make sense, and one of the G.I.’s is called Charles Bukowski! Yeah, like Charles Bukowski! What’s up with that?

There are lots of good ideas in here, but no-one knows what to do with them. Obviously, that was the ‘computer’ part of my analogy. And then there’s ebay. Suffice it to say that twelve years before the release of Cannibal Apocalypse, George Romero made Night of the Living Dead, and while it’s a very different film it does cover a lot of the same ground, and it does so with so much more style that it’s a little bit embarrassing.

Cannibal Apocalypse is not a bad idea, and it’s certainly worth a watch if you fancy something a bit different from what has become the standard zombie flesh-eating fare, but it’s not going to set your world on fire.
So I’m sorry John Saxon – someone beat you to it.

Movie Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Trailer:

Cannibal Apocalypse

At over 2 hours long Pandemic combines a disaster movie, love story and psychological thriller.
It’s particularly moving to see Tokyo deserted and empty during the film (in light of recent events) and the horror witnessed is intensely psychological.
How would anyone cope with being told they could not leave town when confronted with the prospect of dying from a virus that is decimating the local population?
It’s also uncomfortable to watch the convicing performances as the pain seems etched accross the characters’ faces when they are witnessing their loved ones slowly dying from the virus. There are some truly strong performances from the cast and the director appears to have done his medical homework as demonstrated when describing in depth the virus and possible vaccines.
The plot is not unbelievable and could happen to any country in the modern world. That’s probably the key aspect of the film which makes it really frightening.

With so many disasters taking place in the world at the moment, this is a harsh reminder of what can happen when someone travels from one country to another, knowing full well that they have a disease. In a society where illness is prevalent in many forms both physically and mentally, it’s still quite terrifying to think that we still don’t have cures for most fatal illnesses.
The stark reality of Pandemic is that any country under threat of an airborne virus would have trouble coping with the impact both on it’s citizens and its state infrastructure. And of course, the worst case scenario being that the virus could spread worldwide and kill most, if not all of us.

Overall Pandemic is fast paced, tense and most strikingly, makes you think about your own mortality.
At over 2 hours long and with subtitles it did eventually begin to wane a little. As the film began to lose momentum half way through, I found it hard to maintain my interest.
Thankfully though the pace does return and there are some decidely good twists in the tale as it progresses.

Pandemic is ideal to watch if you have a viewing partner who does not share your interest in pure horror. As it’s not violent in any way, it provides a good compromise – fear, withough being too extreme.

Movie Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Trailer: