Review: Leprechaun 4 In Space (1997)

Stars: Warwick Davis, Jessica Collins

Budget: $1.6m


Directed by: Brian Trenchard-Smith

It's that thing a lot of horror films eventually do at some point in their franchise, they head into OUTER-SPACE. A lot of them have done it, either before or after this, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser have all ended up within the futuristic setting of space.

Since almost none of these movie are sequels or even follow on from each other, maybe in da hood and back to tha hood can be ever so slightly but up to and including this offering they are just different stories including leprechauns who look mysteriously alike!

The Leprechaun in this offering is already healthily out and about being a little menace to the surrounding populace of a quadrant of space. He's arranged for himself to marry a princess he's kidnapped called Zarna, though they are both plotting to off one another once the deed is done. The Princess is just a greedy woman who is after the wee man's money, where as the leprechaun is after power or some such. However some marines come to his planet as he's been a menace to surrounding mining operations. They do appear to kill him and injure the princess in the process, except through his magic the leprechaun manages to infect one of the marines through his genitals.

Yes you heard that right, the wee man magically turns himself into some kind of STD in order to come back to life. The leader of the rag tag marines is some crazy scientist who has little in the way of a body left anymore. When he realises the princess has some regenerative properties who goes about using her DNA to help him make a new body.
The marine infected with the leprechaun's STD however is about to have a bad day when the magical guy emerges from his penis when he's about to do the fandango. One by one the marines are now hunted and killed in amusing ways just like any other leprechaun film.

This one has some great stuff in it though when the small guy discovers that the scientist is playing Zarina's DNA he mixes in some scorpion and spider DNA into the mix and uses on Mittenhand transforming him into a hideous arachnid cross human. Now calling himself Mittenspider, the main hero marine sticks goes to try and stop the ships self destruct sequence that has been set off. He is however caught and webbed up by the Mittenspider.
Fighting the leprechaun they accidentally turn him massive using a growth ray, yes the irony of a 20 something foot tall magical wee man isn't lost on THN. Now theres a still a sizable chunk left of the film but to tell you more would spoil to much I believe.
This is indeed worth watching too, especially if you like parodies of sci-fi things and are a true franchise lover like me you'll want to see all of the leprechaun films, well up to this one at the least because from here 'in da hood' is a massive step down. So THN awards leprechaun in space with a decent 3 out of 5 stars and a recommend to watch if you like the series.

Review: Body Bags (1993)

Cast: Mark Hamill, Stacey Keach, Twiggy

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: John Carpenter & Tobe Hooper

I love anthology stories, always have, always will (though they are few and far between these days)
This offering from horror veterans Carpenters and Hooper is a great addition to anyone's anthology collection.

Featuring all the usual things from both directors including musical scores etc from Carpenter, as well as nods to their other works, which i'll get too.
This particular film has three stories on each different in their own respects.
The Gas Station is a run of the mill scary murderer story.
Hair is an alien based horror story with elements of vanity biting you, quite literally.
The last is Eye, body horror story about a transplant gone wrong.
Each of these segments is introduced by what we think is the coroner (played by Carpenter too) until the end film.

I haven't been able to find info on the budget and the film also has some cameo's from other people too such as Tobe Hooper himself and Tom Arnold. So lets get on with each segment, also as a side note i may well spoil the the stories endings or may not, depends how the review of each segment goes, this doesn't mean they are bad it's just they are small and it's still worth the watch despite the spoilers!

The Gas Station:
A College student, Anne has gotten a job on a remote gas station in the middle of the night just as a crazy maniac has escaped from a mental asylum. Love the fact Haddonfield is referenced in this (afterall it is JC's segment) it's a nice little touch.
So she is dropped off by a friend and shown the ropes by the person who was on before her, Bill tells her about the keys for office and rules for the pumps etc then leaves her. We are treated to a few colourful customers and one Anne likes the look of who accidentally leaves his credit card behind.
After few jumpy moments Anne tries to contact Bill as the short keeps you guessing as to who the killer is, until this point.
It is one of the people we have already met but Anne also gets some help froma another returning face too!
A standard homage to a standard slasher film this short gets a 3 out of 5 stars from THN


Hair:
This is a vanity based horror with alien aspects to it too, because this relies on cgi effects which were new in 93' it doesn't hold up to well to today's scrutiny in that respect. So we join a man, one Richard Coberts who is extremely self conscious about losing his hair. His girlfriend claims she doesn't care but still tells him to go see a hair dresser friend of hers.
When he's not satisfied with what he does, Richard then buys loads of other products to try and cover up his bald spots. This ends up in him and his girlfriend breaking up. Spotting an ad on TV about a hair restoration clinic he goes to check it out.
They bring him in are kind and courteous to him and do a procedure to give him a full head of long hair. It works and the next day he reveals long dark brown locks of hair. His girlfriend who didn't care gets incredibly turned on by it too. Unfortunately he realises it keeps growing, a lot!
I even starts sprouting in the back of his throat and all over his face, going back to the clinic it is revealed the hair is tiny alien organisms eating his brain, these aliens use the fact that humans are vain in order to do this and gain sustenance.
THN thinks this one is silly and awards it only 2 stars out of 5

Eye:
Mark Hamill plays a baseball player (Brent Matthews) who has never quite made it really big who may well be in with a chance of hitting the big time in his next game. Unfortunately on the ride home in a storm a deer in the middle of the road forces his car off the road.
He is later found by some police and when he is turned around it is seen that shards of glass have destroyed his eye. When he come around in hospital he doesn't realise this until he told and it just happens to be his pitching eye too. Another doctor offers a new revolutionary transplant surgery to replace his eye with a healthy donor.
Of course he jumps at the offer and they proceed with the surgery right away as they have the donor available almost right away. Unfortunately Brent starts getting splitting head aches as a side effect, his wife tells him they're expecting too.
The side effects get worse as Brent starts to see images of murdered girls and himself being abused as a baby. His whole attitude starts to change too and he gets abusive towards his wife.
He finds out from the doctor the eye belonged to a murderer fascinated with killing young blondes then raping their corpses, When he later nearly kills his wife through being possessed by the eye he finally manages to stick some garden shears through the offending appendage.
This segment is good but i also feel it's very unfair also this poor man who has done nothing wrong to anyone who has tried hard all his life just has shit poured on him constantly only to then end up killing his possessed self leaving a pregnant wife behind.
For this THN awards Eye 2 out 5 stars.

So overall a very strong start and some amusing filler from the segments between each story with the gas station being a strong 3  Hair being a decent 2 and my reasons for Eye scoring so low Body Bags is going to get an overall score of a decent 3 stars out of 5

Games News: Friday the 13th

With a smart new update to their website Friday the 13th the game creators illfonic and gun media have done what at least a large portion of their fan base has asked.
Given us news and things to actually look forwards too, rather than keeping us in the dark about up coming things we've all been wondering about.

The site teases that yes they are working on new maps and not just the ones that are smaller versions of the existing ones. Which I myself have been guilty of saying what's the point in them?
But now with more information on my plate I'm seeing the smaller maps are actually different enough with new placings for items and vehicles, as well as the the parts to fix them.

But yes they also go on to say that there is A, 1, SINGLE, ONE, Jason in the works note my emphasis on one there as I'm sure with 4, Roy and both normal and Uber Jason left from their films rosters to choose from this won't be all we'll be seeing hopefully.
There's emotes, a HUD/UI update too, tweaks to existing Jason's and new music too!

Finally we see two more things coming 2 new councillors and 2 new clothing packs, one of which we Tiffany sporting a beach babe bikini get up. Hot or what?
The latter being a beach themed affair for all the councillors for $3.99 I'll gladly throw money at that to support more content in the future.
Considering it'll probably be about £3 UK side well hopefully unless the pound drops even lower by then.

All in all THN is happy with the way the creators are treating us lately, and yes I'm sure their working on those packanak and rocks in the water glitches too....

Head over to : http://f13game.com/# to check it out yourself!

Review: Society (1989)

Cast: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez

Budget: $2 Million

Directed By: Brian Yuzna

Society a satirical comedy horror looking on how the upper classes basically leech off the poor. Which is what the actual films logo is.
Directed by one of my favourite comedy horror directors/producers good old Brian Yuzna. Despite having a large part in making Re-Animator this was his first actual directorial debut.

Thanks to his pull on both the Animator films he was able to snag this and a modest budget. Every dollar was used well in the making too, all the practical effects are brilliant too.

So we join Billy as Bill Whitney a well off kid in a well off family, he has it all going for him in every area of his life too. Girlfriend, school both academic and others. Except he doesn't feel like he fits in anywhere especially with his family. He regularly tells his shrink about this every time he goes to see him which the doctor tries to quell those fears. They do indeed seem to just be young boy angst, that is until his sisters ex boyfriend Blanchard gives him a tape with some weird shit about his family having a strange orgy.

He goes to his shrink with the evidence but when the doctor plays the tape back it has inexplicably changed since the last time he listened to it. When he goes to get another copy from Blanchard he discovers that he's been involved in a crash and has died. Though no else seems to particularly care about it other than Bill's other friend.
When Bill is invited to a persons party (Ferguson) he was not particularly friends with in school he is surprised, at the party though he properly talks to Devin's character Clarissa who he's admired a few times from afar. Ferguson meanwhile bullies Bill and admits to him that they did indeed have a strange with his sister. Angry and confused Clarissa takes him to her house and they have sex.

Unable to get it out of his mind though he goes to confront his family and finds them in a compromising situation in lingerie in his parents bedroom, freaked out he leaves them too it and runs.
When Bill and Milo, his other friend, go to Blanchard funeral then touch him they discover that his corpse doesn't appear to be real. Then his rival as student president tells him fearfully to meet him in the woods so he can tell him about something he's learnt.
/bill meets him in the forest but when he goes to his car to talk to him he discovers the young man dead with his throat cut. The next day in school however when Bill tries to explain to the collective people at the presidential run that Petrie is dead he is shown up when Petrie walks on the stage and says he's just had car trouble.

Totally freaked out at all the weird goings on Bill tries one last attempt at confronting his family only to be drugged by his doctor. Milo however trails them to the hospital and when Bill manages to escape Milo warns him that it was a bit to easy for him to escape like that.
He doesn't listen and stupidly goes back to his folks house where he's chased and trapped by the other and forced to watch as the 'society' weirdly eat in a strange absorption kind of way the real Blanchard. Escaping again thanks to Clarissa he finds his sister and folks all mixed in with each other having some kind of weird alien orgy. He makes his way back downstairs and is challenged to fight by the bully Ferguson, THN won't spoil anymore as Society is well worth watching if your a big fan of 80's comedy horror especially the weird kind of body horror Yuzna specializes in. For this THN awards with this class act of a film 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Tremors (1990)

Stars: Kevin Bacon, Micheal Gross, Fred Ward

Budget: $11 Million

Directed By: Ron Underwood

Can I just say I loved Kevin Bacon in movies, I miss him being the main star in movies too.
To me the guy just oozed charisma and confidence in any role he was in especially in the 80's-90's.

Those were certainly his best years, in those years a certain film came out on the ends of the 80's comedy horror streak. That film was Tremors and it spawned a whole series of films and even a TV series, none as successful as the first film though.
The difference was Tremors horror was at times genuinely scary, again as is becoming a thing here on THN this film did scare me as a kid. Unlike other films of that kind though I managed to sit through and watch all of this thanks to the comedic elements.
The sequel's never truly felt as scary I felt they went in a more comedic way than horror that the first film did so well, more on those should I get to reviewing them.
This film also had amazing practical effects for its time, the grabboids looking as realistic and moving just as well as you could expect a real life creature like this to.

So let's get into the meat of the movie, a town called perfection in Nevada is home to two handymen Earl and Val (Bacon&Ward) it's an ex mining town and is close to being desolate. Earl and Val decide to pack up and leave for a neighboring community when they spot a guy dead up in an electrical tower.
Being a small town they know the guy as Edgar Deems, who has apparently died of dehydration afraid in the tower still holding his Winchester rifle.

So we then see an unknown thing killing a bunch of sheep and their owner, which low and behold Val and Earl stumble across again. Thinking some murderer is to blame for it all they rush to warn the others in town. unknown to them they have pulled some part of the creature away with them attached to their trucks axle.

They grab some horses from perfection to go and try to warn the people who live on the outskirts of town. They unfortunately find two people's truck buried near their camper trailer but them nowhere to be seen.
Then the two are suddenly attacked by the subterranean terrors and after an intense chase they end up in a thick concrete water duct thing. As the creatures are blind and only sense vibration it crashed into the duct killing itself leaving it's mangled head exposed on the other side.

Rhonda a seismologist in the area explains she's picked up vibrations from similar sized creatures, at least another 2 or 3 out there. They become trapped on some boulders they use as protection but the creatures don't let up all night and exhausted in the morning they don't know what to do.
That is until Rhonda uses a pole to start vualting from one rock to another until they reach her truck.

Not long after reaching town the remaining grabboids attack forcing everyone up onto the rooves of their buildings. This doesn't keep them safe long as the grabboids start learning to take out the foundations of the buildings making them collapse to the ground.
Meanwhile Burt Gummer played by Micheal Gross and his wife manage to kill another of the creatures. While in their survival/weapons shelter one slams into their reinforced walls.

Back in town however people keep dying until Val comes up with the idea to chain a large trailer thing to the back of a JCB to ferry people away. They try to make their way to a mountain range where the solid rock will help them, unfortunately the creatures get clever and make a sinkhole which disables the JCB.
Burt kills another one with some home made pipe bombs and they make it to the safety of some boulders again. The last grabboid however doesn't fall for SW the bomb and spits it back at them. This forces them down from the safety of the rocks and they have to run again until Val makes it chase him with the last pipe bomb.

I won't spoil the ending as usual as this is a start to a great series atleast the sequel, well maybe we'll, see when I get around to review them lol!
So THN awards Tremors with a 4 out 5 stars

Coming Soon: Camp Cold Brook

Looking like decent b-movie chiller I recently received information on the film from its source, keep an eye out and if I get chance to review it I will as it sounds like it could be good'un.

Chad Michael Murray (House of Wax, TV's One Tree Hill) and Danielle Harris (Halloween, Hatchet III) will headline director Andy Palmer's Camp Cold Brook.

Script hails from up and comer Alex Carl, writer-director of Reeves Road. 

Produced by Warner Davis of Petri Entertainment, Gremlins alum Joe Dante and Mark Alan of Renfield Productions, and Jason Van Eman and Ross Marroso of Weathervane Productions, pic tells of a reality TV crew that get more than they bargained for when they decide to film the next episode in the legendary Camp Cold Brook.

Reality TV producer and host, JACK WILSON (Chad Michael Murray), finds himself in a tough spot. His finances have crumbled and his show, “Haunt Squad”, is about to be cancelled. In a last ditch effort to spark ratings to land a final season, he and his producers Angela (Danielle Harris) and Emma as well as their trusted cameraman Kevin choose the legend of Camp Cold Brook to save their show. The camp was host to a horrific incident, where the young campers were drowned in a nearby creek 20 years ago.  Their arrival begins like any other episode. Cameras are placed, lights spark to life, but this is not going to be a regular episode of chasing errant noises and measuring for EVP. The terror here was real and the 30 are about to rise.

Courtney Gains (The Burbs, Children of the Corn), Michael Eric Reid (TV's Victorious),Candice De Visser (The Funhouse Massacre), Mary Kathryn Bryant (Hellraiser : Judgement), Loren Lodesma (A.S.K), and Jason Van Eman (1 Mile to You) help make up the ensemble.