Babysitter Wanted, 2008

Blimey! This was really tense. You remember all those urban myths about psychos terrorising single women when they're babysitting... well this is basically all that in a film. I was really on edge the whole way through and thoroughly enjoyed the thrills! Quite 'traditionally' scary and few bits you did see coming a mile off but great all the same. 

SECOND OPINION: Erm. I should probably start by saying that this film has so many 'Official Selections' from horror festivals around the world, I had big expectations. If I'm honest, the fact I could have bought it in Asda did put me off a little. I doubt End of the Line would be on their shelves. Anyway, for me this film took too long to get started, then cherry picked far too many ideas from more successful movies. It's just too derivative to be enjoyable. If you want to see girls in serious peril watch Hostel Part II or Wolf Creek, if you want something supernatural watch The Omen. If you want to spend eighty-six minutes feeling like you've seen it all before, get this. It's not that it's bad, it's just far too familiar.

Special Guest – Sarah: As a novice to the horror genre I was a bit worried about my second film – would I pee my pants this time?  The verdict, NO.  Although this was a better film than End of the Line as I found it a more believable horror, as in this could actually happen, it met my expectations until a certain point involving the weird kid. After this it went down in my estimations. The priest didn't do enough. I also thought this ticked all the 'things to include in a horror movie' – scared girl, scarey man, being followed by a car, can't find the keys to escape etc, etc.  Did like it though, scared slightly, blood & gore yes, suspense yes but a tad predictable at times.  6/10 I await to be scared even more!!!!

Special Guest – Marcus: It was an ok film, but not as good as End of the Line. I thought it was a little bit slow and predictable. Good gore content, though. I would recomend it as a watch. Not the greatest film, but worth a view.

The Last Winter, 2006

Creep-o-rama! This film is scary, dark and downright depressing... perfect for horror night! I am going to let Matt explain the plot but all you need to know is that it poses some interesting questions about how we are treating our planet. There are some mental moments in this and I have to be honest and I say I wasn't quite sure how to interpret some of them, but I think that's the idea. Thankfully, Matt is a lot brighter than me and could help to explain what they are trying to get at with this film!

SECOND OPINION: This sticks in the mind like glue. Powerfully acted, beautifully scripted and shot and almost no-one got to see it when it was released. It's a crime, because I don't think I've seen a film which is so brilliantly executed.
The premise is very simple (aren't all good horrors) in which the members of an Alaskan drilling company, charged with setting up the equipment before the workforce arrives, start going haywire. Not mad-stabby-crazy haywire, but quietly, disturbingly so. Victim number one goes for a midnight stroll, naked. He freezes to death and no-one can figure out why. Soon everyone's seeing or hearing strange things but when the madness really sets in... woof. Everyone reacts differently. Nothing is explained more fully than a 'suggestion', but don't fear, this is no Donnie Darko. The Last Winter has a real point to make and it doesn't make it lightly. You'll come away feeling guilty for the greed of men and concerned for the future of our planet. You'll also think twice before blindly following orders to 'get the job done'. You have been warned.

Session 9, 2001

Up until the last 15mins, nothing 'horror' worthy actually happens, but right from the off you'll feel spooked by this film. A load of guys are de-asbestosifying (ok so that's not a real word but go with it!) a disused mental hospital. One of them finds a stash of old recordings of the 'sessions' between a psychiatric doctor and his schizophrenic patient. The story builds the tension brilliantly and you just know this is not going to end well. I didn't quite see the end coming but even if you do, it doesn't spoil the plot because it's more about the build-up than the climax itself. There was just one bit that I found stupidly funny – During a 'session', a young girl pops up as one of the multiple personalities so the patient (adult man) starts talking in a baby voice like that of a young girl. Don't ask me why, but I just found this hilarious. I can only put this down to nervous laughter! A really gripping, chilling and in the end, quite bloody horror.

SECOND OPINION: First thing that grabbed me about this movie is the cast. It's absolutely top notch for a film of it's type. Until everything starts unravelling, it's more like a good quality drama than a little known horror. Unravelling. It's a good, encompassing word for Session 9, as the film doesn't romp or barrel along, it slowly unravels along with the characters.
The set-up is curious. Maybe it is generic, but since it's played with such conviction, it certainly didn't feel like it. Our four characters are hired to clear asbestos from an old lunatic asylum. The boss, Gordon Fleming (played by the intense Peter Mullan from Children of Men) has three of his usual team with him, but is struggling with life. Business is tough and this job could mean make or break, so do they really need the fourth guy, they guy no-one trusts?
Meanwhile, Phil (David Caruso) finds some recordings of a woman, who for the most part talks nonsense. However, the tapes are filed as Session 1, 2, 3 etc. and we know something significant is bound to happen when he reaches number 9.
Session 9 will stay with you, no doubt. It's an unusual ghost story which descends into madness in much the same way The Last Winter does. Is it the asylum, or the tapes, or something else entirely? Watch it and see for yourself...

Stuck, 2007

This was excellent. Mena Suvari plays the lead character, AKA piece of ...(poop)! She's driving home stoned from a party and accidentally hits Stephen Rea. As you can see from the picture, he actually gets wedged in the windscreen. Its pretty horrific and I was really wincing in one scene involving the windscreen wipers - eeeeeeew! Mena is, as I said, a nasty piece of work and she would rather leave him stuck, waiting to die, than risk getting in trouble for the accident. And the worst part? It's based on a true story, see here.

SECOND OPINION: Stuart Gordon holds a place in my heart. Many years ago I saw Reanimator and discovered gore was good. Last year, I watched it again, and discovered gore was good, and funny, if a little childish. Now he's made this, a film about a guy stuck in a windscreen. Nach. As Rach says, the chilling thought is that, to a degree, this actually happened. A girl did hit a homeless guy with her car, he did get stuck in her windscreen and she waited days for him to die before dumping him somewhere.

As you know, we avoid real life horrors, since it's not what Friday Horror Night is about. There are exceptions to every rule though, and since this story follows the hapless jaywalker as he fights back, it was a rule worth breaking.

The characters and acting are first class and the snappy script is wonderfully paced. We feel for Thomas, we feel his pain, his confusion and his desperation. For all the hokey plot, it feels real. I was willing him to break free, but this is no easy film to watch. With Gordon's pedigree, he's not about to shy away from the red stuff. Prepare yourself for some very painfully moments where tension is perfectly blended with Thomas' pain.

Last, but not least, lets not forget this film is a black comedy. There are plenty of laughs to be had, all of them tinged with sadness, pain, excitement, anxiety and any other feeling you can muster. It's all first class.

Let the Right One in, 2008

This could well be the most 'grown up' horror we have watched thus far on Friday Horror Night. It's a little film which is basically a love story. A young, very quirky looking boy who doesn't have many friends and is being bullied at school, makes friends with a strange little girl. You know things are not right when her Dad goes off into the woods with a frightening bit of kit that includes a container for collecting blood! This film contains violence... and a vampire, but doesn't go to excess with either. It's more about the relationship between the 2 young people and what they mean to each other. I didn't once jump, or laugh, but I did really enjoy this film. It is very different from anything else we've watched so was really refreshing. I did feel a bit cold though as it's set in one very cold, snowy town in Sweden brrrr.

SECOND OPINION: Certain plot facts are implicit in a film of this type. We know it's a horror, and if we've read anything about the movie at all, we also figure pretty early on that the strange young girl is a blood sucking vampire. But add to those facts that the girl is a straight-down-the-middle, Bram Stokeresque vampire with all the contagious, wall crawling, flying and light allergy shennanigans, and one begins to wonder what's going on. Even Blade mixed the folklore up a little! Well the focus isn't vampires, not really. It's a love-story borrowing more from Romeo & Juliet that Hammer Horror. The young boy is something of an outcast who daydreams of teaching the bullies at school a lesson, the young girl is similarly lost, but for very different reasons. How sweet. But if this film has a problem, and unfortunately I think it has, it's that the girl truly likes the boy, so he's never in danger... unlike everyone else. Since we don't care about everyone else, there's no tension where I thought there could and should have been.

So what do we have. A melodically paced boy meets girl vampire movie, which is wonderfully shot and acted, but at it's scariest, nothing more than unsettling.

Dance of The Dead, 2008

I wasn't really looking forward to watching this film that much because it is a comedy horror and these don't tend to be as good as the 'proper' horrors. The opening scene is pretty funny though and it did catch my attention quite quickly. The cast is good, although 2 of the boys look very similar so this gets confusing. It's a silly plot, but then what do you expect from a zombie movie! Overall, it was quite a good laugh. Wouldn't get a 'must see' from me but if you want something light-hearted and daft, this is for you.

SECOND OPINION: It's a zombie comedy in the vein of Sean of the Dead...only not as funny. It moves along at a cracking pace and is very entertaining, but it's not really funny or scary enough and all feels a little too familiar.

The Signal, 2007

I found this film shocking, funny, thought-provoking, gory and really interesting. One day, a 'signal' is suddenly transmitted on all TVs, radios and phones which is basically like noise interference. At first, it just seems like a strange phenomena. As the plot unravels, it appears that this signal has a bizarre effect on some people, turning them into crazed murderers! The film takes you through different people's perspectives and is really, really good fun. Some of the bloody scenes are utterly disgusting and shocking but you find yourself going "eeeeew ..... ha ha ha" because the way it mixes horror and comedy is genius. It would be fair to call this film disturbing but don't let that put you off, it is fabulous and should definitely be on your list of ones to watch.

SECOND OPINION: After watching this film I read an interesting fact, which tied it all together rather nicely. It is written and directed by three different people. This explains why it starts as a rather chilling zombie horror, turning into a raucous comedy half way through and ending as a nailbiter. Writing that down makes it sound rather disjointed, which it is...to be fair. However, the effect it has is not to drop you out of the story. In fact it amplifies the horror by lulling you into a false sense of security. Just when I was laughing, very hard,  the horror came back into the room and wiped the smile off my face in seconds. So to sum up, it's brilliant, inspired, difficult to define and most importantly, thoroughly enjoyable.

End of the Line, 2007

Well, this was an absolute treat. Not only did we have special guests (Sarah and Marcus) but this was a quality horror! Very early on there is an extremely scary moment where all 4 of leapt out of our seats. To be fair, the boys managed to just be quietly surprised but Sar and I actually screamed out loud and nearly poured our drinks all over the sofa! If you are religious, this will be doubly scary as it's basically about a religious group who have been ordered to 'save' everyone before the end of the world. There is a very, very scary old lady who does some unthinkably nasty things but all the time has this manic grin as she sings her religious songs – very distrubing. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

SECOND OPINION: This film does not tread lightly. This film does not pull it's punches and will leave you feeling sickened more than once. It's all set in a subway, which as we learned in The Midnight Meat Train, can be a very dangerous and scary place. This particular night, all the members of a religious cult have been summoned to rise up and kill the innocents before the world ends. As Rachel says, the creepy thing is, the cultists are happy about their job, since they believe they're saving people. Brutally murdering with a cheery hymn and a smile is not something you'll forget in a hurry.

Turns out, the most shocking thing in the movie (and it's the most shocking thing I've seen in a horror film) has a strong, moral justification by the end of the film. I raised this point with our guests but they held to the opinion that it was sick, regardless. Ah well. The conversation, however, went something like this...

"Did you enjoy it?"

"God no! It was terrifying!"

"So will you be joining us for Friday Horror Night again?"

"Oh yes, absolutely!!!"