Caast: Stanley J Browne, Angelique Joan, Matt Gras, Michel Benizri, Melissa Sirol, Laurent Serulli, David Coburn, Tom Cordier, Vanessa Seydoux with Paul Hurstfield and Darren Day
I watched some terrible films in 2017 but EXORCISM is so irredeemably poor that I genuinely believed it was possibly a prank made at my expense, a fake film devised purely to fool me into despairing at how bad films could be.
Sadly, it appears it is a real film.
The story is simple: a film crew (including an obligatory irritating bloke filming behind-the-scenes stuff) (yes, it’s a found-footage film – how original) mess about at a pre-shoot party in a tiny flat then head off in a Scooby van to a haunted house to film an exorcism scene for their THE EXORCIST rip-off. But the house was once the site of a real exorcism, and the restless spirits are still restless and everyone ends up possessed, murdered, suicidal or mad, and there are a plethora of poorly mounted death scenes of comical amateurishness.
Not an original or particularly promising set-up, but not necessarily one automatically doomed to failure. Unfortunately EXORCISM is blighted by an absence of talent, money and ambition rarely seen even in the films of Steven M Smith. How to adequately convey the sheer awfulness of this enterprise? This is a film which makes fun of bad actors by getting bad actors to play bad actors. People stand around possessed by the devil for five minutes without anyone noticing. Someone spends more time complaining about a weird sound than dealing with someone who’s just cut her wrists. This is a film where a bad actor playing a bad actor playing a (probably bad) priest can (almost successfully) carry out an actual exorcism.
The film is directed by Lance Patrick who appears to believe people running for their lives will remember to carry a film camera about with them. Mr Patrick also has the original notion that turning the sound off at random points will somehow enhance the experience and not in any way irritate viewers who may be wondering if there’s something wrong with the telly.
There is nothing in EXORCISM for either general viewer or horror fan. And there is nothing for industry talent-spotters or potential investors. It’s a talent-free cavalcade of ineptitude. One further example may suffice. The bad actor playing the bad actor playing the priest has an important role, yet the film has been running well over twenty minutes before the viewer even notices him. Honestly, he’s suddenly there in the haunted house and I found myself thinking ‘Who he? Was he in the Scooby van? Or at the party?’ Did the film-makers edit him out until they had no choice but to include him? The film pays much more attention to people who aren’t part of the haunted house team (like the topless lady and the two ladies who become intimately acquainted, all of whom are just glorified extras but who, for reasons I cannot fathom at all, pique the director’s interest*.) He’s not the only bad actor. The chap playing the director is appallingly wooden, and the woman playing the make-up artist looks like she’s trying really hard not to laugh. Her death scene is a textbook example of how not to do death scenes. She clearly doesn’t trust the prop which administers her demise, the other actors present (if they are indeed actors) are rubbish, the script (if it can be so-named) doesn’t have enough dialogue to cover the action, and the pacing is so poor that they really could have got the scissors away from her if they’d wanted to.
The nearest thing we get to a half-decent actor is Aisling Knight as the film-within-the-film’s leading lady, who plays a woman possessed by the devil, and who, by an astonishingly unlucky and ironic twist of fate, ends up possessed by the devil in ‘real’ life. Knight convinces as the actress, and is convincing enough as the demon, despite her dialogue being lifted wholesale from a famous film about an exorcist**. But the later portion of the film has her running about, filming herself (despite being in mortal peril), and the film’s scrutiny reveals her weakness: after ten minutes she ends up resembling a nervous dormouse. This is unfair as it’s the director who’s at fault here, and Ms Knight towers over the rest of the cast, though that isn’t difficult.
And then there are the captions which the film uses to explain what happens in gaps in the narrative (remember this is a found-footage film). Unfortunately they are the worst captions I have ever seen. I didn’t mind too much that sometimes the beginnings and ends of sentences didn’t always fit on screen. And stuff like ‘Ten minutes later’ is quite handy. But as the film progresses they’re used more and more frequently, and, instead of coming across as urgent reports from a mysterious-found-footage-finding authority, they resemble captions for 1920s silent comedies. And sometimes the proof-reading could’ve been better. And the grammar. And punctuation.
If you want to enjoy a bad film my recommendation from 2017 is KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED. If you really have to subject yourself to the worst that is being produced, then I would suggest THE DOLL MASTER, which really should be in the running for the Worst Film I’ve Seen In 2017 Award. But that award goes instead to the mind-bogglingly eyeball-shreddingly pathetic EXORCISM. Time and again you stare at the screen wondering how anyone could have thought that any of these scenes – nay, any of these individual shots – could possibly have been deemed suitable for human consumption. At least KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED and THE DOLL MASTER had some sort of visible (if unrealised) intention behind them. But EXORCISM? Who is it for? Why does it exist? It can’t be to make money or satisfy even the most self-satisfied nincompoop’s vanity, and no-one will ever mistake it for an object of any artistic merit. I’m unreliably advised that the producer’s follow-up DARKNESS WAKES is superior – maybe relinquishing the director’s chair is one of the positives Mr Patrick has taken away from this unholy mess.
Director and writer Warren Dudley has surrounded himself with a decent cast for his formulaic if lively debut. His horror is yet-another ‘rats in a maze / found-footage’ flick that offers nothing new. It gives the game young cast a bit of variety for their showreels though as the plot tells the full story of how they met their horrific ends at the hand of a serial killer. We rewind, wayyyyyy too far, to the minute the film camera was hired from their college. So we see our lead trio, fart about, talk relationships, project ideas and much more in the lead up. Most of which should have hit the Cutting Room floor because nothing worth keeping. The plot background slowly put together and yet feels unnecessarily laboured and over worked.
Three media students team up to make a documentary. They choose the subject of bullying which somehow morphs into an amateur missing person’s case. All this ends up in a spooky museum / castle / derelict military facility – with our daring trio chased by a killer with a penchant for slow torture.
We’ve been here before many times, and there’s nothing much I can write to say this distinguishes itself from the pack apart from a solid cast, natural performance, naturally obnoxuious characters and competent enough execution. As a debut, the director shows he has the basics to build on, and he has proved that with his second film, another horror called Cage. Hopefully, he will continue on this upward swing, as Dudley’s not a bad writer and director, who needs to work on becoming a bit more imaginative.
4 out of 10 – The Cutting Room won’t be one anybody’s list of top 10s. Even a short time after watching it, I find the details, and soon to follow, the whole film, fading from memory.
Second review below by Matt Usher
WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?
Lucy-Jane Quinlan: The Bromley Boys, Unhinged, Cage
Parry Glasshouse: Hollyoaks (TV), Hollyoaks Later (TV)
Jason Rhodes: The Bromley Boys
TJ Herbert: The Bromley Boys, Perfect Break, A Dark Reflection, Family Affairs (TV)
Demon Baby is an unusual horror as it seems to duck the central issue by not presenting us with anything chilling, demonic or ghostly. Demon Baby is a baby film though in that it’s scale is that of a postage stamp. It’s short, has a small cast and will slip from the memory as soon as you’ve gone to bed for the evening.
You’ll see worse films but to see a film that’s almost a ghost itself is something else, so vapour like is everything about it. The actors are fine but don’t seem to do anything to make you pay all that much attention. If I was being cruel, you may even think the TV has switched itself off in a bid to entertain itself. As it is, here’s the plot. A young couple hire a mobile home and dash off to Scotland. The girl (CARINA BIRRELL – JACK SAID) is suffering from visions of a ghostly lady and this weirds her vaguely creepy boyfriend out, played with steady footing by David Wayman (VENGEANCE). He may not be creepy though because he just wants to have lots of sex and she’s seemingly up for it, then not up for it, which gets him cross. A weird policeman (CAMERON JACK – DEATH RACE 4) begins to bother them, but he’s just a normal copper in there for triangulation purposes. A phone rings and gets ignored. Could this issue be the source of the mystery? It solves some of it, but it’s much like the rest of the film, a giant non-sequiteur designed like a ghost story but it’s too polite to conjure any real doom and gloom. OR did the production run out of money and they finished it by bringing in Bhasker Patel (WILD WEST) as a doctor to read a bunch of belated exposition to the watchers? Who knows? You’ll forget you’ve seen it anyway before trying to solve what went on.
3 out of 10 – A non-ghostly ghost story with fair acting and an elusiveness that can’t be accidental. Vapid.
A reasonable attempt at a no-budget zombie flick that is a cut above the rest because plot momentum is kept. Well-performed in the main by two of the three leads, its certainly an improvement on the majority of z-grade apocalypse movies. The camera man seems to be strong enough to hold the camera steady, the editor seems to know what he’s doing and there are some interesting supporting characters in the mix.
Joanne Gale’s Reporter stumbles on a government conspiracy to keep an ongoing outbreak of a virsu that turns everybody into mind less killers. She contacts her exboyfriend, Duke (SIMON BURBAGE – KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED) to be her camera man. He annoys the hell out of her before they literally spilt up. Then in a later parallel story, Joanne is paired off with a mysterious man called Michael – the slightly wooden David Anderson (ADULT LIFE SKILLS) – who may have something to do with the virus. In parallel storylines both duos set off across England trying to survive.
Some scenes work better than others, depending on the supporting actor wheeled in to run the scene. Are they friend or foe? etc. The unknown Adrian Annis impresses the most as a muddled-up thug who’s gone past the point of return. The music and the locations are generally good as well for this kind of thing.
So whilst Survivors is far from brilliant, it’s at least watchable and once it ditches the annoying ‘found-footage’ framing after 15 minutes it begins to become more and more involving. You even begin to get used to Anderson’s weird non-acting style. Its the closest thing to a middle of the road zombie flick I’ve ever seen because it has no original ideas but it accomplishes more than the average low-grade zombie flick by concentrating on the characters and their predicaments and the gore and zombies are kept on the fringes, seen all too fleeting until it’s too late. Not a bad debut.
3.5 out of 10 – Above average, no budget flick made in the main by wanna-bes and amateurs.
Also see Matt Usher’s review below for more insights
Nora-Jane Noone:Identicals,Brooklyn, Jack Taylor (TV), Assault of Darkness, Beyond The Rave (TV), The Descent 2, Doomsday, Coronation Street (TV), The Descent, The Magdalene Sisters
This film is on-par with Steve Lawson’s creaure feature Killer/Saurus in that it was shot in a garage and features a glove puppett for a monster. OK, so even with no expectations this film still couldn’t be worse if it got help.
Several conspiracy buffs trespass onto a top-secret military base the same evening a top-secret military experiment goes out of control. Project Silverhide is a wolf that can turn invisible in the moonlight. A fence falls down and the wolf savages all the cast in such a boring fashion I gave up trying to follow the plot (for what it was?) How a monster flick with a standard plot template could end up a confusing mess is quite an achievement but here’s the proof. Throw in a missing Dad, to one of the trespassers who happens to work at the base (or something) and a photographer that whispers (or got given the broken microphone) all of the exposition is lost. All that’s left for the viewer to do is laugh at the bad special effects and a pre-occupation to replicate JJ Abram‘s famous lense flare with a go-pro.
To say the only positive aspect to Silverhide is that you never see the monster very often or out in the open is a bonus. You see it’s eyes, a paw or a tail. You do see the wolf savage a soldier near the end and it reminded me of the famous TV interview when Burt Reynolds got on the wrong side of Rod Hull & Emu to comedic effect. It’s a joy to watch some amateur actor get wasted by a fluffy sock puppet.
The dialogue is a ripe as Joe Pesci II’s underpants, as soldiers question their superiors with such dopey insolence it’s a wonder they’re not in thrown in the stockade. They’re not even reprimanded. When the soldiers begin to get picked off you realise that you can’t tell who was who? Who was Starbuck? Who wars Red Killer?
The leads are terrible. Only Lucy Clarvis (THE CURSE OF THE WITCHING TREE) was previously known to me and she’s a lot worse here than she was in that lame horror. She looks relieved to be picked off relatively early and it’s a shame because I thought the film must be nearly finished but alas the she bails before the tedium quadruples.
1 out of 10 – Utterly unscary, badly written, badly acted, poorly produced piece of sci-fi twaddle. This makes Killer/Saurus look like Jurassic Park.
Review by Matt ‘Silver Bullet McMonobrow’ Usher below in the darkness…
Cast: Shaun Dooley, Anna Skellern, Corey Johnson, Amber Jean Rowan, George Blagden, Raffeolo Degruttola, Eleanor Matsuura, George Webster, David Sterne with Kerry Shale and Jack Fox
Cast: Ricci Harnett, Luke Mably, Coralie Rose, Johnny Palmiero, Joshua Osei, Scott Peden, Nabil Elouahabi, Andy Linden, Slaine Kelly, Tygo Gernandt, Georgia Bourke with Jasper Britton and Steven Berkoff
Sick of films about Essex gangsters? Well, obviously the DVD buying public aren’t. So here we are again. A sequel to answer those wondering what became of former Essex Boys associate Carlton Leach (KILL THE BITCH) after the events of Rise of the Footsoldier.
The answer is not a lot. But saying that Ricci Harnett (TURNOUT) has found his signature role and makes a good job of building up the myth for Mr Leach. He certainly makes his muse proud here, kicking off over small mishaps, being nice to children, horrible to naked ladies and stopping to regret that he’s not the type of bloke to look at rainbows (but he wishes he was – or something). The amount of people that die in this film, it’s a wonder that Leach isn’t buried under the jail, but this is the point isn’t it. These films are built to enthrall, scare and build myths, not so much bore you with facts – see Essex Boys – The Truth that crams in so much detail it would send the average viewer into a coma. So what’s true and what isn’t shouldn’t bother the majority. Is it any good? Well, I’d say it’s quite good as it keeps you watching, it’s a suitable sequel and there’s no dip in quality, so it’s not a cheap cash-in. The acting’s OK, and the film is cast with stalwarts of the game, although Luke Mably (EXAM) seems a bit bewildered by his quietly psychotic henchman’s torture methods and weird monologue about comparing such methods to listening to pop music on vinyl.
We catch up with Carlton Leach being muscled out of his nightclub, but he’s given a last chance by local gangster to be a debt collector. It’s all going well until one night he has to drop out of collection in Ibiza when his mystery / forgotten son turns up out of the blue. Leach gets to show his tender side in these familial scenes but elsewhere the ‘job’ in Ibiza goes wrong and people die. There are consequences and Mr Leach has to do some fast thinking to get out of the jam or die. Well the ending is daft as ‘comedy vampire’ from The Reverend (2012)shows up once more to overact and send the film back to the bottom of the cheap racks at Asda.
If you like nude women there are stacks to leer over in this film, but there’s price. You also see Ricci Harnett‘s bum crack. Only a low-budget, megalomaniac actor/director would make us look at his arse crack. Maybe it’s a message to his critics. Or is it a message to Bernard O’Mahoney (ESSEX BOYS – THE TRUTH) who’s been busy discrediting Mr Leach for his direct involvement with the Essex Boys? Who knows? But there you have it crack addicts.
So it’s quiet praise but this is a lot better film than we’ve come expect from the ever growing ‘Essex crime-genre’. It’s a worthy sequel to Rise of the Footsoldier (there’s no crap wigs in this one). And Ricci Harnett is a good actor in this kind of role. It’s also got a baffling one-scene cameo by Steven Berkoff (THE BIG I AM) as a comedy doctor? Can’t get to bottom of that one.
5 out of 10 – Solid, worthy sequel to the first one. Nothing great, beyond giving Ricci Harnett a chance to walk around in the character that made his name.
Second review down below by Matt ‘Ave a go, mate’ Usher
RISE OF THE ZOMBIE HOOLIGAN FILMS 