The Demon Disorder

I am a huge fan of physical copies of films and i always will be. It all started back in the very early 90´s when i started to buy VHS films. I would look for different titles and check in diffrent video stores if they had something different than the usual rental store. Movieline was of course my favourite movie store in the city of Gothenburgh ( they had several thousands of VHS films for sale ) and this was the store where i usually would pick up especially horror films. I remember that it was in Movieline i found my copy of the horror film Zombie Nosh, a low budget zombie movie that used a lot of practical make up effects and was actually a fun watch. It was also at Movieline i got my very first VHS copy of the 1986 horror comedy Night Of The Creeps where slugs from outer space take over human bodies and turn people into zombies. I would highly recommend both films no matter if you get them on DVD or blu ray. but if you get Zombie Nosh released from Vinegar Syndrome you do get some nice special features included. As you probably could imagine after the VHS era ended i collected DVD´s instead and continued to support physical copies. Even until this day i do support films and especially from distribution companis like Studio S Entertainment, Njutafilms, Arrow Video, Vinegar Syndrome, 88 Films, Second Sight Films, Umbrella Entertainment and many more. I mentioned Umbrella Entertainment which is a distribution company from Australia who release older ( and new films ) filled with special features that you won´t find on any ordinary DVD releases from the past. I have bought several of their releases such as Fire In The Sky, Things To Do In Denver When You´re Dead and The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere. Each month they release new titles so i try to stay updated on what´s coming out. This autumn i picked up a blu ray copy of the Australian horror film The Demon Disorder released by Umbrella Entertainment. This film seemed to have an interesting plot plus i am a fan of Australian films in general so i was quite interested in what this film would bring to the table. Is this the horror film to watch this upcoming Christmas weekend or is this not as good as i was hoping it would be?

Graham Reilly ( Christian Willis ) is running his own workshop in the middle of nowhere in the Australian landscape, ever since he left his family´s farm after his father George Reilly ( John Noble ) passed away from an illness and seemed to be possessed by an evil entity. His brother Jake Reilly ( Dirk Hunter ) unexpectedly shows up at Graham´s business asking him to come back home. It seems that the past is catching up on this family and they need to deal with it now.

If you may remember the body horror films of legendary director David Cronenberg such as the 1977 horror classic Rabid, i can without a doubt say that The Demon Disorder is clearly inspired by the films of this masterful director. The Demon Disorder doesn´t focus on what´s trending or not in this world, this feels like a respectful throwback to the body horror films we love from the past. There are several details i feel they have managed to do well in this film so let us begin talking about the practical make up effects. You can tell that they really did a lot of work on this film creating flesh creatures as well as some kind of demonic figure all done practical with so many wonderful details. And i really love that they actually made an effort to make this a practical special effects film, like they are actually shooting something that seems alive and only using a little bit of CGI effects. The transformation of the demonic creature coming out of a human body and turning into a beast is not only one of the better practical make up effects i have seen this year but it also shows the level of creativity we don´t get to see very often these days. Another positive thing about The Demon Disorder is how this film tries to tell the story how brothers try to reunite to deal with their past. I feel that actors Christian Willis and Dirk Hunter both put on great acting performances as the battling brothers where you can tell they are both struggling with how their ill father George ( who is played by legendary actor John Noble ) behaving very strange and dangerously attacking his sons. The horror scenes in general are quite effective and i do feel that there is a certain atmosphere in this film that matches the dark story of this struggling family. If i wanted to find flaws with this film i probably could if i wanted to, but why even try when i think this is a well made directorial full feature film from director Steven Boyle ( who have done practical make up effcts for many years in several well known films ). I would love to see Steven Boyle to continue making body horror films and see if he can build further into this universe because he is clearly the future in this specific genre with the level of creativity he have in his mind. The Demon Disorder is without a doubt one of the more interesting horror releases this year for trying to bring back a genre that seems to be fading away. Definetely worth buying on physical media from Umbrella Entertainment and especially if you are a big fan of director David Cronenberg´s earlier work.

Rating: DDD

Hijack ´93

Through history we have seen a lot of examples of terrorist groups or criminal organisantions who have taken control over flights across the world. Each case is of course mostly different from each other, it doesn´t always have to be about money only but for other political reasons as well. In some cases it has not always ended badly but there are cases where unfortunately people were killed. In some cases it wasn´t a terrorist group either but a mad person who actually hijacked an airplane for a completely different reason than anyone would have expected. There are so many flight hijackings we could talk about so i decided to pick one famous criminal case that took place back in February 22, 1974 at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. This specific day American hijacker known as Samuel Byck attempted to hijack a plane flying out from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, intending to crash into the White House in the hopes of killing President Richard Nixon. This case is actually quite interesting because it didn´t look like the ordinary plane hijacking we have seen in the past. Of course there have been President assassinations and attempted ones but this specific day February 22 in 1974 will forever go down in history as a failed attempt to kill the President. If you have not heard this story before and want to know what happened to Samuel Byck he actually killed himself after he was wounded by a bullet from a police officer. There is actually a great drama film based on this case and the life of Samuel Byck in the 2004 drama film The Assassination Of Richard Nixon from director Niels Mueller, and legendary actor Sean Penn plays the character Sam Bicke ( inspired by the character Samuel Byck ). It´s a well made film with great acting performances and you do get a sense of why Sam was determined to kill Richard Nixon. If you can´t find the film on streaming it´s worth renting on VOD or picking up cheap on DVD. Speaking of flight hijacking i recently sat down to watch a Netflix film called Hijack ´93 based on a true criminal hijack story that happened in Nigeria in October 1993. Im always fascinated in films based on true stories and this seemed to be something i might enjoy. Is the Netflix film Flight ´93 a must see this Christmas weekend or should you watch something better on streaming instead?

Criminal leader Mallan Jerry ( Sam Dede ) is planning to hijack a plane full of tourists as he hand pick 4 men who will make this mission successfull. This is an attempt to make a change for the country, since this group are oppose towards the country´s government. The next couple of days will be a fight for survival but also very risky where there is no guarantee everyone will make it out alive.

I enjoy looking at films that comes from a country where i have not seen many films at all such as Nigeria, This was actually one of the reasons why i were looking forward to see Hijack ´93 knowing this film is based on a true story from Nigeria. On paper this film seems to have what i need, a hijack story and telling a historical moment from the people who witnessed this horrible day. Unfotunately for being a film released on Netflix there are several issues with Hijack ´93. First of all the acting in general is not that good from most of the actors, except for the hijackers themselves. For example the hostage inside the airplane does strange things while the hijackers give them orders, such as a man wawing in the air screaming:- Land the plane, and he have armed hijackers pointing guns on everyone. Now, who would do that in real life when you know they could shoot you right away? I don´t know if that detail happened in real life or not, but it´s actually a quite funny scene and im not supposed to be laughing and yet it´s impossible not to laugh at a scene like that. The editing of this film is hillarious sometimes, especially when the plane lands and military soldiers go towards the plane in spinning scenes that looks like it was filmed on a drone gone drunk. Remember, this is supposed to be a serious hijacking film and i am not supposed to be laughing. I am not going to say that this film is completely terrible, there are a few moments where the terrorists actually try and make an effort to make the hijacking scenes more effective and for a short while the film does get better. But with so many other problems surrounding this film that doesn´t help the final product. Hijack ´93 ends up being one of the most bizarre flight hijacking films i have seen so far. If they really wanted to capture the audience attention they should probably have made more effort into the hijacking scenes plus hired more professional actors as well. There is an interesting story to be told in Hijack ´93 but it´s actually sad to see director Robert Peters throw away so much potential that this story have and made a very forgettable film. I can´t recommend Flight ´93 unfortunately and i would rather recommend the 1996 action thriller Executive Decision where legendary actor David Suchet is brilliant as a hijacking terrorist. A much better choice if you want to watch a similar film.

Rating: DD

Starve Acre

You know sometimes when you hear about a certain film from film critics where basically most of them critically acclaim a film or at least agree that you should see it? A film that most people might have heard about while others have no idea what you are talking about? You might think this must be director Richard Keller´s cult classic Donnie Darko i am talking about from 2001. And i can tell you right now that this is a completely different film on a much smaller budget. A film that may not be mentioned that often anymore unfortunately, perhaps because it is considered to be unknown in certain parts in this world since it wasn´t released theatrically everywhere. We are talking about the 2013 British dark comedy horror film known as A Field In England from director Ben Wheatley. I remember back in 2013 when i was hearing a lot of positive words regarding this film, especially from British film critics who loved that this was quite a different film experience taking place during the Civil War in 17th-century England. There are several reasons why this is such a great film and let me begin by saying i love that this film is filmed in black and white. It gives the film a completely different look and there are some quite funny scenes in this film as well, proving once more British comedy is usually more funny than the Americans. The fact that the horror elements works well in this film combined with comedy just makes this film more entertaining. The acting is top quality from the whole cast and i would highly recommend everyone to watch A Field In England if you want a different film experience, no matter if you rent the film on VOD or buy a physical copy. Speaking of British films there is one film this year i have been waiting to see simply called Starve Acre, a folk horror film from director Daniel Kokotaljo ( i really enjoyed his full feature directorial debut film Apostasy from 2017 ). I am a big fan of British horror in general so i try to check out the most interesting titles and Starve Acre caught my attention right after i saw the trailer. I decided to get the UK blu ray release of this film to see, is this possibly one of the better movie releases this year in general or is Starve Acre not as good as you might expect?

Richard ( Matt Smith ), an archaeologist, and his wife, Jules ( Morfydd Clark ), lives with their son Owen ( Arhtur Shaw ), who claims he have been hearing some whistling sounds. So Richard starts to investigate mythic folklore about an ancient folk tree on his land. During his investigations, a dark and sinister force pursues his home.

I really love when a film grabs you by the neck and makes you feel like you don´t want the hand to let you go, and this is exactly what Starve Acre does from beginning to the end. This is such a dark, sad but really fascinating film dealing with the loss of a child. How do you as parents to a child deal with the grief, the anger inside knowing your child is no longer with you and there is nothing you can do about it? Only a parent who have lost a child can only understand how painful this must be and how you try to go on in life. This film manage to capture the emotional hell parents in this horrible tragedy have to go through, where nothing has no meaning anymore. Of course a lot of these emotions and facial expressions are brought to us in a very powerful and realistic performances by lead actors Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark as the parents Richard and Juliette. The beautiful folklore influences in this film matches perfectly into the very effective horror story that we are presented with. As we find out that Richard´s father was not only a mentally unstable man we also see how deeply rooted he was in a reigious cult. It is amost like the British landscape is filled with death wherever you go, as if it is a perfect environment for eternal suffering. There are several details that make Starve Acre such a unique film experience with everything from excellent camera work, the grieving tone that the whole film perfectly shape surrounding the main characters and the disturbing past of British history that grows deeply underneath your skin. I also feel that the cinematography from Adam Scarth is really detailed filled with passion. Director Daniel Kokotajlo proves once more why he is the future of independent cinema with another exquisite film that will easily land on my list of best films of 2024. Starve Acre show that there is still hope for quality films and i am really looking forward to the next script that Daniel Kokotaljo lay his hands on. This is without a doubt a must buy in your film collection and a film to show future film students how a quality film should look like.

Rating: DDDD

The Critic

Let´s go back to the year of 1993 when i was 16 years old. This was the year when i got interested in movie reviews through the movie review TV show known as Ronnys Rullar with Swedish film critic Ronny Svensson on Channel 5. Every single week i would watch every show where Ronny reviewed the latest cinema releases and also reviewed films he watched on exclusive film festivals such as Cannes Film Festival. Since i went a lot to the cinema during these years i would remember what ratings Ronny gave certain cinema releases and i would see if i agreed or disagreed on his rating score. I remember when he reviewed the 1994 sci fi action thriller Timecop with Jean-Claude Van Damme and actually gave the film a good rating while Swedish newspaper Expressen gave the film 1 out of 5 bees ( yes Expressen have always used bees as a rating tool ). It was nice to see Ronny Svensson appreciate what Timecop was trying to do, show a more serious side of Jean-Claude Van Damme actually trying to act. It was during the 90´s i started writing reviews myself by using paper and pencil and i would let my mother Lena read some of them and it was actually Swedish film critic Ronny Svensson who inspired me to start writing reviews. So when i started this movie review blog back in 2011 i always had Ronny Svensson in my mind as an inspiration for doing this blog and i actually met him in person in 2014 at the world premiere of The Expendables 3 in Stockholm. That was a big day for me personally and i told him he inspired me to write and i could tell that made him happy. So after many years of writing reviews im still here as a film critic and i have learned several things. It´s ok if not all people agree with you regarding your review, it´s not a personal attack on anyone if you don´t like each film it´s just an opinion. For the most part i try to see something positive in each film i review or at least try to find something positive to say. Of course i am always happy hearing from some people sometimes who really enjoyed my review, i always appreciate positive feedback. Speaking of film critics i have heard for some time about a thriller drama film telling the story of film critic Jimmie Erskine ( played by legendary actor Sir Ian McKellen ) in the British film The Critic. It´s not everyday we get to see a film telling a story of a film critic so the story surrounding this film fascinated me since i am a film critic myself and i was very curious to see if i would enjoy The Critic. Is this a must see during the Christmas holidays or is this unfortunately not as good as i was hoping it would be?

London theatre critic, Jimmie Erskine ( Sir Ian McKellen ), is very well respected at his job as the newspaper Daily Chronicle. After watching a theatre show and reviewing the performance of actress Nina Land ( Gemma Arterton ) in her latest theatre play The White Devil. Jimmie does not enjoy her performance and write a negative review that´s published in the newspaper. Nina take this very personal and confront Jimmie personally on the street as he tries to tell her how she needs to think differently, to be able to perform more powerful. The two of them start getting to know each other while Jimmie has to hide his homosexuality from the public. But the negative review forces Daily Chronicle owner David Brooke ( Mark Strong ) to end Jimmie´s review career from all the negative feedback, unless he changes his style of writing. Jimmie does take this seriously but he also see an oppurtunity to take advantage of Nina to save his own skin.

Even though i have enjoyed so many acting performances of Sir Ian McKelllen in the past i am so pleased that he actually made this film. Since this film tells a story regarding a critic and how one can make an impact writing reviews on theatre plays, that alone show you that they actually made an attempt to do a different kind of film than we are used to see. The Critic tries to give us different perspective from the eyes of a theatre critic while we also get a glimpse of how he deals with people who disagree with his reviews. I can only imagine how professional critics wil be treated sometimes just because they didn´t like a theatre play, a musical or a film. I think this film does a really good job capturing both the audience opinion while we clearly see where critic Jimmie Eskine stand and he doesn´t like being silenced for his opinion. But this film also dives in how it was being gay in the 1930´s when this was considered to be criminal. Just imagine not being able to show openly who you truly love in public without being seen as disgusting. This is a very important detail that this film show in a realistic way while also showing that it´s ok for 2 men to love each other. Just because someone is gay doesn´t make them bad people, sometimes they have bigger hearts than you can imagine. The acting from legendary actor Ian McKellen is outstanding and his portrait of the critic Jimmie and the character becomes very fascinating with his strong personality. Much of the dialogue scenes from Ian lands so smoothly in this film that it feels like you can listen to him talking for hours. The twist later on in this film that Jimmie might not be such a nice man after all definetely makes the storyline more interesting. Actress Gemma Artertori ( who is worth checking out in The King´s Man ) gives a lovely performance as theatre actor Nina and i do feel she have great chemistry with the main character. The Critic may not only give us a powerful view into the world of a famous critic but also the flaws that even a critic may carry within himself. Director Anand Tucker have without a doubt given us one of the better films released this year. The Critic is a must see for us who appreciate true quality films.

Rating: DDDD

Kill ´Em All 2

There was a time in history when action films on VHS was a big hit at the VHS rental stores. You would usually see the big muscles and big guns on the VHS cover and you already knew this was not going to be appreciated by extreme feminists. This was during the time when it was ok to make masculine action movies without being ashamed about it. I used to rent a lot of action films back in those days and i would especially look at action films with Michael Dudikoff, David Bradley, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Billy Blanks, Jackie Chan, Brandon Lee and i even enjoyed the 1991 action film Stone Cold with Brian Bosworth, Lance Henriksen and William Forsythe. If i wanted more martial arts action combined i could trust martial arts actor Billy Blanks to deliver a good time. Is every action film he did in the 80´s and 90´s really good? No, but in general i think he managed to deliver solid martial art films that was made for fans of this specific genre. For example the 1993 sci fi action martial art film TC 2000 is a fun cheesy action film about the future, talking environment issues while people kick ass future style. In this film you also find martial art actors such as Jalal Merhi, Matthias Hues and of course Bloodsport actor Bolo Yeung incuded. Since i mentioned Bloodsport the 1988 martial art classic, there are so many great films to choose between with legendary martial arts action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. No matter if you love Kickboxer, Cyborg, Lionheart, Double Impact or Universal Soldier, even until this day i watch all of his classics every year. Since the early 2000´s Van Damme have released most of his films straight to DVD and blu ray except for a couple of titles who did get cinema releases in certain countries. Some of you might remember the 2017 action film Kill ´Em All? Well here we have a sequel that no one expected ( at least not me ) to the original film. Being a true fan of Van Damme is this his best film in many years or is Kill ´Em All 2 one of his worst films since the 2002 action film Derailed?

7 years have passed since Phillip ( Jean-Claude Van Damme ) survived the hospital shoot out and is now returning to his home village in Slovenia with his daughter Vanessa ( Jacqueline Fernandez ). A gangster criminal under the name of Vlad Petrovic ( Andrei Lenart ) have been looking for Phillip since he killed his brother. He manage to locate Phillip and want him dead, this is a fight that can only lead to death.

I don´t demand much from a low budget action film. All i am asking for is some fun action scenes, some fun fighting scenes and the main character should be developed enough to work with the plot. In the case of Kill ´Em All 2 i can honestly say this has to be the laziest character development i have seen in one of Van Damme´s films. If you remember even in films like Cyborg or Nowhere To Run you at least had a character where Van Damme matched well, even though we all know his acting wasn´t always fantastic. Van Damme´s character Phillip have no personality at all, he basically just talk and give different facial expressions but without any passion. This is such a shame because we all remember that he can make great characteers such as Lyon in his classic Lionhheart. Im not saying you have to reach the same level as his true classic films because i understand he is older and more limited what he can do, but i know he can act if he wants to. And this is where i feel like Van Damme doesn´t go in fully hearted into this role, yes he does some of the fighting scenes but only limited to what he is able to do at his age. What i mean by fully hearted i would have liked him to show his more dramatic side since i know he has to adjust to where he is in life at this moment. A few fighting scenes are ok but you see his stunt double´s face several times during certain fight scenes and i feel they should have filmed in a different angle so you don´t see the stunt double´s face. What about the plot itself? Very basic action standard and that´s ok i don´t have a problem with it. I have to mention the performance of actress Jacqueline Fernandez as the character Vanessa. I am sure she is a lovely woman in real life but her performance in this film is terrible, no other way to say it. Legendary actor Peter Stormare is in this film but far too little, he should have been in a much bigger role. The few positive notes is probably some of the action scenes looks ok as well as some fight scenes. Other than that i can´t say much more positive about Kill ´Em All 2, it´s a very generic forgettable action film that we have seen so many times before. Director Valeri Milev did direct the really funny action film Bullets Of Justice in 2019 so he can do great films in this genre. Unfortunately it feels like he didn´t feel very motivated making this sequel and it shows. Not a terrible action and actually better than the original film but very easy to forget and too predictable.

Rating: DD