exetercavern Reviews

The Sacrifice Game (2023)

Enjoyable occult slasher!

[8/10 · 6 January 2024]

I enjoyed this recent Shudder release, a film that while hokey and basic, still manages to capture the nostalgic essence of 70s and 80s slasher films.

Directed by Jenn Wexler, and set convincingly in 1971, the the events of The Sacrifice Game take place in an old boarding school where two lonely girls and their 20-something teacher find themselves spending Christmas.

Just when they're about to have their turkey supper, a gang of violent fugitives turn up at their door a la Krug Stillo and his cohorts from Last House On The Left (1974). They intend to perform a ritual to raise a demon but that inevitably goes wrong, and the tables are turned.

The strength of the film lies not only in its homage to the slasher genre but also in the compelling performances of its cast. The "good guys", Clara, Stephanie and Miss Rose evoke sympathy, while the antagonists, a group of Satanic Manson Family types, elicits genuine disdain.

All-in-all, a successful addition to the realm of Christmas horror films.

I Came By (2022)

Incoherent story without a protagonist

[4/10 · 1 September 2022]

This show is a bit of a mess really. It's a story without a clear protagonist.

To begin with it follows a really unlikeable 23 year old graffiti artist called Toby who's tag is 'I Came By'.

He acts like a disaffected teenager, vandalising rich peoples houses to some how get back at the system. He lives with his Social Worker mother who he's angry with because she won't yet give him the inheritance his father left him. Toby is an unsympathetic character who needs to grow up (and lose the annoying London/Jamaican Ali G accent while he's doing it).

After Toby breaks into a serial killer's house he's murdered, and his ashes are flushed down the toilet. At this point I was firmly on the side of the killer.

His mother picks up the role of protagonist, and begins following the serial killer (who happens to be an influential ex-judge.) Then she's killed and probably follows Toby down the toilet.

In the last 20 minutes Toby's best mate breaks into the serial killer's house and knocks the guy out, leaving him gaffa-taped for the police to arrest. He leaves the tag 'I Came By' on the wall. The arresting officer looks down at the killer smugly, but she's going to have a hard time getting a conviction because all the victims have long ago been flushed away!

There are references to immigrants and their distrust of the police, and a couple of characters who don't want to let down their hard working asian parents. Very cliched. Their connection to the story is tenuous... and seems to be trying to convey themes of how difficult it is to be a person of colour in modern Britain.

Great photography, but the story is pretty incoherent.

Reacher (2022– )

This show will be a smash hit

[10/10 · 4 February 2022]

This is so good. It's really got the tone of Lee Child's books right. It seems obvious now that these Reacher stories need the space of a tv series as opposed to a 90 minute film. I'm excited to think of all the other great Reacher books they could adapt. This could run for long time - Lee Child deserves it. He's an awesome writer.

Exit Speed (2008)

Amusing B-Movie with a good cast.

[6/10 · 27 November 2020]

It's Christmas Eve and a coachful of strangers are run off the road by a gang of mute Nomads, who are dressed up like Toecutter's gang from Mad Max. This is an easy watch, and pretty amusing for a low-budget B-movie. The cast has a number of good actors, including Fred Ward from Tremors and Lea Thompson from Back To The Future as a 'soccer mom' who turns into a sword-wielding avenging angel when her new-found friends are threatened. Some of the acting is atrocious, but I kind of liked that. Would certainly watch again!

The Beach House (II) (2019)

An unnerving horror film with a Lovecraftian theme

[6/10 · 23 July 2020]

I found this weird little film pretty unnerving.

Essentially it's a riff on Lovecraft's short horror story The Colour Out Of Space (1927), where a crashed meteorite poisons the air, driving animals and people mad, and deforming them into into grotesque shapes. In The Beach House (2019) the poison comes from a fissure deep at the bottom of the ocean, but the hallucinogenic spores it releases have the same effect of rapidly people and driving them insane as HPL's cosmic source.

Part of the reason the film intrigued me was its (probably accidental) parallel with Covid. (I had a bad time with the virus, and many of the affects descried in the film, such as experiencing weird scents, having hallucinations and difficulty breathing were very familiar)

I realise I'm in a minority, but I did like this film. The abrupt ending didn't bother me... and I thought the acting was fairly engaging. Certainly worth giving a go.

Disturbing the Peace (2020)

A Poundland The Last Stand

[3/10 · 26 May 2020]

An unbelievably atrocious movie...that I actually quite liked! Full of unintentional laugh-out-loud moments everything about this movie is bad, including Guy Pearce. All the female leads for some reason resemble the Bride of Wildenstein, and the non-menacing 'bikers' who tear about town like extras in a student film look embarrassed enough to get you thinking thatthey know what a bad director they have fallen victim to. My highlights include the 'subplot' about a guy who's running for mayor repeatedly threatening to fire Guy Pearce for no reason whatsoever. The hilarious payoff at the end shows Pearce walking down the street in a massive oversized ten gallon hat, tipping the brim to various non entities (like small-town sheriffs obviously do). Guess what - he's now the Mayor! In short if you liked The Last Stand you'll ... hate Disturbing The Peace.

Black Summer (2019–2021)

CHAOTIC, FAST-MOVING ZOMBIE FILM

[7/10 · 13 April 2019]

All in all I liked Black Summer. It captured the chaos that I think would ensue under those circumstances. Where TWD will show an 11 year old girl being able to push a stick through the skull of a 'walker', Black Summer depicts normal people's inability to cope with the onslaught. For example, I liked the way 5 adults were unable to stop two infected by bashing them over the head with various kitchen implements. Skull bone it pretty tough! Other reviewers are annoyed at the characters' 'stupidity', like how they can't just jump in to the nearest car and hot-wire it. In reality how many people can do that? Same thing with taking 'head-shots' on moving targets. The one episode I didn't like was the weird 'Lord Of The Flies' school kids gone feral one. That jarred with the reality they were trying to create. It made me think that one series is enough - but I really enjoyed what I saw.

Godless (2017)

Fantastic Old School Western

[9/10 · 26 November 2017]

This is the best thing I've seen on Netflix for a while. Although it follows various traditional Western tropes, the show has enough originality to add something new to the genre. The story follows outlaw Frank Griffin in his brutal hunt for Roy Goode, who he considers betrayed him after a raid on a payroll train, in a town called Creede. Godless portrays a bleak and violent picture of the Mid-West in the 1880s, but also manages to bring real emotion to the lives of the characters it follows. The point of focus is a town called La Belle, which is populated mainly by women after a tragedy killed most of the menfolk - and it is amongst the women that many of the strongest characters are drawn, particularly Mary Agnes played by Merrit Weaver (Walking Dead) and Downton Abbeys' Suzanne Dockery, who plays widow Alice Fletcher. Also adding to the general atmosphere of Godless is the rousing music by Carlos Rafael Rivera. A great six-part mini series from Netflix that sits alongside Lonsesome Dove (1989) and Centennial (1978) as a must-watch TV Western.

FESTED: A Journey to Fest 7 (2010)

Punk rock from the mid-2000s

[6/10 · 13 November 2016]

An accurate depiction of the mid 2000s punk scene following US band Dirty Money and UK band OK pilot to Fest 2008. Fest is a punk gathering that takes place in the college town of Jacksonville, organised by the folks at Gainesville punk label No Idea, that attracts punks from around the world. These were the good old days before the Subprime recession kicked in and the flow of DIY punk bands coming from the US to the UK (and vice versa) dried up. This film is a super low-budget production that picks up the essence of fun and community surrounding the DIY punk scene with all the requisite drinking games, horsing around and dangerously packed shows taking place in tiny venues. It isn't anywhere as good as The Decline Of Western Civilisation (1981) but if you know any of these bands its a good laugh.

Spindoe (1968)

An excellent slice British crime drama

[8/10 · 9 April 2015]

When former gangland boss Alec Spindoe (Ray McAnally) is released from prison after doing a 5-year stretch he soon finds out that his business partner Eddie Edwards (Anthony Bate) has stolen not only his former empire, but also his money and his wife. Spindoe (1968) is written by Robin Chapman and features the eponymous villain from an earlier Chapman drama The Fellows (1967), and reminded me a bit of the work of gritty Northern writer Ted Lewis, whose novel Jack Returns Home (1970) was adapted by Lewis into the classic British gangster movie Get Carter (1971).

The story charts Spindoe's return to power, and we soon see him regaining his position as boss of South London. This unfortunately puts him at odds with the reptilian boss of the North of the City, Henry Mackleson (Richard Hurndall), who has designs on the whole shebang. There is a theatricality to Chapman's writing, particularly some of the dialogue, that gives the story a surreal edge, and this contrasts brilliantly well with the gritty realism of the violence. Chapman followed Spindoe with another amazing British gangster series, the ultra violent Big Breadwinner Hog (1969), which, like Spindoe, was directed by Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

Both Spindoe and Big Breadwinner Hog are available on DVD from Network. (8/10)