REEL EVIL/WHAT REALLY FRIGHTENS YOU? A GRISLY DOUBLE BILL OF HORROR FILM REVIEWS FROM '88 FILMS.' REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
REEL EVIL. (2012) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY DANNY DRAVEN. STARRING JESSICA MORRIS, KAIWI LYMAN, JEFFREY ADLER, MICHAEL CLINE AND SANDRA HINOJOSA.
WHAT REALLY FRIGHTENS YOU? (2009) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RICHARD W. HAINES. STARRING IAN TOMASCHIK, JENNIFER SORIKA, POSTELL PRINGLE AND CHRIS KEVENEY.
These are a couple of supernatural horror movie crackers from the label known as 88 FILMS. WHAT REALLY FRIGHTENS YOU? is only seventy or so minutes long, which I love. Other film-makers, take note! Sometimes the best things really do come in small packages.
I also love that it centres around a genuine olde-style horror magazine called GHASTLY HORROR, and the man who's writing an article for said magazine. With so many publications online nowadays, it's refreshing to see an actual physical magazine made out of paper (paaaaa-per...?) that you can touch and smell and hold in your hands and keep forever. Yes, I'm turned on by books and such, goddammit...!
'Ghost Writer' is the literary pseudonym of the writer for GHASTLY HORROR. He wanders around New York with a camcorder and asks random people about what really scares 'em for this article he's doing. For doing this one little thing, he gives 'em each a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks? I want a hundred bucks! I wish I could earn a hundred bucks that easily instead of having to... Oh, well, never mind about that...
The three people whose fears he ends up using for the article are Chloe, a gorgeous Asian college student and bookstore assistant, Drew, a handsome black lawyer who's come a long way since his impoverished origins in Hell's Kitchen, and Brett, a horny young computer analyst.
I'm not going to tell you what their individual fears are because that'd be spoiling it for you, but I can tell you that a very strange thing happens to each of the three after the publication of the article. Their worst fears suddenly start coming true, in a very vivid and terrifying way. Is it this 'Ghost Writer' fellow's fault? It's got to be, innit, but something tells me he's going to be a hard man to track down...
There are some great spooky images in this film, along with some really cheesy but fun images, a totally mad dénoument in a brilliant horror-style location and some jolly nice tits as well. Result, eh? I give it top marks for the inclusion of GHASTLY HORROR magazine and the aforementioned lovely boobies. By the way, I love the way American people pronounce the word 'horror.' We here in Ireland say 'horr-or.' They pronounce it 'hore-or!' I love it.
REEL EVIL is a found-footage horror film set in that grand old staple of scary movies, the old haunted/abandoned insane asylum. That's possibly my favourite location for a found-footage horror flick.
All the misery and mayhem that would naturally have occurred in places like that makes them ripe for general paranormal phenomena and Electronic Voice Phenomenon (that's dead people talking to you from beyond the grave!) and suchlike.
The people who lived and died there would have many frightening stories of woe to tell, and who better to unload these onto than the dopey film crew who oh-so-fondly imagine that it would be a good idea to wander around the asylum unescorted, getting more and more lost at every turn and finding themselves more deeply enmeshed in horror and evil with every door they open...? My word, that was a long and dramatic sentence...!
I love this film even more than WHAT REALLY FRIGHTENS YOU? Three aspiring young film- makers, Kennedy, Cory and James, are hired to do a behind-the-scenes or 'making of' documentary for a mainstream horror film that's being made in the old abandoned asylum.
Kennedy is their gorgeous blonde lady boss, but tall muscular Cory the Cowardly Cameraman is the real beautiful blonde here. He's got the most magnificent physique you'll ever see, and at the start of the film he has an hilarious sex-scene with a woman with- get this- natural breasts...!
I'm so bored with seeing hard, round far-apart fake tits in horror movies that look like they've been strapped on to the woman's chest. These boobs in the funny sex-scene are not only as real as Death itself and a doormat full of credit-card bills on a January morning, but they're bouncy, malleable and springy and they're also very talented in that they can kind of do tricks.
It's just so goddamned refreshing to see real tits on a girl in a film. Mind you, this film also has its share of fake boobies so, whatever your preference, there's something in this film for everyone, haha.
The mounting sense of horror as our intrepid trio descend alone, with minimal lighting, into the bowels of the huge sprawling mental hospital is just so well done that it makes this possibly the best one of these found-footage films I've seen yet.
The hospital has so many corridors and darkened rooms in it, with scary writing scribbled all over the walls in human blood and abandoned offices with patient files containing the most shocking personal information about long-dead patients just lying sadly around for anyone to read.
When the trio find themselves going round in circles in an attempt to get out, that's when the former inmates of the hospital start showing up. Mind you, I still say that the scariest bits of the film happen when the three film-makers are exploring the hospital in the near-dark and they keep picking up strange noises or 'audio' in places where they know there shouldn't be any.
I don't know anyone who wouldn't be weirded-out by the phenomenon of a dead person talking. That bit will put the willies up you big-time.
By the way, hands up who thinks that anyone who has sex in the morgue of an abandoned mental hospital deserves everything nasty that's coming to 'em? That looks like all of us. Right, then, good. I told them not to do that, the stupid f***ing movie people...!
They never listen to me, though. I'm just another insignificant viewer shouting at the screen, haha. Bitch might just have had it coming anyway, she was a real nice piece of work. Anyway, enjoy these films. They're top-notch horror. You can take it from me.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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