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So I’m not typically an alien kind of person, meaning they’re not my favorite monster. But if you like hoards of faceless, raging extraterrestrial then watch Attack the Block. If the title sounds kind of indie its because this is a British film. The producers of Shaun of the Dead have added another hit in the horror genre; combining teenage thugs with the other worldly. You could only guess that a freaking alien would be the end of a gang of troublesome hoodlums but you’d be wrong.

Taking place through the span of a single evening, a possibly apocalyptic event seems to localize on a single block of this Britain town. After mugging a nurse, the group of young thieves witnesses the first creature to fall from the sky. After a quick attack, the gang kills it, and brings it to the safest place they can think of, hoping to get some semblance of an answer as to what it is. The rest of the movie is the battle between human and inhuman, generously filled with plenty of action and triumph.

The particularly scary moments of the movie lie in scenes of great tension, when the characters are most vulnerable, or, when you just know someone’s about to get ripped to shreds. I would say the gore level is a 5 out of 10, but it fits the subtext of the movie so less is better. If you’re a fan of the unique British dialogue, as I am, you’ll very much enjoy the awesome phrases that we don’t get to usually hear. Trust. Overall, I’m rating Attack the Block a 4.5 out of 5. Highly recommended. Even if it’s not terrifying.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD0gm7dHKKc

Related posts:

1. Attack The Block Review
2. Attack The Block
3. Attack the Block DVD Release Date

HorrorMovies.ca

The first Hostel was a movie I surprisingly enjoyed. It was gory, creative, and ballsy for a theatrical release. I admired Eli Roth’s attempt to (along with Saw) bring forth a very dark and incredibly gory approach to death in mainstream horror. The sequel was a disappointment for me, as it was simply more of the same, but at least the gore was amped up and we were given a little backstory on the society that runs these torture chambers. Now, four years later, we’re given a low-grade straight-to-DVD sequel that’s nothing more than an obvious cash-in on the Hostel name.

Eli Roth takes a step back and lets his friend Scott Spiegel (Intruder, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money) take the reigns, which I wasn’t entirely against since the last two horror fares from Spiegel offered some clever camera tricks that I had hoped to see him revisit with this sequel. Sadly that’s not the case here, as aside from a lot of gratuitous shots of the camera following someone’s ass (for whatever reason), it’s all a pretty straight forward directorial effort.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

For me, horror on the big-screen this year did basically nothing for me. Sure there was a few, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like any of the big-budget horror flicks as I did enjoy a few. So here I bring to you my top ten horror films of 2011 in no particular order, which are my personal favorites this year.

10) I Spit on Your Grave - I Spit on Your Grave retells the horrific tale of writer Jennifer Hills, who takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer’s presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally deprived locals who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson.

This one was released in the UK on January 21st of this year, unlike the States and i have to say, it actually surprised me by how much I enjoyed it. I went in wanting to hate it and came out fully appreciating that sometimes remakes can work.

9) Cold Fish - When Syamoto’s teenage daughter is caught stealing, a generous middle-aged man helps resolve the situation. The man and his wife offer to have Syamoto’s troublesome daughter work at their fish store. Syamoto soon discovers the horrific truth of the seemingly perfect couple.

Sion Sono has hit gold yet again and has hit all the marks, well for me at least. It was an awesome ride which I will enjoy for years to come.

#8) Little Deaths - Well-to-do home owners Richard and Victoria pose as religious do-gooders and lure homeless girls to their luxurious home. Apartment dwellers Claire and Pete invigorate their love life with a role-playing game with increasingly hazy boundaries. Jen and Frank, once prostitute and pimp, are now trying to make a go of things as an exclusive couple. Little Deaths are little games that sometimes lead to the big one.

As a sucker for anthology films this one sucked me right in, and it is a wonderful collection of twisted stories which deals with pain and pleasure.

7) The Woman - Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers, Deadwood) is a small town court officer living a quiet, seemingly normal life in the heart of Maine with his beloved family. That is, until Chris discovers a feral woman roaming the woods and makes it the family’s project to civilise her. But as the family’s methods of forcing civility upon the woman become ever more extreme, the perverse bonds uniting them will be cast into violent relief.

A brutal film that yet again blew me away. The film has caused a slew of controversy when it played at film festivals prompting one audience member to make this statement; “The Woman should be burned and never seen again.” That statement actually made me hunt this one down.

6) Hobo With a Shotgun - A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city’s crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how – with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.

During its run it has had its share of defectors. Either you love it or you hate me. Me? I freaking love Hobo With a Shotgun, all the way from its over-the-top violence to the somewhat surprising score. I fell in love instantly.

5) Bedevilled - Hae-won is a beautiful single woman in her thirties who works at a bank in the Seoul city. She leads a busy life until she becomes a witness to an attempted murder case, and at the same time, things get complicated at work. When things get out of hand she is forced to take a vacation so she heads for ‘Moodo’, a small undeveloped island, where she had once visited to see her grandparents. And where she had befriended a girl named Bok-nam who stills writes to Hae-won asking her to visit despite the fact that Hae-won never bothered to reply. Upon arriving at the island, Hae-won is shocked to see everyone treating Bok-nam like a slave.

Jang Cheol-soo’s Bedevilled is one film you need to check out if you haven’t already. If you loved I Saw the Devil, give this one a look. I thought it was badass. But that’s just my opinion.

4) Beware - The town of Shady Grove holds many dark secrets. Amongst them is the sadistic tale of “Shane”, a boy who was tortured and chained to a tree as a youngster. Legend has it that he wanders the woods in search of revenge. But no proof of his existence has ever been discovered… until now.

While not perfect, the film is still pretty damn killer. Jason Daly has given me everything I want from a slasher flick, a demented killer, boobs and buckets of the red stuff. It’s a fun popcorn flick.

3) Wound - WOUND is a Supernatural Horror Film that explores the dark worlds of mental illness, incest, revenge and death. We follow Tanya as she searches for the mother she has never met – a mother (Susan) who gave her up for dead after being abused by her own father who remains stuck in her present life.

Yet another controversial film has made my list. Wound is David Blyth’s return to the horro genre after several years absence and what a return. This of course will not be everyone’s cup of tea as it deals with mental illness and incest, which goes deeper than you might expect.

2) Rage - A thirty something man who lives in a suburb just outside of Portland says goodbye to his beautiful and loving wife and heads into town. There he unintentionally provokes the wrath of a mysterious motorcyclist. The confrontation between the two, sets in motion a day long battle. Beginning in the form of harmless taunts then quickly escalating into something more serious and then into something unimaginable.

Made on literally a shoe-string budget, Christopher R. Witherspoon has unleashed an utterly badass thriller in the vein of Steven Spielberg’s Duel. The film has been laying wast to the festival circuit and currently doesn’t have distribution, but keep your eyes peeled, this is one to keep your eye on. Just wait till the last act!

1) I Saw The Devil - I SAW THE DEVIL is a shockingly violent and stunningly accomplished tale of murder and revenge from Korean genre master KIM Jee-woon (The Good, The Bad, The Weird and A Tale of Two Sisters). Oldboy’s CHOI Min-sik plays Kyung-chul, a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. The embodiment of pure evil, he has committed horrifying and senselessly cruel serial murders on defenseless victims, successfully eluding capture by the police.

Revenge has never been so sweet! I Saw The Devil is not only in my top 10 of 2011, but I’m pretty sure it has a place in my top 20 of all time, it is that good. Kim Jee-Woon made me stand up and take notice, check it out if you haven’t already.

Now that you have read my list be sure to go and vote in our Community Vote for the Best Horror of 2011

Related posts:

1. You Voted: 15 Best Horror Films of 2011 So Far
2. Most Watched Horror Films, May 2011
3. Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011 Tickets & Films

HorrorMovies.ca

Director David R. Ellis has moved from Snakes on a Plane to sharks in a lake, as proven with Shark Night 3D – a movie that was actually considered getting released as "Untitled 3D Shark Thriller." As if the silly title would’ve made any difference to this already absurd movie anyway.

The pic starts off like thousands of other genre efforts before it, as we follow a standard group of young friends on their way to a secluded cabin at a small-town lake. After naturally mixing it up with the unfriendly locals, they enjoy a little booze, music, and fun in the sun (as much as the PG-13 rating would allow anyway). It’s all good times until one of’em gets their arm chomped off by a shark. The movie immediately kicks into survival mode, but we soon learn that it’s not just the sharks that the group have to worry about, but also the crazed locals too.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

Chillerama is definitely not a film for everyone, as it’s essentially an homage to the late cheesy drive-in movies of the 50′s and 60′s. I’ve personally never had the chance to go to a drive-in theater, so the whole experience is a bit lost with me. A collaboration of four different directors, the pic attempts to deliver absurd, schlock and grindhouse-esque features that you normally wouldn’t see in cinema now-a-days. It works in certain aspects, but falls flat in others, and unfortunately due to a couple underwhelming segments that make up half the flick, it ends up a somewhat disappointing effort.

"Zom-B-Movie" Joe Lynch
6/10
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

The Thing has had a long development process, as it was originally announced as a remake, then later said to be a sequel that would air on the SyFy channel as a two-part four-hour miniseries. Luckily it became neither, as we were eventually given a prequel and "re-imagining" of the series instead. Despite being a prequel, the filmmakers opted to keep the title as The Thing, which has proven to confuse movie-goers into thinking it’s a remake of John Carpenter’s masterpiece. Going in with doubts, to my surprise, the movie actually turned out to be a fairly entertaining watch.

The flick is set before the events of Carpenter’s version, following a young American Paleontologist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whose hired by a team of Norwegian scientists to help examine the remains of a possible alien life form that was frozen in the deep reaches of Antarctica. While the group celebrates their amazing discovery, the creature escapes the block of ice and it’s not long before fear and paranoia overtake the remaining crew.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

After tackling a few Saw sequels, Repo! The Genetic Opera and the Mother’s Day remake, writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman now attempts to make his mark in the religious horror sub-genre with 11-11-11, a film loosely based on the 11-11 phenomenon, which many believe to be linked to key events in history and others a sign of mystical powers or a supernatural presence. I wanted to like this film as it offers an interesting storyline and seemed to have potential in this sea of unoriginal genre projects, but it just failed to deliver in many aspects, and those familiar with similarly-themed efforts will find its climax to be incredibly predictable.

The story focuses on Joseph Crone, a writer who recently lost his wife and child after one of his crazed fans sets fire to his home. As if matters couldn’t get any worse, Joseph gets into a car wreck, but despite his suicidal urges to end his own existence, somehow makes it out with barely a scratch. Immediately following the accident, he receives a call from Spain about his dying father, compelling the writer to make a trip out there in hopes of seeing the man before his passing.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

If it’s Halloween, it must be…Paranormal Activity? That’s right, children. Society has lopped off Saw’s head, and Paranormal Activity’s has grown in its place. Even though the original was completely overhyped and scores a giant goose egg on the rewatchability scale, I respected it for its minimalist, grass roots approach. The second one lacked all of the first’s low budget charm, as does this latest installment. It’s safe to say that after only three movies, this franchise has grown staler than Jason Voorhees’ rotting, re-animated corpse.

Though you were an idiot if you actually thought it was real, one redeeming aspect about the original film was its attempt at authenticity.  It looked, sounded, and felt like it was shot by just a guy and his camera. I was intrigued by the fact that Part 3 took place in 1988 in the golden age of VHS, hoping that it would have some fun with the good ol’ static and tracking. Alas those hopes were dashed about two minutes in to the film.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

It’s been six years since the last addition to the Hellraiser franchise and it honestly should’ve remained that way, because Revelations is simply a disgrace to the Hellraiser name. This film was only made on the fact that the studio was under contract to put forth a new Hellraiser flick in a certain amount of time, otherwise, they would’ve lost the rights to the remake, which is currently still having issues moving forward due to the lack of a proper script (no surprise).

How bad is it when Pinhead himself, Doug Bradley, wanted no part in this atrocity? The man has done every single addition to the series until this! Even Clive Barker was openly disgusted with the film and proclaimed via Twitter how this installment had nothing to do with him. Budgeted at an estimated 0k, the production moved on anyway, and yes, our suspicions were correct — this is every bit as horrible as you’d expect from such a rushed and pointless effort.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99

Milla Jovovich stars as a school teacher that witnesses a murder while walking home one night and is nearly killed by the serial killer known as "Tearjerk Jack." She barely makes it out alive after falling off a bridge and hitting her head along the way. Once she regains consciousness, it’s revealed that she’s now suffering a neurological disorder known as "face-blindness" (Prosopagnosia), where she has the inability to recognize people’s faces. Meaning she sees a stranger each time she looks at someone, whether they’re a friend or family member . This obviously poses an issue when she attempts to identify the killer for the police.
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UHM – Upcoming Horror Movies – Your upcoming horror movies resource since June 24th ’99