'Goregoyles 2' has something for all horror fans

Goregoyles 2 (2007)
Starring: Marco Calliari, Sebastien Croteau, Martin Dubriell, Eric Therrien, and Chantrel Petrin ("Clean" segment); John Muggleton, Tara MacKenzie, Ryan Greenacre, Brett Kelly, and Mark Singleton ("The Walkers" segment); Eric Therrien, Isabelle Stephen, and Sylvain Dinelle (Host segments)
Directors: Alexandre Michaud and Nigel Finlayson
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

"Goregoyles 2" is Canadian director/producer Alexandre Michaud's follow-up to "Goregoyles: First Cut", and, like its predecessor, it's an anthology film.

While there's nothing that quite reaches the high-points of the best parts of the original "Goregoyles", there's also nothing here that's as mind-crushingly awful as the original's low-points. The quality level is consistent across all the parts that make up this package.

Another noteworthy thing here is that the directors responsible for the content here obviously have a sense of how to make a low-budget film. In the case of Michaud, he knows that when making a splatter-fest (which is the best way to describe his contribution here), the budget needs to be spent on making the blood and guts look good.. but he also knows that he doesn't have the money (or maybe even access to the technical know-how) to make truly complicated gore effects look good, so he knows to not let the camera dwell upon them. Even better, neither film overreaches the limitations of the modest budgets they were made within. That alone makes the efforts praiseworthy, and it shows that Michaud and Miles Finlayson understand how to work with limited budgets. That puts them in a class that 90 percent of horror filmmakers out should aspire to being in... and that 90 percent would be well-served to use the work here as a model for their own.

"Goregoyles 2" consists of two short features and introductory host segments. The DVD I screened also contained an interview with directors Michaud and Finlayson. I'll address each part in turn, assign a rating to each, which in the end averages out to the Seven-star rating I've given the entire package.

First, the host segments. Like in Michaud's first anthology film, each part of "Goregoyles" is introduced by a Crypt Keeper-like host. Here it's Uncle Vicious (Therrien), and he offers general comments on each upcoming film while showing off his sadistic sexual tendencies. These are servicable, if tacky, bits of film, although I liked the wittier, more informative introductions from the original "Goregoyles". The best part here was the "Farewell from Uncle Vicious" segment where Therrien (joined by Michaud and the boom-mike operator) demolish the set while Isabelle Stephen go-go dances topless in the background to blaring hard rock. I only wish the other segments had been so amusing. Still, they were okay, so the host segments get a rating of Six Stars.

The first film in the package is "Clean". It's a strange, gory picture that stars Marco Calliari as Crane, a brutal murderer who has hooked up with other sexual psychopaths through an Internet chat room, and has been invited to their once-a-year, face-to-face gathering. Like the rest of them, he's there for the beer and brutal slayings... but he has a different sort of victims in mind than his fellow "hobbyists." The hunters become the hunted as Crane sets out to wipe the slate clean.

Although "Clean" is the sort of movie I usually give low marks to (if I bother reviewing it at all)--it's full of horrible violence and gore, hateful characters, and utterly humorless--I actually like this one. Unlike the ever-growing wave of movies that feature violence and brutality for no reason other than to feature violence and brutality (all the various "Saw" imitators), "Clean" doesn't attempt to make the violence look sexy, nor does it attempt to entertain the viewer with it. Here, the violence is presented as horrible and ugly, and anyone but people like the characters who have gathered to watch a female captive (Petrin) to be tortured to death will almost certainly have to avert their eyes as it unfolds on screen. (I certainly couldn't watch as Joe--played with perfect hideouslness by Sebastien Croteau--sliced the poor girl with a razorblade and then poured salt and Tabasco sauce into her open wounds.)

The people who commit the heinous acts aren't at all glamorous or witty... they are utterly repulsive, reprehensible and boorish, including our "hero", Crane. I thought "Clean" is an excellent response to the wave of "torture porn" films that will, hopefully, soon crest, crash on the shore, and retreat; it's well past the time for another fad to take hold in the horror genre. Well-paced and well-acted, I give this film a Six Star rating.

The second film presented is "The Walkers". It tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Walker (Greenacre and MacKenzie), a sociopathic married couple and would-be "Bonnie and Clyde" who get lost in a trackless Canadian forest along with two police officers (Muggleton and Kelly) who are pursuing them. The four of them spend a week in the wilderness, struggling to survive, until stress and fear drives all of them mad.

"The Walkers" is the best part of "Goregoyles 2". It's a smart horror movie that's imbued with a sense of oppression, dispair and growing anxiety throughout, and which is driven by a well-written script and some good acting on the part of the featured players. John Muggleton is particularly good as the jaded cop who finds himself stripped of a very important last hope while attempting to find his way out of the forest.

The violence in this film is sparse, so gorehounds who grooved on the level of splatter and guts that was featured in "Clean" may be dissapointed in "The Walkers". However, what violence that we do get is shocking and impactful, so those who like their horror movies with more substance than gore will appreciate this second feature far more than the first. In fact, "Goregoyles 2" covers both ends of the horror movie spectrum under one banner, ranging from a nearly pure blood-and-guts splatter-fest to an almost violence-free psychological horror film. "The Walkers" gets Seven Stars, and I hope to come across other work by Miles Finlayson in the future.

Finally, the DVD contains a discussion between directors Miles Finlayson and Alexandre Michaud as they kill a few beers. Like the interviews on the original "Goregoyles" DVD, this is an interesting bit of film that gives the viewer insight into the process of not only making the film at hand, but also revisits "Goregoyle: First Cut" and Michaud's notorious underground film "Urban Flesh". It's something that aspiring filmmakers in particular would do well to watch. This "DVD Extra" gets a Six Star rating as well.

With the range that is covered genre-wise in "Goregoyles 2", I think any horror fan will find something to like here. And I particuarly recommend this anthology film for those horror fans out there who think they can make their own movie. Goregoyles 2 Directors: Alexandre Michaud and Miles Finlayson.

'Prey for the Beast' is not worth digesting

Prey for the Beast (2008)
Starring: Ray Besharah, Lisa Aitken, Mark Courneyea, Brett Kelly, Anastasia Kimmett, Amanda Leigh, Sonia Myers, Jodi Pittman, and Lenard Blackburn
Director: Brett Kelly
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Visitors to a remote corner of Canada's grand wilderness are stalked and killed by a cunning monster with mysterious powers. Two groups of campers--one consisting of all-male Beautiful People and one all-female Beautiful People--join forces in order to survive.

"Prey for the Beast" features a great creature. I often knock low-buget horror films like this because they include monsters that look cheap and goofy instead of impressive and scary.That's not the case here. The monster in this film is very made, its attacks are convincing, and it holds up nicely to the extended shots that its featured in. It's a rareity among films at this production level, and I congratulate Kelly and his special effects team of Ralph Gethings (who did the gore effects and make-up) and Matt Ficner (who built the monster suit) for excelling in this area.


The script for the film is also pretty decent. Its characters are a bit on the generic side for the most part, but its got some nice concepts and a climax is well-paced. It also gives the creature a suite of unexpected powers, such as the ability to animate the corpses of victims it doesn't fully consume and a venom that causes paranoia and hallucinations in those who survive its attack. One is also left with the impression that the creature has the ability to teleport itself from place to place and turn invisible at will, but I don't think that was intended by the filmmakers. Rather, I think the creature's amazing ability to stand unseen directly behind its intended victims is a reflection of the Ed Wood Problem as it is manifested in "Prey for the Beast".

"The Ed Wood Problem", so named because it was an ever-present elements in the movies and written by Edward D. Wood Jr., is what occurs when the script calls for a certain kind of location, the actors behave and deliver their line as if they're in that location, but even the most unobservant viewer can recognize that what's on the screen and what the actors are describing or reacting to are two different things. In an Ed Wood picture, this problem would typically manifest itself through characters commenting on how fancy or opulent a room was while standing on a set that made a flophouse look luxurious.

In "Prey for the Beast", the Ed Wood Problem has a script that calls for a wilderness far removed from civilization, a deep, dark forest that is hard to access and in which human feet rarely tread. What we have seems more like a place that's no more than 100 yards from the visitor's center of a national forest or large city park. (The Problem starts maniesting early in the fllm with the film's mail title credits running over stock footage of a mountainous forest and wild giver, intercut cut with four of our soon-to-be-beast-prey charaters pulling across a placid lake in a rowboat; by none of the characters possessing any camping gear worth noting; and by the survivors of the beast attack reaching a road, a shack, and ultimately a picnic area, within no more than half a day's worth of hiking.)

The setting for the film doesn't feel as remote and isolated as it needs to, and this is a major strike against any real suspense and terror being generated as the film unfolds. It also leads to seeral eye-rolling moments of unintentional hilarity when the monster is lurking a mere two-three feet away from its victims, yet they do not see it. This is because the action is supposedly taking place in thick, old-growth forest and not among the thin forest the actors are actually performing in. It keeps the viewer from taking the film seriously and it keeps the film from having any real impact, despite the effective creature design and well-done gore effects.

Actiing that is more suited for stage than film on the part of most of the cast, and illogical behavior on the part of several characters (because if they didn't do something stupid, the monster wouldn't have a chance to kill them) also serves as a drag on the overall level of enjoyment derived from watching the film. The only castmembers who didn't have me cringing at some of their line-readings was director Brett Kelly, Anastasia Kimmet, and Lisa Aitken.

If you're a fan of low-budget monster movies, "Prey for the Beast" is worth checking out for its well-done monster. The rest of the movie is fairly mediocre. There are a couple of jolts here and there, but even at its scant running of just over an hour it feels over-long and there are more than point where you'll wish for the pace to picked up a bit.