Author: Joel Fisher

After losing her husband and living alone for around two and a half years, Sue Ferguson tells her daughter Nancye that she would like to start dating again. Knowing that her mother has always been generally very happy and sociable she thinks this is perfectly fine and introduces her mother to online dating. A concept that Sue had obviously never had an experience of before, but before she knows it, a man contacts her and they arrange a date.

Jim is 87 and looking for love and believes that age is nothing but a number, they seem to have a lot in common as well and as soon as they meet they get on like a house on fire. Not bad considering Sue is heading towards her 100^th birthday.

Sue is a heart-warming documentary written and directed by Nancye Ferguson about her mother and how she still has a zest for life when most of us can’t even imagine living that long. Sue is a warm person with a sense of humour and a positive attitude and so it’s no wonder that her daughter wanted to pay tribute to her in this way.

It also makes for a very interesting story and shows us all that even at Sue’s age, it’s never too late to find somebody to spend the rest of your life with.

Jim is also shown to be full of the joys of life and perhaps it reminds us that a life well lived is its own reward and that being happy can bring good things. Sue and Jim act like they’re honeymooners and the joy in their relationship shines through to the audience and will give a lift to anybody who thinks that their life is not going their way.

It also shows that people of that age don’t need to be patronised or depicted as people who have come to the end of their lives and the documentary reflects that. Sue and Jim are just shown as they are without any intrusive narrative from a well-meaning daughter. Instead, Sue will make you smile and remind you that love has no age limit.

Bugs can be downright scary if you think about it. The things that they do to survive aren’t something that we would consider normal, doing things like feeding off of people, crawling around in dirt and annoying us when the lights are turned out are just unacceptable. They can get in your hair, up your nose and even in your teeth if you’re not especially careful and can make your life a living hell.

Bugs: A Trilogy is a horror anthology directed by Simone Kisiel and written by Alexandra Grunberg which focusses on three women all being taken in by something disturbing in their lives.

Firstly, there’s a babysitter who’s looking after her friend’s little boy. There’s something particularly creepy about him, as there is about all children in horror movies, and she just can’t seem to please him. However, her methods may lead to something more supernatural. Then there’s a woman who comes to her doctor and is brushed off by being given some pills. She’s clearly not being listened to, and things only get worse when she goes home and experiences really bad stomach cramps.

Finally, a woman feels like she’s being haunted in her own home and only she can sense it. Her roommate seems peppy and friendly enough, but she’s also the kind to brush off little things and her mother is so self-absorbed and overbearing, so it’s up to hear to deal with her inner demons.

Things get much worse in all three stories and it’s the bugs that tie them together.

A low budget horror anthology with a single director and writer is rather unique these days as usually they’re designed to showcase a variety of voices. Director Kisiel does indeed manage to navigate her way around the different styles of horror, from body horror, supernatural and psychological, but there’s just something missing to tie it all up coherently.

Although bugs can be nasty and revolting, it seems that they’re an after thought and something that would be a good hook for a title. However, with a little more time and a little more thought there could have been a more intriguing overall story.

Magna (Gillian Broderick) misses her husband dearly, despite the fact that he was a mass murderer, she always saw the good side of him and would do anything to get him back. So, she begins a satanic ritual to raise him from the dead.

Unfortunately, something goes very wrong and the spirit of her dead husband inhabits a Christmas tree which has now has his soul and the eagerness to spill blood. Dismayed by the mistake that she made, Magna and her boyfriend, Alex (Nikolai Leon) go on the hunt to stop him before anything bad happens.

Meanwhile, Faith (Sarah Alexandra Marks) is depressed because she’s single and doesn’t know where she’s going in her life. On top of that it’s Christmas and there’s nothing worse than being alone during the holidays.

However, Faith does have her friends to make her feel better and they’re determined to help her have the best Christmas ever. If it wasn’t for the murderous fir tree making its way towards them, then Faith may just get what she wanted.

The Killing Tree is the feature directorial debut of Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who perhaps will be better known once his hotly anticipated feature, Winne the Pooh: Blood and Honey, is released next year.

By the time of writing, he may already have a slew of movies under his belt too, because there seems to be a plan to take a lot of public domain characters and use them in his future features. So, The Killing Tree is a taste of what’s to come. Unfortunately, despite the promising set up for The Killing Tree, it doesn’t quite live up to the expectations that an audience may have and that’s mainly due to budget and script.

On the one hand the tongue in cheek opening may raise a smile and there’s nothing funnier than a Christmas tree holding a map trying to decide where to go. However, on the other hand the human characters are so dull that it makes the otherwise inanimate Christmas tree into the best actor in the movie. On paper The Killing Tree sounds like a great idea, but in reality it should have been made by more experienced filmmakers to release its full potential.

The Area 51 Incident: Review – Jenny (Megan Purvis) and Trent (Scott Jeffrey) are interning at the infamous Area 51. They’re sat down and briefed as you would imagine, but they are told that everything they heard about Area 51 is absolutely true.

However, whilst having a tour of the facility, Jenny, Trent and some others are left to survive when an alien comes through a portal and starts killing people.

The Area 51 Incident is a science fiction horror directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield in what could be his directorial debut, depending on whether you see this or The Killing Tree first. That’s because both are released on the same day (November 1^st). There may also be a lot of added pressure for Frake-Waterfield and his team as the world’s media turned to them when it was announced that they have used Winnie the Pooh as a murderous character in a movie due out next year.

This means that those eager to see the children’s classic turned into a mass murderer will be judging Frake-Waterfield and his team for their work until then.

The problem is that it seems that although the director has tried to make a few movies to showcase what they can do in terms of story, script and special effects, audiences will be judging them based on their heightened expectations. Something that perhaps wouldn’t have happened if there had been more movies able to be released more frequently. Unfortunately, this only shows up Frake-Waterfield and his team for the inexperienced filmmakers that they are because The Area 51 Incident couldn’t be more generic.

Having a giant monster being unleashed and causing havoc while people try to survive and grow closer may remind people of 2014’s Godzilla. The biggest criticism there was that you barely saw the titular monster and the same can be said for The Area 51 Incident, although on a considerably smaller budget.

Although that may be understandable, it’s the script that lets it down. Which is a shame because the cast doing a better job than The Killing Tree, although that’s not saying much, but even the actors can’t save the generic plot and neatly wrapped up ending.

Demons At Dawn: Review

Mickey Santini (Ben Silver) is a hitman on the verge of retirement. However, after a meeting with Carlos Rudinski (John Altman), he’s pulled in for one last job. Unfortunately, the job doesn’t seem to be up for negotiation either, because he’s the only person who can do it and if he can’t then his life is on the line.

All he has to do is to go to a house in the countryside and finish off the unfortunate business that has happened there. Although when Mickey gets there, he meets Charlotte (Amber Doig-Thorne) and realises that he’s not been told the whole truth. In fact, what’s really been happening is that there is a demonic making human sacrifices in the woods and if he’s not careful, Mickey could be their next victim.

Demons at Dawn is a British crime thriller turned supernatural horror story directed by Randy Kent and written by Chris Sanders. Clearly taking inspiration from British crime thrillers, Demons at Dawn sets up its premise which is quite original for the horror genre, but it doesn’t seem to able to let it go.

This means that most of the movie could be seen as a gangster movie without anything particularly scary happening.

In fact, it goes on for so long that those who are led to believe that they are going to watch a horror movie may be bored by the time anything supernatural occurs. Also, those fans of horror may be equally disappointed if they stuck it out, only to be met with a visual effects budget of an average episode of forgotten 70’s children’s show, Rentaghost.

Ultimately this means that perhaps due to a lack of budget and/or time, the human characters are stuck in a room having conversations about things that have happened off screen. This doesn’t come across all that well, but it’s made even worse by the special effects scenes which may come across as funnier than intended.

Unfortunately, Demons at Dawn may not be what anybody really wanted, but you may be ok if you understand how the budget and inexperience of the cast may have affected the production.