RAW REVIEW: SLIMY LITTLE BASTARDS

Sometimes a title just grabs you, am I right?

And the title for Dave Parker's microbudget, Eighties-style creature feature anthology was more than enough to get itself booked in for a stay at the House.

Could Slimy Little Bastards possibly live up to my expectations?

Read on...

SLIMY LITTLE BASTARDS (2015)

Dir: Dave Parker

Starring: Brandon Salkil, Keith Voigt Jr., Jeremy Ryan, Dustin Mills, Erin R. Ryan, Dave Parker, Jake Benson, Matthew Hudson, Aaron Anthony

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here, but continue at your own risk.

Jack (Voigt) experiences some car trouble and strolls up to a front door for assistance. It is opened by the hammily horrific Curator (Salkil, channeling his inner Vincent Price) who invites him in.

Within The Curator's home Jack notices several slimy little beasties, beasts from his host's macabre menagerie.

As Jack discovers each one, The Curator tells the creepy story of its origin: 

ORGANIC SHIT — a very odd gentlemen (Jeremy Ryan) discovers some even odder 'matter' in the garbage disposal unit in his sink. He calls his building's maintenance man (prolific indie horror filmmaker Mills) to investigate.

But are they prepared for the thing in the pipes?

BRAIN BUSTERS — Sandy (Erin R. Ryan) is a depressed agoraphobic whose personal issues are destroying her life. As her desperation mounts, her physician Dr Lance Archake (Mills) prescribes her a new medicine to overcome her problems. However, unbeknownst to her, each time the medicine is administered it cause all of her deepest, darkest feelings to manifest as a murderous ball of ooze... one that seeks to eliminate the source of Sandy's dismay.

THE CRUSTIES — The longest of the segments, this follows a group of nerdy friends who love nothing more than to get a little stoned, drink a few beers, shoot the breeze and play some Dungeons & Dragons (even if they're not all entirely down with the rules).

However, when the host 's ill-tempered roommate construction worker Walter (director Parker) returns home, unwell from inadvertently consuming a predatory biohazard capable of causing hallucinations, the gang's game turns deadly serious...

THE BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): If you take nothing else from this movie, you have to admire Parker's guts and resourcefulness for bringing an honest to goodness creature feature to life with limited means and funding. 

Ok, the rubbery beasties don't exactly rival the effects work from John Carpenter's The Thing, but they are a pretty great achievement considering the modest budget from which they sprang.

What works best in their favour (and that of the entire movie) is that realism is eschewed for fun. This is a truly entertaining viewing experience, a labour of love for the filmmakers with plenty of humour and homage scattered throughout.

The stories improve as the film progresses, which means the film just gets better as it goes on.

Organic Shit boasts a pretty thin storyline but is anchored by a couple of superb performances. As a fun introduction to the pleasures to come, it certainly works by whetting the appetite.

Arguably the finest acting work comes in Brain Busters, with the wonderfully talented Erin R. Ryan an absolute joy to behold. She's the most experienced thespian among the cast and this shows in her tremendous performance. 

The mind-bending storyline gives her plenty to sink her teeth into and she more than delivers. Brain Busters boasts the most ambitious plot and deserves to be applauded for injecting some smarts into the film.

As impressive as the plot and Ryan are,  that isn't to say that her co-star, indie auteur Mills, proves a letdown this side of the camera. He's not bad at all as Ryan's shady doctor in Brain Busters, but he is even better in the film's The Crusties storyline.
The longest of the segments in Slimy Little Bastards, The Crusties was also my favourite, a funny and thoroughly entertaining 'geek' comedy that felt not unlike one of Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse flicks by way of Ghoulies. In somewhat of a departure for most anthology stories, this section gives its plot some time, giving us a while with the loveable group of nerds and their very funny interactions and quotable dialogue before shifting the every-bit-as-entertaining monster moments.

The humour continues here as our hopeless unprepared 'heroes' attempt to take the fight to the small band of hallucination-causing beasties that invades the apartment.

Matt's (Hudson) and Dustin's (Mills) lacklustre attempts to replicate the action-movie stock 'tooling up' scene is an especially hilarious highlight in a story that I would have loved to see expanded upon.

This section is probably most enjoyable because you can feel the real-life friendship and camaraderie between the cast/crew which makes their performances believable and, more importantly, fun.

Less believable but just as fun, the highlight of the wraparound section is Salkil's wonderfully OTT camp performance as The Curator. Chewing the scenery as if his very life depended upon it, the familiar pencil-thin moustache makes it obvious that the incomparable Vincent Price served as the infuence for the character. Salkil's work isn't subtle, but that is kind of the whole point and it really works in the context of this film. The plot itself for the wraparound segment isn't exactly the most surprising, but it serves its purpose and offers up some nice laughs along the way.

Director Parker isn't looking for an Oscar nomination here — he wants to create a fun little film that will entertain. His shooting is certainly up to the task, and the film actually looks pretty decent considering its miniscule budget (a mere $1000!). What's more Slimy Little Bastards also boasts a killer score that is far more polished than you might expect. It manages to combine Seventies-style rock with some decidedly Eighties-style synth and drum loops that really capture the feel of some classic feel good horror flicks of yesteryear. Wonderful work, gentlemen!

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): Let's cut straight to the chase shall we? Slimy Little Bastards is almost achingly indie.

The tiny budget affects just about every aspect of the film in one way or another — the visuals can be a little rough around the edges, at times the sound mix becomes rather garbled and many of the cast are clearly more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

I know that time constraints must certainly have played a major role in the filmmaking process, but there are a few scenes that could probably have done with another take.

However, these problems are far from constant and only arise intermittently. In fact, I think it's a testament to the talent of Parker and his team that the technical issues crop up so rarely.

Even so, if you're accustomed to the super polished production values of your average Michael Bay Summer blockbuster, this is your warning that Slimy Little Bastards is an entirely different picture.

Elsewhere, as with any anthology, some segments are certainly stronger than others. Most notably, the wraparound story and Organic Shit are definitely weaker than Brain Busters and especially The Crusties. I'm not saying that these parts are poor, just that they don't reach the impressive storytelling of Brain Busters or the side-splitting hilarity of The Crusties.

The fact is that both feel a little underdeveloped, which will come as no surprise when considering the movie's extremely lean 66-minute runtime. Some viewers may feel a little aggrieved at paying to see a movie than clocks in at under 70 minutes, but I think it's refreshing to see a movie that tells its story and gets out of there without wearing out its welcome.

THE VERDICT: While Slimy Little Bastards isn't exactly the most polished offering I've reviewed here at the House, it is certainly one of the most fun. 

Parker manages to eke every last bit of quality out of his humble means and the sheer fun, pride and determination on display from everybody involved in the making of the movie is contagious and can't help but win over even the most hardened of critics.

It has its shortcomings, but in the end it boasts plenty of humour and some great creatures. Plus it's called Slimy Little Bastards! How can you possibly turn it down?
Luckily, you can buy Slimy Little Bastards from Amazon here. Alternatively, check out the movie's official Facebook page for more news on how you can buy the film direct from the filmmakers. Give it a Like while you're there too, Parker and his team deserve the recognition for their sterling efforts.

If you haven’t already, do please check out and like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House@HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay. 

RAW REVIEW: DEATHGASM

Do you remember the days before The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and The Hobbit, when Peter Jackson wasn't a maker of blockbuster megahits but instead was known for hilarious and gorestained genre titles such as Bad Taste and (one of my favourite films) Braindead/Dead Alive.

These films cracked along at a frantic and exhilarating pace, barely pausing long enough to give you time to react to the rapid fire succession of gags and mutilations.

There has been little like those films in some time — until now.

A smash at Film4 FrightFest this year, Jason Lei Howden's Deathgasm has had audiences buzzing over its mixture of Heavy Metal and classic Kiwi Splatter.

Would it strike a chord with me? Or will it hit a bum note?

Read on...

DEATHGASM (2015)

Dir: Jason Lei Howden

Starring: Milo Cawthorne, James Blake, Kimberley Crossman, Sam Berkley, Daniel Cresswell, Nick Hoskins-Smith, Tim Foley, Delaney Tabron, Colin Moy, Jodie Rimmer, Stephen Ure, Cameron Rhodes

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here, but continue at your own risk.

Tormented teen Brodie (Cawthorne) finds his life upturned when his widowed mother has a breakdown and he is packed off live with his god fearing aunt and uncle (Rimmer and Moy) in a sleepy small town.

Already a keen metal head, Brodie's niche tastes make him something of an outcast, whose only friends are fellow misfits and Dungeons & Dragons nerds Dion (Berkley) and Giles (Cresswell). This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that his bullying jock cousin David (Hoskins Smith) insists on making his life a misery, regularly dishing out beatings with his pack of cronies, even though his sweet and charming girlfriend Medina (Crossman) doesn't approve of his mean-spirited antics.
However, Brodie's life changes when he meets fellow metal aficionado (and baddest guy in town) Zakk (Blake). Bonding over their love of metal, the two decide to form their own band (eventually settling on the sidesplitting name Deathgasm) along with Dion and Giles.
The band aren't great, but at least they find something that gets them noticed — and one of the people that starts to pay attention to them is Medina.
When this provokes another violent altercation with David, Brodie meets up with Zakk and agrees to break into the house of reclusive former rocker Rikki Daggers (Ure). Within his home they find some arcane and ancient sheet music that they pocket — shortly before the violent henchmen of the sinister Vadin (Foley) arrive, thwarting their efforts to seize the manuscript for their shadowy leader. 
When the band play this mysterious Black Hymn they awaken an ancient evil, the demon Aeloth the Blind One, causing the townsfolk to become possessed by his dark and corrupting spirit. The demon's victims start to mutilate themselves and anybody unfortunate enough to cross their paths — leaving the band forced to fight for survival against their possessed assailants, Vadin's cult-like followers, including poisonous witch Shanna (Tabron) and find a way to stop Aeloth from manifesting and destroying the world...

THE BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): I'll cut straight to the chase — I loved Deathgasm! It's an absolute riot, filled with humour, a great Metal soundtrack and lots and lots of gore. The story, by Howden, both celebrates and revels in the inherent silliness of smalltown Metalheads, without ever feeling like it's taking shots at the subject. Howden is obviously a big metal fan, distinguishing between the different types and packing the soundtrack with proper creditable metal tracks and artists such as Pathology, Axeslasher, Razorwyre, Beastwars, The Lair of the Minotaur, Elm Street and Bulletbelt. What's more, there are certain frames and images that will be very familiar to those of you who've seen your share of Metal album covers.

However, the humour isn't entirely reliant on familiarity with the subject material, it's as much about the posturing but ultimately hopeless characters. 

The dialogue and set-pieces are guaranteed to tickle and the talented cast deliver with aplomb. Cawthorne is superb as our sympathetic hero, managing to be just nerdy and frustrated at life enough to amuse but not so much as to annoy or rob the character of his likeability. You can't help but root for him to succeed, even if you find yourself doubting his ability to. He's a talented guy and I can't wait to see more of him.
Equally talented and portraying an entirely different kind of loser is Blake's Zakk. If Brodie is a guy who knows he's meant for better things but doesn't know how to make them happen, Zakk is a guy who thinks he's beating a world without realising that the joke's on him. He's a real rebel without a clue, whose selfishness and tough guy posturing makes for some brilliant gags at his own expense. Zakk should be a deplorable character but the likeable and handsome young Blake makes him thoroughly entertaining. If Cawthorne is this film's Luke Skywalker, Blake is definitely Deathgasm's Han Solo.
Outside of this central pair, the delightful Crossman makes for a fine love interest, plus she gets some moments of serious ass-kickery that are sure to win her plenty of fans. With acting chops to match her good looks, I think it's safe to say that she is going to go a very long way.
The very funny Berkley and Cresswell add excellent support (and both show marvellous comic timing), while Foley and Tabron make for a suitably OTT pair of villains. Foley's unhinged Vadin is especially hilarious, his twitching insanity and volatile, seething rage the source of a couple of very funny moments. Elsewhere Hoskins Smith's David gives us a more everyday sort of villain, the popular bully whose comeuppance you eagerly await. He's genuinely hateable, so credit must go to this very talented young man for hitting his target.

The rest of the cast also impress and it's wonderful to see Housebound's ultra-talented character actor Rhodes in an extended cameo as a similar uptight authority figure whose character arc takes a decidedly dark and messy detour. 

Yet as good as the cast and the humour are, there is one key aspect of Deathgasm that I know will win it plenty of fans — the truly spectacular gore and viscera on display. The effects work is FAR better than the film's modest budget might have you believe, with a jaw-dropping amount of severed limbs, flying entrails and gushing blood on display. Think the most splattery moments of The Evil Dead films and you're not even halfway there. With awesome practical effects from the skilled team of Storm McCracken and Tim Wells, plus some extremely cool visual effects work from a team that includes Darwin Go and Michael A Miller (who both count the epic The Hobbit among their film credits).

Gorehounds, this one is for you.

It isn't just the splatter that looks great, as director Howden uses clever framing and frenetic camerawork to amp up the hyperkinetic deranged energy that crackles throughout every scene.

With a great young cast, gallons of viscera and a skilled and assured director whose careful guidance makes sure that both look as great as they possibly can, Deathgasm is a feast for the eyes of horror fans everywhere.

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): In all honesty, there's very little to find fault with in Deathgasm, so expect this section to be pretty short.

In case you hadn't guessed, humour and splatter are to the fore in the film, so if you're going in expecting any serious scares or frights, this is not that kind of horror film. However, it is a loud, fun and funny 'beer-and-pizza' film that I imagine will be great to watch with a group of appreciative friends. 

I suppose one problem that does crop up is that (outside of our three leads), there's not much of an arc for most of the characters. Howden has created plenty of very good characters, unfortunately the story doesn't do all of them justice. I'm sure plenty of viewers will praise this as the writer showing focus and a lean script, I just wish we could have had a little more time with some of the other interesting inhabitants of the rock 'n' roll ravaged small town.

Finally, even though the spectacular splatter effects could cause you to forget that this is a movie with a much lower budget than your average polished, big studio horror flick, the fact remains that it is a little rough around the edges in places. Personally, I thought this added to its indie, Metal charm, but if you prize production values over all else, Deathgasm is not for you.

THE VERDICT: In case you missed it earlier — I LOVED Deathgasm! It's Spinal Tap meets The Evil Dead and is one of the funniest, bloodiest horror flicks I've seen in a long, long time. It's a rare thing to find a film that you KNOW is going to become a cult favourite in years to come, but I guarantee that is what Howden has produced. Check it out as soon as you can, this is a horror-comedy that really rocks! 

Deathgasm will be released on DVD/Bluray on 29 February 2016. Preorder it here.
In the meantime, you can check out the film's official Facebook page here. Give it a Like while you're there too, show some love!

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

RAW REVIEW: SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Confession time — long before I was a horror blogger, read by literally thousands of discerning genre fans around the globe each and every week, I was a Cub Scout. That's right: dib dib dib, badges and woggles, the full shebang.

It wasn't to last forever, but for a few years I was a part of camping trips, good deeds for the day and even more badges.

Which probably means I was a little more susceptible to the charms of Christopher Landon's Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse than most. 

A zomcom that pits scouts vs the ravenous undead — surely this was worthy of a badge of merit? Or would it be best dead and buried?

Read on...

SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE (2015)

Dir: Christopher Landon

Starring: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan, Sarah Dumont, David Koechner, Halston Sage, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Lucas Gage, Niki Koss, Cloris Leachman

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here but continue at your own risk. 

Ben (Sheridan) and Carter (Miller) are two teenagers who are part of a tiny and unpopular scout troop, led by Scout Leader Rogers (Anchorman's Koechner). Long term members, they have lost interest in the scouts, instead finding themselves more into the opposite sex than wreath knots and sheepshanks.

Ben has a serious unrequited crush on Carter's older sister Kendall (Sage) while his buddy has plenty of lust towards her vacuous best pal Chloe (Koss).

But — despite their misgivings — the two boys have felt unable to quit the troop due to their friendship with earnest fellow scout Augie (Morgan) who has thrown himself into scouting since the death of his father a couple of years ago.
However, on the day that the three boys are set to go camping to celebrate Augie earning his coveted Condor patch, the other two receive an invite to the secret seniors party that Kendall and her friends will be attending that evening.
Jubilant, Ben and Carter stop on the way to the camp to obtain alcohol and, after Ben helps stunning strip club cocktail waitress Denise (Dumont), she fetches beer for them.
That evening things don't go exactly to plan when first Scout Leader Rogers doesn't show (having fallen victim to a shuffling undead attacker, an infected doctor from a nearby research laboratory), then Augie catches the pair attempting to ditch him. Heartbroken, he tells them to leave.
Ben and Carter head into town, but on the way they notice that the intimidating bouncer has abandoned his post outside the strip club and Carter demands that they sneak in. However, soon their youthful exuberance turns to terror when they come face to face with a ravenous zombie stripper and the undead bouncer.
Meanwhile, Augie heads to Scout Leader Rogers' Dolly Parton themed home and comes face to ghoulish face with his former idol.
As a deadly virus rips through the town, all three boys find their survival skills pushed to the limit. Can the town be saved? Will Ben and Carter reach the party? And will the boys mend their friendship before it's too late? 

BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): In case you couldn't tell, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is the latest entry in the growing zomcom sub-genre. Now, unlike some horror comedies that forget to actually be funny, Scouts Guide… is absolutely hilarious.
From the opening scene in which a bungling cleaner mimes and dirty dances along to Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora's Black Widow to some sidesplitting dialogue and some truly horrible grossout humour, this is a film that brings the laughs by the bucketload. The aforementioned Azalea/Ora collaboration isn't the only great musical choice in the film — an impromptu rendition of Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time and a particularly hard-hitting confrontation with a relentless zombie assailant playing out to the strains of Dolly Parton's country classic 9 to 5 both had me in stitches.
Having a veteran funnyman in the form of Koechner certainly doesn't harm the film's comedy-cred, but it's not just the Anchorman star who delivers. The three young leads are all excellent, each capturing the essence of the character (Sheridan's Ben is the nice, decent one, Miller's Carter is the smart-mouthed horn dog, while Morgan's Augie is the overly earnest, nerdy one). Sheridan is a good-looking young man and should have a long and successful career, while Miller shows excellent comic timing, reminding me a lot of long-term Kevin Smith collaborator Jason Lee. Morgan also brings some some excellent comedy delivery and could well prove a break out star in comedy flicks. Watch this space.
Each is absolutely superb and all three are given their moments to shine, especially during the macho, gung-ho splatterfest climax of the film.
What's more, the striking Dumont shows acting chops to match her good-looks as she delivers a strong performance as the no-nonsense ass-kicker that saves the boys' skins on a regular basis.
Elsewhere the wonderful Leachman ratchets up the laughs with a memorable turn as Carter's crotchety cat-lady neighbour.

Of course the cast are only as funny as the material they're given to work with and, thankfully, the writing team of director Landon, Emi Mochizuki and Carrie Evans, scripting Lona Williams' story, do a fantastic job, coming up with some disgustingly delightful set pieces. That so many of these involve body parts, of both living and undead characters, may well divide audiences. Personally, I found the scene in which Ben is forced to desperately cling onto something decidedly unsavoury to avoid falling into a horde of zombies side-splittingly funny.

However, the script isn't so shallow as to just give us a series of jokes — it also boasts some nice moments of real heart, most notably in the scenes exploring the friendship between the three male leads. Sure, there's a little romance along the way, but ultimately it is the bond between Ben, Carter and Augie that provides the real emotional hook for the film.

That Landon and his cinematographer Brandon Trost keeps the footage of the boys' antics so eye-popping throughout is a real bonus, especially during the aforementioned kick-ass climactic battle (in which the lads show off some seriously impressive home-made zombie-slaughtering hardware) and some surprisingly frenetic chase sequences as the fast-moving zombies (yep, we get running zombies again) mercilessly pursue our heroes. This is an area in which many horror-comedies fall short, but Scouts Guide... keeps the action exciting and, as is so important in the post Walking Dead zombie-movie landscape, the effects work is top notch, giving us some memorably horrific zombies along the way, plus provides some moments of stunning gore that would make the great Tom Savini proud. I'm loathe to spoil the finest moments here but suffice to say one zombie with a particularly gruesome facial injury at the heart of a hideous (and hilarious) set piece late on in the movie was especially memorable, while the reveal that the virus is not limited to humans provides another couple of great moments.

Credit really must go to Jared Baker's crew, the folks at Atomic Fiction and everybody else who delivered the fantastic effects of the film. Well done!

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): Like so many comedies, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is only as strong as its humour. There are few decisions as subjective as whether something is funny. With as many gags as this one spits at us, it's only natural that some may miss the mark, but for the most part, I found the humour was spot on.

I found the film highly amusing, but I know there are plenty of people out there who will find the gratuitous T&A, toilet humour and bawdier elements puerile. If you enjoyed the likes of American Pie, you'll probably dig this. If however, gross-out teen comedies à la the Farrelly Brothers are not your cup of tea, you may want to keep on walking.

Also, if you've come here expecting serious scares (and God alone knows why you'd pick a film with this title if that really were the case), despite some visceral moments in the film, this is a zomcom that focuses firmly on laughs rather than frights. Be warned.

From a story standpoint, I've heard some complaints about a lack of definitive rules, with the zombies' behaviour changing to match the necessities of the story. Personally, I don't take too much offence at this — when a film is setting out to make me laugh, I'm prepared to cut it a little slack when it comes to universe-building. Once again, I point out that we have running zombies, so if you're one of the disgruntled few who wants their undead shuffling and decidedly brainless, Scouts Guides' zombies are likely to cause a little disappointment, even with the awesome make-up used to bring them to, erm, unlife.
Elsewhere, as much as I loved Dumont's role in the film, ultimately her character is kind of extraneous to proceedings. She doesn't really have much of an arc and, a couple of key interventions at desperate times aside, she doesn't play a huge role in the script. Although sometimes characters can exist just to add a little flavour to a film, and in this regard she more than does the job. Recently cast members Miller, Morgan and Dumont hinted that there are ideas for a sequel should this film be a success, so here's hoping that if that should prove the case, Dumont will be given something a little weightier to do.
Finally, Koechner (arguably the funniest man in the film) plays a character who loses his power of speech far too early on. When you have a man who has such a wonderful talent for delivering gags, it seems a bit daft to do this, but thankfully, he shows an equally fun aptitude for physical comedy, so it's not a total waste.

THE VERDICT: Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is great fun — think Superbad meets Zombieland. It's a film that will appeal to anybody who doesn't take their horror-comedies too seriously and combines a talented cast with some superb visuals and plenty of laugh-out-loud gross-out humour. It may not quite hit the heights of zomcom classics like Shaun of the Dead and the aforementioned Zombieland, but it is still a fine movie and one that is well worth your time. It's already in US cinemas and will arrive on the big screen on this side of the pond this weekend. Check it out!

In the meantime, head over to the film's official Facebook page here. Why not give it a Like while you're there too?

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.

RAW REVIEW: THE FINAL GIRLS

It may not have been the first slasher movie, but Friday the 13th is certainly among the most influential films in the genre.
Without Sean Cunningham's seminal 1980 movie we wouldn't have had the wave of summer camp slaughter-fests that have come to epitomise slashers.
As a film that established so many of the 'rules' that meta-slashers such as Scream have popularised, it seems surprising to me that it's taken until now for a film like The Final Girls to hit our screens.
It's a rare thing for me to say this, but I'm going to implore you all now — if you have not yet seen the movie, PLEASE just buy/rent it straightaway and watch it totally blind. You're so much better served going in without a clue as to what it's about. Once you've seen that, come back and read this review. 

It'll still be here, I promise.

THE FINAL GIRLS (2015)

Dir: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Alexander Ludwig, Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, Nina Dobrev, Adam Devine, Angela Trimbur, Chloe Bridges, Tory N. Thompson, Lauren Gros, Dan B.Norris

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: Once again, if you've not seen the The Final Girls I urge you to check it out before reading on. I'll try not to spoil too much but continue at your own risk.

Max (Farmiga) is the teenage daughter of actress Amanda Cartwright (Akerman), a talented starlet who never quite broke out after her scene-stealing turn as Nancy in classic Eighties slasher movie Camp Bloodbath. Still, she has done a good job of raising her daughter as a single mother and the pair share an extremely close bond — until tragedy strikes one night and Amanda is killed in a car accident.

One year on and Max is getting by, thanks to the support of her friends, including feisty Gertie (Shawkat), and things look up when hunky classmate Chris (Ludwig) shows an interest.

However, when Gertie's film-dork stepbrother Duncan (Middleditch) learns who Max's mother was he pleads with her to attend a special cinema double-bill of Camp Bloodbath and its sequel.

At the cinema things take a turn for the worse when Chris's possessive ex Vicki (Dobrev) arrives, then it explodes into a full-grown catastrophe when a fire breaks out. 

Desperate to escape, Max and her friends tear a hole in the screen and flee... straight into the woods surrounding the fictional Camp Bluefinch, stalking grounds of Camp Bloodbath's masked psycho, Billy Murphy (Norris, who does a wonderful job of channeling Kane Hodder).

Initially — and understandably — confused, the group are soon enlightened when a camper van of teenage camp counsellors arrives and takes them to the camp. On the way they become familiar with horny jock Kurt (Devine), easy good-time girl Tina (Trimbur), token nice guy minority Blake (Thompson) and, of course, doomed inexperienced Nancy.

Max is blown away by this second chance to spend time with her mother and super-fan Duncan is absolutely delighted to be able to witness the events of his favourite movie first-hand, stating that they'll be fine as long as they follow tough final girl and chief counsellor Paula (Bridges).

But when it becomes clear that nobody is safe from the machete of Murphy, the group are forced to write their own story, trying to keep themselves and the original victims safe as they seek to reach the end credits alive.

Can they convince their stereotypical new friends to ditch the behaviour that equals instant death in a slasher movie? Will Max be able to keep her mother alive this time? And herself?

THE BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): Wow, I did not see The Final Girls coming. It's a fantastically clever and funny meta horror story, taking elements of both Scream and The Cabin in the Woods with lashings of Eighties nostalgia. This is one of the most unique plots I've seen in some time and really does play out as a love-letter to slasher movies — especially the ever-popular Friday the 13th.

The witty script, penned by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, combines so many elements — the most obvious being a straight up slasher movie, but it also adds elements of fish-out-of-water comedies (as our modern day and the Camp Bluefinch teens suffer a real culture shock in their interactions), satire (in which genre tropes are lovingly portrayed as irresistible universal truths), a regular teen comedy (Duncan and the acidic Vicki could have wandered straight in from the likes of Mean Girls or American Pie) and a surprisingly moving character driven drama.

Of course it is the nods to the genre that stand-out in the memory — characters hearing a familiar synthetic echo sound each time the hulking Murphy is nearby, certain phrases causing colour to drain from the world as the characters are propelled back in time in flashbacks, rock solid subtitles that our leads have to step over and hilariously realised slow motion in which puzzled would be victims can't understand why they're unable to run. What's more, cinematographer Elie Smolkin includes plenty of more subtle stylistic flourishes that utterly fit the film-making techniques of the mid Eighties while ensuring the modern day scenes look and feel as polished as any big studio release.

It's a rarity for somebody to take a concept and mine it for every single cliche and possible laugh, but director Strauss-Schulson hits every single target perfectly.

However, as thorough as he is with his deconstruction of the slasher genre, it never feels mean-spirited or as if this is a film that thinks it is above the subject matter. No, this is a loving, gentle homage, celebrating the tropes it skewers, willfully turning expectations on their heads by twisting and subverting these rules, especially when it comes to the surprisingly rich characters

And it really is the characters that are vital to the success of most of The Final Girl's plot elements.

It is the characterisation and the sterling cast that really drive the film along between its satirical set-pieces.

Each character has a clearly defined role in the plot, yet each is capable of surprising us at key moments in the plot — and many of them do. 

Perhaps the most straightforward is Farmiga's Max. A character whose whole existence is almost entirely defined by the traumatic event at the onset of the movie, her motivation is not just understandable, it's a built in cause for sympathy. Farmiga, who will be familiar to genre fans for her roles in TV series American Horror Story, is fantastic, using her naturally sad eyes as a perfect tool to establish the turmoil and grief at her character's heart. Her delivery is impeccable and she ably takes on her character's tougher side later in the film. It is her burgeoning relationship with Nancy that becomes the main focus of the film, more so than her blossoming romance with Chris or established bond with Gertie.

Thankfully, Akerman is also wonderful as the other part of this double-act. She runs with both sides of her dual-role. She impresses with her (admittedly brief) turn as Amanda, Max's ill-fated mother, where she is warm and heart-felt. She's a cool mum, the sort whose career proves both embarrassing and a source of admiration for her daughter. She's extremely likeable, even if she may be a little too youthful in her appearance to truly play an Eighties scream queen.

However, it's in her second role of Camp Bloodbath's Nancy that she really impresses. She's earnest, sweet, naive — a bookish girl ready to finally offer up her virginity, and with it her life.

Malin Akerman has stunning good looks, but because of this it feels as if people often overlook her acting talent. It's a shame because she is a very, very good actress and her work in The Final Girls is no exception.

The supporting cast are all very good, but special praise must go to the more colourful characters among their number.

Middleditch is great and shows some superb comic timing during his key scenes. He's a dork, but loveable with it, and he performs one of the very finest pratfalls I've seen in some time. 

Equally hilarious is the scene-stealing Devine who has at least half of the best lines in the film. Bringing lunkish, one-dimensional Eighties alpha-male Kurt to life with just enough tongue-in-cheek charm and (very deeply buried) sweetness to keep him entertaining, Devine's work is a riot. He is at the centre of some of the best scenes in the film, and he (along with Tina) are the ones with the most to learn from their latterday companions.

Speaking of Trimbur's Tina, she is also hilarious, literally twitching to get drunk and start cavorting nakedly, forcing our heroes to dress her in unwieldy layer upon unwieldy layer to protect her modesty and with it, her life.

Another hit among our ladies is the gorgeous Dobrev (of Vampire Diaries fame). A self-centred, high-maintenance bitch, Dobrev's flawless mean girl delivery shows comic timing that I haven't seen from her before. What's more, rather than remain a one-dimensional stereotype (like the joke characters of Camp Bloodbath) she's actually given a clearly defined arc and has a legitimately moving moment late on in the film.

This is possibly the most surprising element in a film that delights in providing plenty of unexpected twists and turns — among the stabs and sniggers it has plenty of heart too. Sure the laughs and in-jokes are what draw you in, but by the time the strains of Betty Davis Eyes starts to play during the climactic scene, it is the genuine emotional investment you've made in Max, Rachel and the other hapless victims of Billy Murphy that will keep your eyes riveted to the screen.

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): I've seen some negative reviews of The Final Girls, and universally, the main problem with each of them seems to be that the movie is too much comedy, not enough horror.
It's true that there are decidedly more laughs than screams, but it doesn't totally forget to include the slasher jolts we've come to know and love. Go in knowing it's laughs with some slasher horrror along the way rather than vice versa and you'll be ok.

On a similar note, the film was not R rated in the States, and lots of old-school slasher fans have bemoaned the lack of nudity and violent gore.

I understand where people are coming from, but do feel a need to point out the real paucity of naked flesh in the first Friday the 13th. Sure, certain characters are portrayed in such a way that they would almost certainly get naked in a mid-late Eighties slasher movie, but I for one don't think that bare boobs are the only difference between a good and a poor film.

As for blood, I'm in two minds here. I think some of the kills could have been more graphic, especially some of the later ones during the ill-fated attempt to trap Billy, but I'd argue that the car accident provides a spectacularly gruesome image, and there are other suitably bloody touches scattered throughout the film. Just a couple more really could have made the world of difference.

I've also heard some people pick on the hilarious Devine, claiming he doesn't have the look of an Eighties jock.

Ok, maybe he isn't as muscular as the genre's blonde-mulleted alpha males (such as The Burning's Glazer) but he carries the role with so much swaggering attitude that he TOTALLY pulls it off. 

On a final note, I found the ending a little predictable, but that's not the end of the world. Here's hoping that it means we can expect more from this series.

THE VERDICT: If you have even a passing interest in the classic slasher heyday of the 1980s, you NEED to see The Final Girls.

Even if you don't, but you fancy some laughs instead of straight-up scares, you really should check it out. Well-shot and acted, witty, moving and utterly hilarious, this love-letter to our genre is worthy of affection in its own right. It's absolutely fantastic. 

The Final Girls is available to buy here in the UK right now! Buy it at Amazon here.
Visit the film's official Facebook page for more information. Give it a Like while you're there too, share the love!

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.

RAW REVIEW: COOTIES

Who'd have thought that the young boy playing video games in Back to the Future Part II would later star in one of the most successful movie series of all time, then go on to establish some serious horror credentials?

Elijah Wood is obviously a fan of our beloved genre (his work in Franck Khalfoun's Maniac remake is one of the strongest horror performances of the last decade) so when I saw that he was set to star in horror-comedy Cooties with a who's who of comic talent, I was eager to catch the movie.

Would this flick hit the spot? Or is it one to avoid like the plague?

Read on...

COOTIES (2014)

Dir: Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion
Starring: Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, Jack McBrayer, Leigh Whannell, Nasim Pedrad, Ian Brennan, Jorge Garcia, Cooper Roth, Miles Elliot, Armani Jackson, Morgan Lily, Peter Kwong

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here but continue at your own risk.

Clint Hadson (Wood) is an aspiring novelist working on a frankly dire-sounding horror story, Keel Them All, about a possessed boat. However, to pay the bills he has taken work as a substitute teacher at Ft. Chicken Elementary School. Here he is reunited with former childhood sweetheart Lucy (Pill), but is distraught to discover that she is dating butch, alpha male PE teacher Wade (Wilson).
Upon starting work he is introduced to oddball Vice Principal Simms (Brennan) who is acting as head teacher and, high on a power trip, confiscates all of his staff's mobile phones.
However, this proves costly when a batch of contaminated chicken nuggets are delivered to the school that spreads a virus throughout the students, transforming them into violent, ravenous, flesh-eating ghouls. As the infection spreads a handful of surviving staff-members including Clint, Lucy, Wade, camp Tracy (McBrayer), abrupt and caustic Rebekkah (Pedrad) and socially inept science teacher Doug (Whannell) are forced to hole-up inside the school and try to formulate a plan of escape.
Meanwhile, outside the school a baked and tripping crossing guard, Rick (Lost's Garcia), is witnessing the events and REALLY struggling to keep his shit together.
Can Clint, Lucy and Wade overcome the tension of their romantic entanglements to fight together? Will the teachers escape the pre-pubescant horde? And can Clint overcome the various plot hurdles to complete Keel Them All?

THE BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): Let's cut straight to the chase Cooties is absolutely hilarious. You'd expect nothing less with this level of talent involved, but it really is worth reiterating. The script, written by stars Whannell and Brennan, along with Josh C. Waller, absolutely sparkles with wit and the cast are, without fail, awesome.
The jokes are effective and a couple of the recurring gags in particular are especially funny, but the bulk of the comedy comes from the excellent characterisation. A real ensemble piece, each character has their moment to impress, which must have played a key role in attracting this calibre of cast.
First to Wood, whose Clint is a quiet, likeable chap and arguably the biggest 'straight man', of the cast, mining most of his laughs from the interaction he has with the larger than life characters around him. That's not to say that Wood is anything less than entertaining — he's a fantastic actor and very funny in his own right (the Keel Them All stuff is side-splittingly funny to anybody who has ever had to face the realisation that the story they're writing is actually a pile of crap) and he provides the human heart of the story, especially through his relationship with the sweetly likeable Pill.
Pill is delightful as the group's permanently upbeat cheerleader and you can't help see how why Wood's clint would have fallen for her. Pill is chirpy and cheery but shows enough restraint to keep Lucy from becoming annoying and her superb comic timing ensures she never gets lost among the more out-there characters.
Which brings us to Wilson's monstrous Wade, a towering, glowering performance of such machismo that he damn near runs away with the whole film. He's given plenty to do and, despite initial appearances that he'll be the guy you love to hate who ends up going out in a gloriously bloody way, he actually gets you onside as the film progresses and has a couple of surprisingly emotional moments. He's a big guy and he throws his weight around in some set-pieces that cause plenty of inappropriate laughter — a man of his stature clotheslining 11-year-olds really shouldn't be as funny as it is. Plus nobody delivers a poorly conceived toughguy quip like Rainn Wilson when he's on form and here, dear readers, Mr Wilson is well and truly on form.
Speaking of the kids, they're all fantastic too — I especially liked the work of young Roth as Clint's brattish nemesis Patriot, while the uninfected Calvin (Armani) and Tamra (Lily) also impress with their screen time.
Elsewhere Whannell is also a real highlight, his oddness coming to the fore more and more with each scene — I especially enjoyed his character's obvious glee at getting to dissect and investigate the source of the disease and constantly asking the silent group to calm down. Whannell is a talented actor and his writing is obviously at an extremely high standard. Finally, the devilishly acidic Pedrad has some of the best lines in the film, while McBrayer's elastic features and extravagant character traits, while underdeveloped, also raise some laughs, as does the always fun Garcia, whose terrific work proves justification for his otherwise pretty meaningless sub-plot.
The plot veers from drama to comedy by way of some surprising horror moments and this lack of predictability really works in the film's favour. You're never quite sure whether the next scene will cause you to laugh or scream (sometimes it's both!) and the film balances its horror and comedy finely. And yes, while I've raved about the humour, Cooties manages a couple of effective scare and gore sequences. The opening sequence, during which we are shown the origin of the contaminated nuggets, is utterly stomach-turning, while the suspenseful stalking sequence involving a tricycle and a vent is seriously tense. Lyle Vincent's cinematography ensures the film always looks great while you're laughing so hard you pee your pants or filling them in another way through fright, while Thomas William Hallbauer's production design is full of lovely little touches that are well worth keeping your eyes peeled for.
There's some great gore in the film, plus a truly spectacular gag late on, that shows precisely how talented the Fractured FX team is.
What's more, the film is entirely happy to go to some horribly dark places. Along with Wade's brutally violent dispatch of one of the infected children, we also get a horrible scene in which one of the zomblings clambers into a car with his baby sister and distracted mother — a scene which almost goes too far without ever being graphic.
That's quite possibly the film's biggest asset — Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion know exactly when to show restraint and when it's the right time to go for belly-laughs, heart-stopping scares or visceral violence. Undoubtedly boosted by a sterling editing job by Brett W. Bachman, Cooties isn't always forging forward at breakneck speed, but when it does, it does it very well indeed.

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): There's very little to pick at in Cooties, because it really is that good.
I suppose we could hark back to the underdeveloped storylines involving some of the supporting cast — there's not much of an arc for Rebekkah, Doug or Tracy. What's more, I thought the genre might have moved on from poking fun at characters for being effete homosexuals? That pretty much seems to be the entire joke for McBrayer's Tracy, but thankfully it never comes across as mean-spirited, just a little awkward and tired. It's probably because the humour involved in the characterisation of the other characters was so much wittier that I thought this felt a little cheap.
Furthermore, while these characters were undoubtedly very funny, they weren't quite as compelling on a dramatic sense. The romantic subplot isn't particularly gripping (compared to fellow zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead, for example) and the film definitely gets by more on its comedy accomplishments than its dramatic or horror credentials. If you go into this expecting plenty of laughs, you're in the right place. If you're expecting nail-biting terror or some deeper emotional engagement, you might be better off looking elsewhere.
Finally, strange as it may sound considering how much I liked the characters, I could have done with a higher body count. Whether played for gross-out splattery laughs or to up the ante and sense of danger, a few more fallen faculty members could have given the film a definite boost.
Ultimately though, these are minor personal quibbles in an excellent film that I'm sure will gather plenty of fans and has a real chance at becoming a cult classic.

THE VERDICT: Cooties is one of two fantastic horror-comedies released this week. It's probably the one that will find a larger audience and for good reason — with a sterling cast, plenty of laughs and splatter and looking a million bucks, this is a movie that screams quality. If this is the standard that all of Wood's SpectreVision films are aspiring towards, I shall continue to watch their output with great interest. But for now, I recommend, no, I implore you to watch this hilariously entertaining twisted little thrill ride. You will thank for me it.

Cooties is available to buy from Amazon here.

For more information, check out the film's official Facebook page here. Give it a Like while you're there too, show some love!

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.

RAW REVIEW: THE VISIT

There can be few directors who went from having the world at their feet to a subject of scorn as rapidly as M. Night Shyamalan. After his critically and commercially successful smash, the excellent Sixth Sense, he followed it up with a cult classic in the form of Unbreakable. Personally I loved Signs and I thought The Village was a good, but not great little movie. I even thought The Lady In The Water was a brilliant homage to the family friendly sci-fi/fantasy flicks of the Eighties, a combination of Batteries Not Included, Splash and The Neverending Story.
However, these films mark the point at which the backlash against Shyamalan's films began, and the less said about the spectacular misfires that were The Happening and The Last Airbender the better. 
After Earth marked a slight improvement in his fortunes (although the double team of Will and Jaden Smith probably had a significant part in that), before he abandoned feature films to handle the reins of cult TV smash, Wayward Pines.
Which brings us to Shyamalan's latest effort, The Visit, a return to the smaller scale dark thrillers with which he made his name. Early word of mouth has been pretty good, so could this be the return to form that we've all been waiting for?
Read on…

THE VISIT (2015)

Dir: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jorge Cordova, Benjamin Kanes, Ocean James, Seamus Moroney

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here but continue at your own risk.

Young budding filmmaker Rebecca (DeJonge) and her little brother Tyler (Oxenbould) are about to meet their grandparents for the first time. After their mother Paula (Hahn) met their father there was a serious family argument — which she refuses to discuss with her children — and since then she has not spoken to them.
Now the siblings' father has left them and Paula's parents have since contacted her over the internet and asked if they can meet their grandchildren.
Paula is unconvinced but the two children, especially Becca, want to go, saying they'd like to spend a week with their estranged grandparents while their mum gets to enjoy a relaxing cruise with her new boyfriend.
Despite her initial misgivings, Paula agrees and Rebecca decides to document the whole thing, from packing their bags, to their mother waving them off at the train station and beyond.
When they finally reach their destination in rural Pennsylvania, they are met by the kind and elderly Nana (Dunagan) and Pop Pop (McRobbie).
However, as they spend more time with the pair, Becca and aspiring rapper Tyler start to suspect that something is wrong with their grandparents. From moments of confusion to unsettling outbursts, it soon becomes clear that they are almost certainly starting to suffer dementia and — after Pop Pop explains that Nana suffers with a condition called sundowning, whereby her mental state deteriorates as the day progresses, and his own incontinence is discovered — soon the children find themselves instructed to stay in their room after bedtime at 9.30pm.
What starts as an in-turn mildly amusing or desperately sad situation soon takes a dark turn when Pop Pop's aggressive paranoia and Nana's night-time rampages become even worse. What is going on at the house? Will the children ever discover the truth about the day their mother left? And will they even live long enough to?

THE BEST BITS (mild spoiler warning): This may sound like a strange thing for a self-confessed Shyama-fan to say, but arguably The Visit's biggest strength is how much it feels unlike a typical M. Night film.

First off, it's found-footage (I know, I know, bear with me), so that instantly flies in the face of the cold, meticulous, almost clinically lot and framed shots that is a trademark of the director's style. The fact that 15 year old Becca is clearly presented as a serious of student of film does give Shyamalan an out when he's unable to resist a particularly stunning shot, but for the most part, the film is considerably more frenetic than anything I've seen from him before.

What's more, while Shyamalan is well-known for taking pretty outlandish premises and presenting them in a restrained, low-key and very po-faced manner (well, the odd foil hat excluded) The Visit is actually very funny. It happily embraces its own wackiness, giving the young leads plenty of quips and running with the ridiculously sinister antics of the elderly antagonists with almost reckless abandon. It's a side of Shyamalan that I've never seen before, displaying a wry sense of humour that has been absent until now.

That's not to say that this is a weaker story than any of his previous works — far from it, once again Shyamalan is able to craft a delicately layered mystery and the characteristion, if a little heavy-handed at times, is once again a surprisingly moving look at people coping with life-altering events.

Now, I know what the vast majority of you are wondering — does this film have a big twist? I'm a little reticent to discuss the intricacies of the plot here but I will say that there is a quite shocking reveal late on in the movie that certainly ups the ante somewhat. However, this is far from the huge game-changer of The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, instead feeling like an organic development that plunges the film into the final act rather than defining it. I didn't see it coming and I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Of course, a decent plot can be well and truly ham-strung by an inadequate cast. Thankfully that isn't the case here.

A couple of minor wobbles early on aside, both DeJonge and Oxenbould are excellent. They have great chemistry — their rapport feels natural and, with it, we are instantly given more reason to care about them as their relationship becomes all the more believable. Both are given some very emotional scenes and both deliver the goods when it counts.

On this showing I really do believe that young Miss DeJonge could well be a name to look out for in the future.
Elsewhere the excellent Hahn does a superb job during her limited screen time. She's a polished actress and does a great job of pulling her scenes together. It's just a shame she's not on the screen for longer.

However, THE actors to watch in The Visit are the frankly astonishing Dunagan and the equally spellbinding McRobbie. Both show fantastic range, taking their characters along arcs that see them as warm and likeable, then sad and sympathetic and finally legitimately frightening. What's more, both provide brave utterly committed performances, from Dunagan's nudity and McRobbie's feinted incontinence, to the physical way in which they hurl their whole bodies into key scenes, such as Pop Pops assault on a passerby and the way in which Nana gallops backwards and forwards during her moonlight sojourns. 
They are a vital part of the success of the film and without their tremendous performances it would be significantly weaker. Both really are that brilliant.
It's no coincidence that the work of Dunagan and McRobbie utterly encapsulates the very best of The Visit, a complex blend of laughs and scares. Shyamalan has said he produced three cuts of the film, one deathly serious, one a goofy comedy and this, the final cut, which falls somewhere in the middle. It is the blend of light and dark that really makes this film stand out, having audiences flinching, shrieking and giggling, often all at once. The laughs are well-deserved (the script has plenty of wit about it) and the scares exquisitely crafted. I never thought I'd find senior citizens creepy — between this and The Taking of Deborah Logan I've been well and truly proven wrong!
Despite the way in which many moviegoers feel about both Found Footage and Shyamalan, The Visit looks fantastic and it has a cheeky, quirky heart.

THE WORST BITS (mild spoiler warning): As much as I enjoyed The Visit, it isn't without its flaws.

Unfortunately, the biggest of those is a Shyamalan trademark — the serendipitous manner in which previously mentioned events play a major role in the finale (a lá Signs). I personally don't need every single element tied up in a bow at the end of a film, sometimes things can be said without EVERYTHING becoming a major part of the climax. 

The ending also suffers from some unnecessary schmaltziness, plus it seems to actually have about three consecutive endings tacked on one after the other. I won't spoil them but the last one at the very least could have been easily excised.

Which, in a round-about way, brings us to the next major flaw. As likeable as DeJonge and Oxenbould are, both characters are prone to moments of irritating precociousness. Both occasionally spout lines far more mature than the typical language of a 15- and 13-year-old. What's more, while it's clearly played for laughs and meant to make for a loveable personality quirk, Tyler's rapping is very annoying. Each time he started I found my fists and jaw clenching involuntarily — it really is that bad.

Another misstep in the otherwise great script was the rather unnecessary use of poop gags. It works in the likes of South Park, but when we're talking about senility it would perhaps have been better to leave these moments (not least THAT scene late on) on the cutting room floor.

On a storyline note, while the big reveal is wonderfully executed, it is quite easy to pick some holes in the story afterwards, many of which are to do with exactly how awful a mother Paula must be for this exact scenario to have unfolded. It can just about be explained away but even so, it does hit the film somewhat.

Finally, while we're on the subject of Hahn's Paula, it really is a shame that she's so criminally under-utilised. She's a really very excellent actress and it's a crying shame that she wasn't given more to do with the role.

THE VERDICT: The Visit is a really, really good, fun film. Is it a return to the form of Shyamalan's career highs of The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable? No, it isn't, but it is a massive improvement on the likes of The Happening and The Last Airbender. It's something of a departure for Shyamalan, an experiment outside his comfort zone, one that he actually shot and produced with his own money, away from the influences of studio backers, and while there are a couple of slips here and there, it's a risk that pays off. 

Strangely this is a film I can recommend to both fans of Shyamalan's work AND those who dislike his typical output.

The Visit is still playing in cinemas so do give it a shot.

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.