Actualités

Stars: Julian Gamm, Carl Wharton, Andrew Rolfe, James Graeme, Hannah Al Rashid, Joseph Campbell | Written and Directed by George Threadgold

Writer/director George Threadgold (Dinner at Vanessa’s) has revisited his three-part web series White Crow and expanded it into a feature film with several of the same cast members. The film begins with Jd narrowly surviving an attempt on his life related to his former employer the shadowy agency known as White Crow for whom he was one of the most lethal assassins.

He immediately seeks out his old boss Patrick Adams looking for answers. He doesn’t get them, but we do learn some details about his association with White Crow, something that seemingly reaches back to his childhood and suggests this is as much a personal matter as it is a professional one.

Back in London, news of Jd’s activities are causing enough consternation in the...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

Welcome back to a new year of The Amityville IP. With Amityville Scarecrow, this editorial series leaves behind the scant four “franchise” titles released in 2021 for the gargantuan ten titles released in 2022.

While Scarecrow is a similarly low budget production with some dodgy script decisions (courtesy of screenwriter Shannon Holiday), the emphasis on fractured family dynamics feels more in keeping with the early Amityville entries.

For no apparent reason, the film arbitrarily changes the mythology of the series. In Scarecrow, the Amityville murders were committed by “the Richards brothers,” not by Ronald DeFeo. After the family home was razed, a summer camp was built on the property, but the land became cursed.

When the film opens, adult sisters Tina and Mary (Amanda-Jade Tyler...

Stars: Andrew Rolfe, Arthur Boan, Sarah T. Cohen, Sian Altman, George Nettleton, Peter Jeffries, Heather Jackson | Written by Fil Freitas | Directed by Jack Ayers

With The Rise of the Beast, (originally titled Devolution), producer Scott Jeffrey fills a noticeable hole in his output. He’s given us dinosaurs, dragons, mutated rats, bats, spiders, and even Cthulhu himself. But no killer gorillas, at least not until now.

Damien Smith is explaining Simon’s job to him. He doesn’t make them very clear, but we get the idea it involves analyzing data from experiments on various primates. But Simon has a secret, he, along with Elena, Faith, Andy and Pete (Peter Jeffries; The Area 51 Incident) are part of an animal rights group that’s planning to expose Darrow Corporation’s work. That means dodging some heavily armed soldiers to get footage of the animals they’re torturing in the name of science.

Stars: Scott Jeffery, Megan Purvis, Toby Wynn-Davies, Craig David Dowsett, Andrew Rolfe | Written by Tom Jolliffe | Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield

The Area 51 Incident is something of a first. After films variously written, produced, directed and whatever else by Scott Jeffery, this marks his first appearance in front of the camera. He plays Trent who, along with another scientist, Jenny is getting a chance to visit the top-secret facility at Area 51. Coincidentally Trent’s father Doug happens to be in charge of the facility.

Equally coincidentally it happens to be the day that activity on the rift the facility monitors peaks and opens a portal to an alien world. That allows a bloodthirsty alien race to come pouring through and invade Earth. The three of them promptly take off in Doug’s conveniently parked Mercedes leaving the base’s peons to be eaten. They even stop at one point so Doug can get out and watch.

Stars: Danielle Scott, Andrew Rolfe, Stephanie Lodge, Tom Taplin, Jamie Robertson, Zoe Purdy, Luke Robinson | Written by Sam Gurney | Directed by Jack Peter Mundy

Proportion Productions are back once again with Another slice of British genre filmmaking with Prototype – not to be confused with the recently released The Prototype – this time focussing on science-fiction (with a horrific edge) in a story set in the very near future, when life-like androids with artificial intelligence have been created to help people with menial household tasks.

The prototype, One, created by Roger Marshall and tested by his family, proves to be popular but flawed. Roger has been working on a new model, Two, whose improved features show promise of its super-human abilities. As tensions rise between Roger and wife Shelley, the androids malfunction and the lives of the whole family are soon in danger of Two’s sinister plans…

Jack Peter Mundy, who directed Dinosaur Hotel,...

Stars: Nicola Wright, Chelsea Greenwood, Sofia Lacey, Chrissie Wunna, Richard Lovell, Rachel Roberts, Andrew Rolfe | Written by Scott Jeffrey, Rhys Wakefield | Directed by Scott Jeffrey

Dragon Fury, the third Scott Jeffrey production I’ve personally reviewed this week, is something of a departure for the prolific producer this time turning his hand to a monster movie rather than an all-out horror film – tapping into that great British tradition of dragons roaming the British Isles. Here Jeffrey directs from a script co-written with Rhys Wakefield… or is it Rhys Frake? IMDb says one thing, the films credits another – another case of “Is anyone real?” with a Scott Jeffrey production. I joke but I do feel like there’s some subterfuge at play here – as if to separate peoples mainstream work from genre filmmaking.

Dragon Fury sees a remote part of Wales abandoned for years due to radiation – no one knew why,...

Stars: Andrew Rolfe, Annie Knox, Jo Barker, Evangelina Burton, Rob Drake, Ricardo Freitas, Lee Hancock, Lewis Hudson, Anthony Howes, Lucinda Nicole | Written by Tom Jolliffe | Directed by Louisa Warren

Ah the laws of diminishing returns… Tooth Fairy: The Last Extraction is the second sequel the less-than-stellar original film, which was pretty bad – even for low-budget British film. In fact that first film was a blight on the record of Champ Dog Films who had – until then – been making inroads into the UK genre scene for some time, often overcoming shortcomings, be they budget, production values or performances, to create genre fare worthy of carry the tag of “ a great British Horror film.” Luckily for Champ Dog they managed to strike a deal with US distributors, finding success on the shelves of Walmart’s across the States… which, one would assume, is how we’ve got to a Third film in...