william_fitzpatrick

My rating could easily go up in future, as I've only seen the first of MJ Dixon's Thorn films, and was probably missing the context which Mask of Thorn would provide (the elements which were most directly connected to said film were the only real bits where it lost me). That first film, Legacy of Thorn, definitely has its charms, but the difference between that and Wrath of Thorn is night and day, and is clearly the work of an incredibly talented filmmaker who has honed his craft over the years. Someone I watched this with described it as being like a Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil movie crossed with post-2005 Doctor Who, which is incredibly accurate (positive), though the thing it brought to mind most for me personally was the Phantasm films, especially the increasingly apocalyptic sequels.

It was lovely to be able to meet MJ and several other members of the cast and crew at Horror-on-Sea, and I'm totally going to play favourites - the "Mycho" flicks at this year's Horror-on-Sea were overall some of the best stuff I saw all weekend. The red levels on the sound mix for this screening must have been nuts, which is my one minor technical nitpick, but to be honest some of that's gotta be chalked up to the difficulties of hosting a horror fest in a hotel ballroom.

You take Reservoir Dogs with an alien Werewolf with an artistic direction like a Giallo and a closed door in a bar with actors as stupid as Sammy Rogers, you put it in a blender and you get this indie horror film making absolutely no sense, especially in the dialogue, but really fun, especially the transformation of the monster or the costume, you feel like it's Blue Beetle burning at 4th degree. The blood and the over-the-top are very present, you just have to switch off your brain to enjoy it. Lots of acting going on.

Runs out of bullets then throws her gun. This is really just a student project. Viewed in that light - it's not bad but I can't sit through it.

If you can accept the meager production values this kind of film must scrounge up today, then this is an overly-talky obviously-cheap yet still enjoyable creature feature. Some bad VFX but the rubber-suit monsters were far better than expected, ripping into guts and being suitably animalistic. Just mind the acting; although even that in regard, the actual character dynamics were fun in spite of the bad-to-average performances. Probably more of a 5/10 for me I suppose, but I got to grade on a curve considering how rare horror-westerns are, let alone ones as relatively focused and action-filled as this.