iCDeadFilms

I must admit that I when I watched Takashi Miike’s 1999 horror drama  Audition I expected something of a supernatural nature, but it turned out to be more sinister and eerie than I had anticipated. It is a sick rush of depravity and horror. The storyline is simple enough. A widower with a teenage son stages a fake audition for a TV show to find a partner. He finds the woman of his dreams. However, she turns out to be the woman of his nightmares. Ryo Ishibashi, who takes the role of male lead Shigeharu Aoyama, is quite convincing as a widower who has been out of the dating game too long with a strong moral compass. Then you have Eihi Shiina as Asami Yamazaki, the seemingly ideal candidate for a wife who turns out to hide a sinister and deadly secret. I saw the film as social commentary on the pursuits of stardom and the damages it can cause an individual. It is a scatting statement on the treatment of women in the entertainment industry ( including weird Japanese fetish po...

I watched White Slave last week and it shares the same message that Cannibal Ferox was alluding to but from a different perspective. It is a thriller about a young Englishwoman who is taken by native Amazons after her family is killed during a picnic outing. It is the supposed ‘true story’ reenactment of Catherine Miles which I highly doubt. This Italian production mirrors Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust to some degree that it is even renamed Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Catherine Miles Story in Spain and Germany. It stars French actress Elvire Audray (1960 – 2000), Will Gonzales, Dick Campbell, Andrea Coppola, Dick Marshall, Alma Vernon and Grace Williams. These are relatively unknown thespians (for me anyway) so I would be really grateful if anyone can help list other films by Audray or Gonzales. Anyway, the movie is a love story and revolves around Catherine Miles (Audray) whose parents are killed during a picnic outing in their boathouse in the Amazon river. She ...

I started watching Cannibal Ferox with the expectation of a bloody orgy of gore and debauchery. The title itself conjures up such imagery, but I was surprised to find it not only entertaining but also enlightening to the human condition. The movie is directed by Italian filmmaker Umberto Lenzi and was shot on location in New York city and the Amazon. It stars John Morghen, Lorraine De Selle, Bryan Redford, Zora Kerova, Walter Llyod, Meg Flemming and Robert Kerman. All unknown actors to me so I cannot make any comparisons to their other works. However, the film motif follows in the tradition of the notorious Cannibal Holocaust. The story follows doctorate candidate Gloria Davis (De Selle) who travels to the Amazon to investigate headhunting and cannibalism in the area. She goes with her brother Rudolph (Redford) and friend Patricia (Kerova) in search of village called Manioka as she tries to disprove the theory of organized cannibalism in the jungle. Unfortunately, the natives a...

Animations have always been violent. Take a look at the classic Tom and Jerry, Transformers etc so I should not have been surprised to find a very high level of violence in Warner’s The Death of Superman . The animation has a great list of voice actors including Jerry O'Connell, Rebecca Romijn , Rain Wilson, Rosario Dawson, Nathan Fillion, Christopher Gorham, Matt Lanter and a few others who I will not be mentioning. Interestingly, I was unable to tell the cast until I saw their names on the end credits which is impressive. The storyline revolves around Clark Kent (O’Connell) trying to reveal his alter ego as Superman to his girlfriend Lois Lane (Romijn). At the same time, Earth is visited by a bloodthirsty extraterrestrial dubbed Doomsday who proves to be stronger than the Justice League and just might destroy the world. Well, as the title reveals, Superman dies at the end after revealing his human identity to Lois. Now, that is a tragedy but lets not get ahead of ourselv...

The slasher horror Terrifier is aimed to terrify you, and although there is not much dialogue the movie delivers on its promise – terror of clowns and the supernatural, and of blood and guts. There is an entertaining cast including an almost endless supply of beautiful young female victims found in most slasher flicks. I mean can you name a slasher that did not have a female victim? This list has Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, Catherine Corcoran, Pooya Mohseni and Katie Maguire. The male actors are David Howard Thornton, Matt MacAllister, Gino Cafarelli, Corey Duval, Michael Leavy and Eric Zamora. The story is pretty basic and takes place on Halloween with Art the Clown (Thornton) taking an unusual and somewhat romantic interest in Tara (Kanell). Her friend Dawn (Corcoran) thinks it is harmless but then they find their vehicle with a punctured tire – and a serial killer clown on the lose then thinks become more than harmless. The absolutely terrifying thing about this movie...

When I watched Ghost Stories I expected horror with blood and guts, but this movie delivers the scares like what you would get sitting around a campfire. It is a horror mystery that depicts what happens when a paranormal skeptic, investigator and reality TV show host explores three (3) cases referred to him by his childhood hero. The movie has a collection of brilliant actors and actresses that bring the stories to life. There is Andy Nyman who is absolutely amazing as the main lead and also directs the movie. Then there is Nicholas Burns, Alex Lawther and Martin Freeman who takes up two (2) roles - without giving too much away, Freeman is absolutely unrecognizable in one of these roles. I could not have imagined any others casts in the roles. The story is pretty simple with Professor Philip Goodman (Nyman) investigating 3 different cases of paranormal experiences with the intent of proving them as mere creations of the mind. However, as he delves into each case, he somehow bec...

Joko Anwar's 2017 horror Satan's Slaves starts off quite chilling but gets cold somewhere toward the end. However, this Indonesian film gives a fresh perspective - away from Hollywood - and away from the common Christian themed horror lane. The film stars Indonesian actress Taro Basro as Rini, who gives up university to look after her brothers and mother who is gravely ill. The story starts off with a scene of the mother, played by Ayu Laksmi, lying face up with tears rolling down her face. The shot is a closeup side portrait and indicates sadness or distress without giving much information. Then it changes to Rini sitting in a room talking with an executive. This initial mystery starts off the pace for what is a chilling story, and it becomes more evident with the nightmares that she has, and the poltergeist activities that haunt their house after her mother's death. This is further deepened by the departure of their father soon after the burial, raising the ci...