Shudder Saturday: The Tombs (2019)

Urgh. Here we go with yet another garbage, and cheap, horror movie from the UK. I don't know how these people keep getting money, but they do. The end results, sadly, often show that you would have been better giving that money directly to Michael, the money-munching monkey of Morocco. That is certainly the case here.

Written by Michael William Smith and directed by Dan Brownlie, this is a tale of a movie promo event that goes horribly wrong. A bunch of people are placed in the London Tombs, located under London Bridge (which was news to me, I mistakenly thought they were just trying to utilise The London Dungeon, which is actually a different attraction), and then a killer starts picking them off. Unfortunately, I've already made this sound better than it is, especially if you're imagining any decent kills and a fun mix of characters. This film has neither.

Jessica Ann Brownlie plays Piper, a woman who is famous for being the final girl in the horror movie that is now getting a much-trumpeted sequel, and I'm going to make the horrible assumption that, despite not being the worst actress I have seen (in any movie, not just in this movie), Brownlie seems to have had a good chance of being cast in a main role thanks to the fact that she's married to the director. Ayvianna Snow is Gigi, the potential new star of the film series, and she is a much better onscreen presence here. There are also depressingly bad performances from Devora Wilde, Jessica Cameron, Danielle Harold (playing a chirpy TV presenter who then turns into some grouchy Eastenders extra when the cameras aren't rolling), and Chris Simmons, playing a paparazzo type named Doug. Anthony Ilott isn't too bad, as the very scared PJ, but I think that may just be in comparison to most of the people around him.

The supernatural killer at the heart of the story has no decent background, nor does he really have any consistent ability to actually kill a lot of people who should be easy pickings for him, and three quarters of this movie is just people wandering around dark rooms and acting scared by their surroundings. I get it, you could probably say that about most horror movies, but this one is so incompetently thrown together that it becomes irritating from the very earliest scenes.

The good news is that it only lasts for 78 minutes. The bad news is that 78 minutes feels like 3 hours here. It's a barrage of bad camerawork, poor lighting, non-special effects, bad acting, bad music, and bad, well, everything. I'll be kind to it because of the less painful turns from Brownlie, Ilott, and Snow, mainly Snow, but this is a film that I recommend everyone else avoids completely. We certainly don't want to encourage the writer or director to come up with a sequel.

2/10

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Prime Time: Truth Or Dare (2013)

Directed by, co-written by, and starring Jessica Cameron, Truth Or Dare is a film so desperate to shock that it becomes dull well before the halfway point. Highly derivative, there were already other Truth Or Dare movies (directed by Tim Ritter, and Cameron had even starred in one of his movies before stepping up to make this) and fans of extreme Japanese cinema will be familiar with the Red Room movies, films that this also owes quite a debt to, it's a great shame that those involved didn't put their energies into something less obvious and cynical.

The plot revolves around a group of online celebs who call themselves the Truth Or Daredevilers. They get fans and online hits from extreme stunts, upsetting one individual when their most recent antics involve a death (minor spoiler ahead)... that turns out to be fake.

Will some horror fans find enough here to enjoy? Yes. Some will revel in the fake gore, able to overlook the weak script and ridiculousness of it all (one character seems barely pained by the finale, one lives way beyond their expected time of death), and Cameron and co-writer Jonathan Scott Higgins were obviously too busy squeezing in hot button skeletons in the closet to bother about anything else. You get infidelity, pedophilia, incest, transgenderism, and some nastiness with a bottle that comes closest to those Red Room exploits (anyone who has seen those will remember the lightbulb scene).  Obviously desperate to be edgy and offensive, and I am sure some viewers will be offended, the script just comes across as puerile and tiresome.

The acting is, sadly, not good enough to help the script. Cameron, Heather Dorff, and Devanny Pinn all cry and swear a lot, as do Brandon van Vliet and Shelby Stehlin (the main ones I remember). They may look upset but it's never anywhere near the hysteria and terror that you could imagine people experiencing in this situation. Ryan Kiser isn't even that good as the crazed "game master" but he gets one moment at the very end of the film that shows he could have done a bit better with more interesting material.

So how does Cameron, who has a fanbase among horror fans, do with the direction? Not good. All of the flaws feel like they lie at her feet, as a result of not being able to make the best use of the low budget, not giving up her "star" role to anyone else, and generally putting together something that feels cheap, lazy, and rushed.

I guess fans are happy to support Cameron, regardless of the quality of her work. I am not a fan, from what I have seen so far. And am therefore happy to advise people to avoid this one.

2/10

I dare you to buy it here.