For It Is Man's Number: julian richards

Showing posts with label julian richards. Show all posts

Saturday, 25 April 2026

Shudder Saturday: Shiver (2012)

Some people really seem to spend a lot of their time squandering a lot of goodwill. I understand that people in the film industry don't always have the luxury of ensuring the quality of the work that they're involved with, but it would help if they at least did their part. There are some people here who feel as if they're going through the motions, and unable to even do that minimum amount of work well. I would name and shame them, but I worry that I'm misjudging people based on the poor writing and direction.

John Jarratt plays Franklin Rood, a talkative serial killer who targets women and believes that he is always poised to save them. When his latest victim (Wendy Alden, played by Danielle Harris) finds the courage to fight back, he actually feels quite pleased with himself. Wendy may have needed him to make her into the strong woman hidden away inside herself. He's probably still going to have to kill her though, especially while a couple of detectives (played by Casper Van Dien and Rae Dawn Chong) are closing in on him.

Based on a novel of the same name by Brian Harper, Shiver has been adapted from page to screen by Robert D. Weinbach. I'm not familiar with anything else that Weinbach has written, but I'm not surprised to see that he doesn't have a large filmography. There are a couple of upcoming projects that he is penning. I won't be rushing to see those.

Neither Harris nor Jarratt are at their best here, far from it, but I can see why they were picked for their respective roles. It's just a shame that they were then given nothing good to do by the clumsy and tired screenplay. The same goes for Van Dien and Chong. Neither may be at the top of the acting game, especially the former (who is, however, lovely, and I'll always have a soft spot for him due to the time he would happily answer various questions on the IMDb message boards that used to exist), but both are still usually a lot better than they are here. A few others appear in supporting roles, but the focus is on these four characters, even if they're just moving around in between scenes that contain either horrible violence or horrible (for different reasons) speechifying.

I like director Julian Richards, despite his filmography not giving me many reasons to. It may have been over 20 years now since he helmed the dark and enjoyable The Last Horror Movie, but I'll always hope that he can find his way back to something that inventive and twisted. This certainly doesn't come close, and I can only imagine it being enjoyed by the most easily-pleased horror movie fan looking for another chance to watch Harris battling against a fictional psychopath.

3/10

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Saturday, 3 June 2023

Shudder Saturday: Darklands (1996)

It's pure coincidence that I have watched two films by director Julian Richards this week, but I can tell you with great confidence that neither of them are his best. Maybe one day I will revisit The Last Horror Movie and give him some positive words here, but I'm not going to bump it up the long list of viewing choices after suffering through this.

Darklands is bad. It's very bad. It's the sort of film that is so bad that you wonder who they convinced to offer up some flattering quotes for the marketing materials. I am going to assume that the person who said this was "Rosemary's Baby meets The Wicker Man" had their words taken out of context, because this comes nowhere near to the chills and greatness of those two genre behemoths.

Craig Fairbrass plays a newspaper reporter named Frazer Truick, the kind of guy who won't let a story go once he has the smallest bit of it between his teeth, even if the end result could land him in hot water. He ends up meeting Rachel Morris (Rowena King), a young woman who gets to spend some time with him while he's working on his latest story. The pair soon get a bit closer, but Truick then starts to realise that the story he's working on is one part of a much bigger picture. And he might be right in the middle of it.

Co-written by Richards and David Mitchell, I will try to be kind and say that Darklands has one or two moments in which it feels like it is trying to break out of the confines of low-budget British horror. It never stops feeling like exactly what it is though, a debut film lucky enough to land a decent star name it doesn't know how to use, and I will offer a small cash reward to anyone who can manage to watch this and keep caring about the plot for more than half the runtime.* There aren't any decent set-pieces, sadly, and that leaves you watching a film that feels made up of the lesser, non-scary, storylines from a story written by someone like James Herbert or Shaun Hutson. The fact that I enjoy both of those authors means that I didn't ever completely hate this, but it came very close at times.

There are a few other key players in the cast, mainly Jon Finch trying to use his limited screentime to overcome the poor script he has to work with, but it's only Fairbrass and King who feel like they're close to being characters worth spending time with. They're not well-developed, both being a walking mess of tropes and cliches, but they gamely power through the film, and it's always good to see Fairbrass try to do something that doesn't have him pigeonholed as someone ready to carry a film like Rise Of The Footsoldier 16: Ahm The Fackin' Drug Daddy Nah (I've tried to write that phonetically to make my point). Fairbrass feels like a good fit for the role, deserving of some better writing, while King feels far too good for her part, especially by the time annoying twists and turns start to come along in the second half.

This isn't one to waste your time with, especially when every aspect of it can be found in much better movies. Just ask me when you're in the mood for certain elements, be it some folk horror, a crime investigation tale, or some dangerous cult plans, and I'll point you towards one or two choices that you will enjoy more.

*I won't, but you will have earned my bemused and begrudged admiration.

3/10

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Prime Time: Reborn (2018)

Maybe I would have enjoyed Reborn more if it hadn't seemed so smug about having a couple of well-known stars in the cast. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so irked by a quote that referred to it as "Carrie for a new generation". Or maybe, just maybe, I enjoyed it just as much as I could have enjoyed it. I certainly didn't hate it, despite a very silly opening act, but it's not a film that makes me want to note down the names of everyone involved.

The rather distasteful starting point for the plot concerns a stillborn baby brought back to life and cared for by a Frankenstein-like morgue attendant. That baby grows up to be Tess (Kayleigh Gilbert), a young woman with the ability to control electricity around her in a way that can harm others. Tess ends up spending time with actress Lena O'Neill (Barbara Crampton), an actress who doesn't realise that her child has come back into her life. It's not Lena's fault though, considering she was told that her child died during her pregnancy. The bodycount starts to rise, and Tess has to decide when she can tell her mother the truth. Meanwhile, a detective (Michael Paré) is trying to piece things together.

Director Julian Richards might do a decent job with the material here, but it's often very obvious that writer Michael Mahin doesn't have too much experience in his field. This is a very (mercifully?) short film, with a runtime of approximately 77 minutes, but it still feels a bit baggy and disappointingly lacking in the conviction to just keep delivering as many thrills and moments of bloodshed as possible.

I like Crampton in pretty much anything, and her presence here is a big bonus, but that's not to diminish the work of Gilbert, who actually manages to be the best part of the film. Equal parts deadly and sympathetic, Gilbert works hard to sell the sillier aspects of the script and keep her character as a villain that you can spend most of the runtime rooting for. Paré, on the other hand, has one of the least interesting roles in the movie, and he feels sadly wasted. Rae Dawn Chong has a small role, and is as wasted as Paré, but I guess having her name to add to the cast list is a bonus (hey, I would be lying if I said it hadn't helped to lure me in).

Reborn was something I didn't mind watching, for the most part. While not quite good, it certainly didn't feel bad. I could overlook a lot of the minor failings because I was enjoying the chance to watch Gilbert and Crampton shine. If the film had gone for some standard and cheesy ending then I might have been recommending this, with reservations, to like-minded horror fans. Unfortunately, the very last scenes are a huge mis-step, ending the whole thing on a note of backslapping cutesiness that jars with everything that came along beforehand. There's also a cameo that actually caused me to roll my eyes so far to the back of my head that I saw the very rear section of my own brain.

Saved by the cast, almost ruined by the ending, Reborn ends up as something supremely average. It's certainly not a film I can imagine anyone watching more than once.

5/10