Edmund Lester

When I was a teenager I used to watch a lot of really bad horror films. I'd get together with a couple of friends and we'd head to the video rental store and hire a couple of films - based purely on how bad they looked. We often used as a guide the fact that the computer system in the store could identify the least rented films in the place. If no one watched them we figured they had to be bad. These nights would include a fair smattering of Troma films, a number of straight to video movies (the best/worst of which was definitely Mutant Kid) and a decent helping of video nasties. Fantastic fun. Well of late we've started to do it again. If you've read any of the recent posts on this blog you may have noticed this. Anyway down to business. I have a new contender for plain bad horror. I picked up a film called Sickle. I suspected it might be bad when it was up for sale for a pound - a single pound. Well every single fear/hope I had for this film was met. It is just bad. T...

My recent horror film fetish is continuing. The latest film to get a viewing is this adaptation of a Clive Barker short story that stars ex-soccer player Vinnie Jones. I'd been looking forward to this for a while now. For once with a horror film everything I'd heard about it was positive. Well the portents were good, but the film? Would it live up to my hopes? The simple answer is yes. I thought this film was fantastic fun. It's a little over the top in terms of blood at times but that's just fun. The violence is extreme in places, made more hard hitting by a cold, expressionless performance by Vinnie Jones. The basic story is that Vinnie is a serial killer who finds his victims on the New York Underground, preying on victims on the trains after 2am. A photographer encounters him and becomes obsessed with trying to find proof of his murders. This is one of the best horror films I've seen in months - and I do watch rather a few. Vinnie Jones is best when in these kin...

I just wanted to prove I am not a one-dimensional monster when it comes to movies. Okay I like horror films and of late haved watched a great many, but this liking is not exclusive. And don't go thinking that I mean I watch science fiction movies to prove my rounded personality. I like a good many movies of most genres - okay I'll admit there are few rom-coms on my favourites list, the American Pie style movies get very short shrift on my watching schedule. Add tot his I can say I've not been impressed with Sacha Baron Cohen - the little I have seen of his output has not enticed me to watch a whole movie. I'm not saying I think his films are bad. Far from it, I think he is a very talented man - he's spotted a style and gone for it, producing semi-real over-the-top edgy comedy that's verging on embarassing. You kow, the cringeworthy stuff. Anyway back to my choice, or rather the family choice. I sat down with the whole family and we picked a Chinese movie called ...

I'm having a bit of a horror film session. Over the last three days I've watched another three. The first of these was Creep - a rather pleasing little tale of a German woman trapped in a London Underground station after the trains have stopped running who finds that she is sharing the tunnels with a killer mutant. There are a couple of side characters, a homeless Scottish druggie and his girlfriend, a guy from work who believes our lead woman "wants him", a security guard and a sewer worker captured by the mutant. But the focus stays with the German woman and her attempts to escape the killer. It's not all that high on the gore, its story is a little predicable, but over all it's not a bad movie. Second up was an American film called Vacancy, which sees a couple check into a motel after their car breaks down. They discover a couple of video tapes in their room. When they play them they find what seems to be a low budget amateur horror . However when they noti...

I know, I know. This film has been out for a while and I've only just got around to watching it. What can I say, I've been busy. That and I have to admit to not being the biggest fan of the first film. Nice idea, but for me the problem was that by the time the guys started to be tortured I disliked them so much I was almost rooting for the bad guys. The second film at least redresses this a little. The young American aren't quite as annoying, reasonably so - but not quite as bad. Problem for this as a second film is that the idea's not new. Normally in a horror sequel they address this by making it just a little gorier. Well that's not the case here. It feels a little lighter. Okay there are one or two moments of gore but not as many as I would have expected. Tonight's selection is The Ruins. Well it's a bit different. A group of Americans holidaying in Mexico, together with a German guy they meet in the hotel, decide to go visit a nearby Mayan ruin. And yes...

I haven't been neglecting my reading. I've worked my way through a few novels of late - as well as journals and various non-fiction tomes, sites etc. I'd thought it about time I posted something about the fiction - let you know about some good reads out there - and maybe one or two not so good. First off the pile is Jeff Strand's Pressure - a non-supernatural horror. Now this is a book I enjoyed immensely. Strand's protagonist starts as a young man in trouble, sent to a boarding school to sort him out. In one way it works, he ends up at University, but it also instroduces him to our friendly neighbourhood psychopath Darren Rust. The book is told in segments, each some years apart from the next about times when our lead encounters Rust. This results in a series of climaxes growing in intensity as the book reaches its end. Great stuff. Can't really say the same about Richard Satterlie's Imola. It's another non-supernatural horror - telling the tale of a me...

I visited Melton Mowbray yesterday, a pleasant market town in the East Midlands famous for pork pies and stilton cheese. Being a vegetarian I didn't try any of the former, but I have to admit to a liking for the cheese. Whilst there I wandered into a book shop or two - as well as some of the charity shops. Book collectors should never be embarassed about going into charity shops - some of the best out-of-print books can be found in them. In one of them yesterday I came across a copy of the fifth Far Side Gallery. Now I've been a fan of Gary Larson since the 80s and was only to happy to pick this up. Book 12 is going to be the latest of my car books. I keep books in my car, so I can dip in and read a few pages whenever I am waiting. On Friday I finished Tony Hawks' wonderful travelog "Roudn Ireland with a Fridge", the story of him hitchhiking around the coast of Ireland towing a small refrigerator. Totally insane and wonderful. An absolute delight to read