Horror

The Vourdalak (2023)

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Adapted from an 1841 novella by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, The Vourdalak marks the directorial debut of Adrien Beau. The Gothic vampire tale set in 18th-century Eastern Europe centers on a wayward Marquis (Kacey Mottet Klein) who finds himself at the mercy of a strange family living in a rural manor.

The old patriarch Gorcha has disappeared, leaving his kin to fight a band of Turks plaguing the area. He told his children, the effeminate Piotr and mysterious Sdenka (Vassili Schneider and Ariane Labed, respectively), that if he is gone longer than six days, but returns, he should not be let back into the house, as he will have transformed into a dreaded vourdalak. Gorcha’s eldest son, Jegor (Grégoire Colin), dismisses such concerns as mere superstitions, but Piotr, Sdenka and Jegor’s wife (Claire Duburcq) aren’t so certain. The Marquis isn’t sure what to think, and he is distracted by his sudden and insatiable attraction to Sdenka.

Gorcha returns just after the hour marking his sixth day gone, and he is very obviously no longer human. So much so, the character isn’t portrayed by a human at all, but rather a ghoulish puppet voiced by director Beau. Everyone can plainly see Gorcha is a vourdalak, except for Jegor, whose patriarchal stubbornness keeps him from seeing the truth the women and sensitive Piotr plainly see. He brings his father inside, and naturally, mayhem follows.

But this is mayhem of a more quiet sort, as the film is indebted to the atmospheric European horror films of the 1960s and 1970s. It also was shot on Super 16mm, giving its images sumptuous grains and ever-so-slightly faded colors, furthering its connection to cinema of old. The Vourdalak is quietly and grotesquely funny, especially in scenes involving Gorcha, whose blatant inhumanity is both perverse within the universe of the film and a practical effects marvel. It’s overall a stellar debut for Beau, one that feels more like the work of an old master than a relative newcomer, and a gloriously oddball entry into the vampire canon. —Christopher Shultz

Action

Kill (2023)

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If revenge is a dish best served cold, Kill serves it up — with seconds, like it or not — delivered on a block of dry ice. In the deceptively simple Bollywood actioner, Lakshya — just Lakshya, thanks — kicks ass figuratively and literally as National Security Guard commando Capt. Amrit Rathod.

His longtime girlfriend, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala, as charming as she is beautiful), is forced into an engagement by her father, a titan of the transportation industry. So with a ring of his own, Amrit hops the Delhi-bound train she and her family are riding, in hopes of saving his beloved.

That Tulika accepts his commode-set proposal doesn’t surprise Amrit. But that it happens as money-hungry kidnappers take over the train and target her family in a full-blown terrorist/hostage situation? Yeah, that’s quite a swerve.

As Amrit slides into Everyone’s Savior mode, he lays out Kill’s killer concept: 36 bandits across four coach cars on one unstoppable train. Personally, I like his odds. I also acknowledge the setup is so mindless, a kid could write it.

But could a kid execute it as well as writer/director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat? Not a chance! Most working filmmakers in America aren’t even up to the task. Not since Gareth Evans’ stick of Indonesian dynamite, The Raid: Redemption, has an action film been this pure, kinetic, inventive and unforgiving. Not Evans’ The Raid 2, nor a single John Wick flick, any four of which Kill arguably most resembles. It plays — and for keeps — as if Mr. Wick bought a one-way ticket on David Leitch’s Bullet Train. And no dance sequence!

What Lakshya lacks in leading-man verisimilitude, he makes up for in violence. Befitting of its title, Kill is relentless in soundtrack-squishiness as Amrit and allies face a seemingly endless barrage of fist, feet, machetes, sledgehammers, cleavers, daggers, fire extinguishers, etc. etc. etc., much of it dealt by Thakur, the skeeviest of bad guys.

If you don’t hate Thakur on sight, the scene-stealing actor portraying him, Raghav Juyal, soon will take care of that. Juyal relishes the opportunity to become the Hindi Hans Gruber. This fight film’s juice is well worth the squeeze, even when your wind pipe is the one being compressed. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thriller

Peeping Tom (1960)

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Most men — and, honestly, some women — are Peeping Toms. Abasement in all its glory!

The criminal, sexual act of illicit self-pleasure while a person is unknowing, unwilling and nonconsensual is quite damning and will, at the very least, label you as a pervert among family, friends and neighbors.

So remember, kids: Keep an eye out for Mom … unless, of course, you’re peeping on your mom, which will lead to other problems I’m not able to discuss without the care of a professional — a doctor or a hooker.

In the fickle world of pop culture, the stereotypical Peeping Tom is most often a trope of the teen sex comedy, rubbing one out in the girls’ locker room while getting his crank stuck in a vice-like device. But in 1960, filmmaker Micheal Powell decided to cast a unsexy shadow on the world’s most lonely act in the film Peeping Tom.

When the film premiered, people were outraged, and Powell’s name was dragged through the mud, ultimately killing his career. (Sadly, the billions of gallons of sperm while watching the movie waiting for the tame sex scenes were never accounted for …)

It starts with a shadowy man hiding a film camera under his coat as he seeks a prostitute. In her most Cockney accent, she takes to him a flophouse and, unexpectedly, he murders her with an extended leg of his camera’s tripod. As the tape runs out, I imagine he climaxes.

This man is Mark (Carl Boehm). He makes films of the crimes and watches them ad nauseam, as one will wantonly do. He works for a bookshop as a cover for taking snapshots of nudie cuties, but his dream job is to be a film director. (If only he waited about five years for the porn industry to boom!) Mark’s also a sad loner and very quiet, snapping pictures of disfigured woman to masturbate to.

Eventually, he’s befriended by his tenant who views his works, especially the films his father made of him being sexually frightened, as stunting his emotional growth and causing him to deal with the trauma though voyeurism.

Long story short, Mark is punished for his crimes in the worst way possible in the early ’60s.

A true testament to both swingin’ London and swingin’ ballsacks, Powell’s non-illicit camera gets the dirtiest grime in the gear game. Boehm’s Mark is still relevant today — just sub the cheesecake shots with live camgirls who’ll act out your fantasy for an OnlyFans subscription.

Much in the same vein as Joe Spinell’s work on William Lustig’s Maniac, but with a Piccadilly Circus façade, Peeping Tom is a true classic of perverted outré cinema that needs to be reevaluated in these much more maligned times.

Until then, keep it in your pants, Junior! —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Action

Arena Wars (2024)

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Basically a remake of Lucio Fulci’s The New Gladiators, Brandon Slagle’s Arena Wars also forces Death Row inmates to combat on live television in the near future. For this Mahal Empire production, that’s the year 2045 vs. Fulci’s 2072, because let’s not get too crazy. 

That TV show is called — surprise! — Arena Wars. Despite being co-hosted by a most grizzled, most hair-dyed Michael Madsen (Mahal Empire’s Death Count), it’s a nationwide smash. But with ratings not what they used to be, one of the rich white men behind it asks, “How do we make death exciting for the masses again?” 

The answer involves pitting seven Death Row inmates with QR-code neck tattoos against the show’s seven costumed killers. Sporting names like Meat Wagon, each villain has a concept: Mr. Smiles is a homicidal clown; Master Blaster wields a chainsaw; Cutie Pie, the lone female, slings a mean machete.

Meanwhile, on the prisoners’ side, our hero is former Marine and current innocent man Luke Bender (John Wells, Mahal Empire’s Bermuda Island), who looks like every guy you’ve ever seen wearing a shirt from Tapout and/or Ed Hardy. They progress through seven rooms, like Bruce Lee in Game of Death, only horizontal.

These futuristic bread-and-circus pics number greater than events in the Olympics — summer and winter combined. Unlike most, which are funny only in the ways the filmmakers did not imagine, the script by Slagle (House of Manson) has an actual sense of humor — a Mahal Empire staple. For instance, the opening scene’s titles orient us in “THE BIG FUCKING CITY,” while Madsen comments on one contestant’s grisly fate, “I’d hate to be the underpaid janitor who has to clean that up.” 

Brothers Sonny and Michael Mahal’s story hits the basic beats without playing notes to connect them. Thus, fight scenes constitute the bulk, which gets tiresome … unless you’re the kind of person who watches WWE Raw, likely the intended audience anyway. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Tastes of Horror (2023)

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Tastes of Horror is the Korean equivalent to Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, in that the anthology film is a feature version of an existing series. The difference here is that Tastes’ half-dozen stories aren’t new, but adapted from the animated show.

Absent of a wraparound, the segments bump against one another with merely a title card to separate them. In a TikToky take on “The Monkey’s Paw,” aspiring K-poppers encounter a witch’s dance video that, when performed, makes your wish come true. Fresh from winning a casino jackpot, a man is stranded at a strange hotel. Stuck in a purgatorial room, a woman must complete rehab within a specified time to escape.

A girl’s med-school dreams are in danger of being dashed until she learns a sacrifice will earn her good grades. Apartment tenants are warned not to use the building’s gym after hours, but they do, invoking a figure with requisite long, dark hair covering her face. Finally, two mukbang YouTubers face off in a stomach-stuffing eating contest, consuming nauseating piles of donuts, fried chicken, sushi and more.

If these six segments represent the best of Tastes of Horror’s run, I’d hate to see the remainders. All but one put forth an interesting premise, yet sluggish pacing in each fritters that away; the effect is like watching your frugal relative open her gifts verrry carefully so she can save the wrapping paper.

At least visually, the tales feel of a piece, rather than their true origins of coming from five directors. On the other hand, that means Tastes’ “house style” is bland — competent, but bland nonetheless . A few bright spots alight throughout, from clever setups in the gym to a Ringu-inspired nightmare and a sequence of rats raining from the ceiling, yet none enough to push the omnibus into a recommendation. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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