Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Recent, unreleased British horror films Part 8

Another quartet of features you can't see yet.

The Redwood Massacre (directed by David Ryan Keith)


“For five adventurous friends, visiting the legendary murder site of Redwood has all the hallmarks of being an exciting and thrilling camping weekend away. A popular site for revellers and party goers, each year on the exact date of the famous local family massacre, people from around the country head out to the site to have fun and scare each other. As the five campers head deeper into the woods they soon discover they’re not the only people in the mysterious location. The fun camping expedition soon turns into a bloody nightmare as they are sadistically stalked by a mysterious evil presence hell bent on viciously murdering his innocent victims one by one. Events take a bloody turn for the worse when the innocent campers discover the Redwood myth is in fact a horrible reality, which turns the unsuspecting victims into prey for a mysterious axe wielding maniac that has remained dormant for 20 years.”

Shot near Aberdeen over the second half of 2013, this has played a number of international festivals since premiering at Chicago in September 2014. David Ryan Keith and chums previously brought us horror-comedy Attack of the Herbals. More at www.facebook.com/CheckItBloodyOut

Return of the Ghost (directed by Jason Wilcox)


“In a haunted mansion, a couple realise it isn’t only ‘occupied’ by the dead.”

Jason Wilcox has been making amateur feature films, most of them horror, since 2005. This is one of the few to have received a festival screening – at Horror-on-Sea in January 2014. One year on, Wilcox’s The Room in the Tower is set to premiere at HoS 2015. There is very little information anywhere about Wilcox’s films but you can see some trailers on his Vimeochannel.

Survival Instinct (directed by Steve Lawson)


“Taking its cue from classic survival-thrillers such as Duel and Deliverance, Survival Instinct is a fast-paced edge-of-your seat thriller with a strong female lead and a plausible, morally-ambiguous villain. Stacey and Thom are in the middle of a road trip to a remote area of Derbyshire's Peak District when Thom's new car breaks down and Stacey is forced to go in search of water for the engine. Instead she encounters two locals, Weaver and his estranged son Rex. After a fatal accident occurs, all hell breaks loose as Weaver's determination that the authorities should not find out what has happened leads him to relentlessly pursue Stacey across the dangerous terrain of the Peak District, culminating in a deadly showdown.”

I reviewed Steve’s film, then titled Rites of Passage, from the cast and crew screening in April 2014. More at www.rites-movie.co.uk

Scrawl (directed by Peter Hearn)


“What if two guys wrote a comic book to escape their reality? What if that comic book invaded their reality? What if the comic book foretold the death of many in their town? Simon Goodman is a 16 year boy living in a run down seaside town  With his best friend Joe Harper he creates a comic book called 'Scrawl' as a way to gain some notoriety and pick up girls.  It isn't long before they start to see situations in the comic book come to life.  At first it's great, girls start to become interested in them, and all seems fun.  But then they start to worry, because at page 25, they've written a huge bloody massacre, and not only that, but monsters start to show themselves.  How will it all end?”

What if… you cast an unknown actress in your low-budget horror film and, while it was in post, she was given a lead role in the biggest Hollywood blockbuster of the year? Daisy Ridley’s casting in Star Wars VII can’t have hurt the distribution prospects for this film? There was a cast and crew screening in June 2014. More at www.facebook.com/scrawlmovie

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