The Miracle Fighters (1982)

Director: Yuen Woo Ping
Notable Cast: Yuen Yat-Choi, Leung Kar-Yan (Beardy), Yuen Cheung-Yan, Brandy Yuen, Eddy Ko, Yuen Shun-Yi

Even in the various social circles that focus on kung fu films that I frequent, The Miracle Fighters is a film that receives mixed emotions. On one hand, it’s a film that is massively creative and often impressively dedicated to its blend of humor, action, and fantasy. It’s also a film that doesn’t quite find the right balance between those genres as it jams as much entertaining material as possible in its hour and a half run time. Yet, it’s a film that was popular enough to spawn two sequels and an upcoming ‘remake’ in The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (which hits select US theaters this December from Well Go USA) so there must be something to the film, right?

Amityville: The Awakening (2017)

AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING

AKA "Amityville: The Lost Tapes", "Amityville 9"

With the release of “The Amityville Horror” remake in 2005 and the found footage horror hit “Paranormal Activity” in 2007 it was only natural for an official Amityville film utilizing the found footage aspect to be announced and Dimension films put “Amityville: The Lost Tapes” in the pre-production pile. When news hit a wave of unofficial “Amityville” films hit the home video market jump-started by the Asylum’s release of “The Amityville Haunting” in 2010 which, not surprisingly, steals the found footage idea. This made it extremely confusing for horror fans trying to decipher the official releases from the unofficial home-made junk as the word “Amityville” is the name of town and cannot be copy-righted so essentially any joe shmoe making a home movie can slap the word “Amityville” into the title and try to sell it off to unsuspecting horror fans. (Below are visual charts aimed at helping people decipher official Amityville entries from the unofficial trash).

While the tidal wave of unofficial “Amityville” junk flooded the market, Dimension’s production of “Amityville: The Lost Tapes” was put in limbo. The producers eventually dropped the found footage aspect (thankfully) and decided to go with a traditional film look under the new title “Amityville: The Awaking”. But the production problems didn’t end there. The film was completed in 2014, only shown to a select few test audiences and then shelved due to mysterious circumstances. 3 years passed by and “Amityville” fans like myself (yes, it is embarrassing to admit) wondered if the film would ever be released, and if it did, was it going to be any good? Did Dimension shelve it due to it being a poor film? To my surprise it did get released this year but only to a limited theatrical run before being dumped onto the streaming market for people to see, get this, for free before eventually getting a DVD and Blu-ray release. So was the film worth the wait after its troubled production… well….

Now that we know “Amityville: The Awakening” is an OFFICIAL “Amityville” film and with the release of “The Amityville Horror” remake in 2005 one would think it is safe to assume that this is a sequel to the remake... still it’s not that simple. Much like the sequels “Texas Chainsaw”, “Children of the Corn: Genesis” and the upcoming “Halloween Returns”, this film is an entry into the ORIGINAL franchise before the remakes making it the ninth entry into that mile long “Amityville” franchise. To make matters even more confusing (as if it weren’t enough already) it is a Meta film, making reference to the ‘films’ of the original “Amityville Horror”, “Amityville II: The Possession” and even the remake. This means the original Amityville films are actually movies in this films universe with “Amityville: The Awakening” taking place in the ‘real world’.

So what we have here is a family with a comatose teenage son moving into the notorious house with a troubled past due to it be located near the hospital for his care and for the low price of purchase. The mother (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) unwisely decides not to tell her teenage daughter of the houses bloody past and of course she finds out through school classmates. It’s not long before strange supernatural occurrences begin to happen and it seems the house is trying to possess the comatose brother, utilizing him to murder his family in the same vein as Ronald Defeo did before the iconic haunting. Can our unruly teen convince her borderline psychotic mom before a massacre occurs?

Unlike the a majority of the later sequels with plots that revolved cursed items from the house, it is refreshing for a plot that takes place within the wood framing of the actual house itself. The acting is decent and the direction by Franck Khalfoun (the “Maniac” remake) is adequate for the most part but where he has trouble is building up the tension and scares. Far too often the he resorts to low quality jump “scares” and poor CGI instead building up tension and atmosphere to well-earned pay-offs. Perhaps I am just spoiled by the recent masterful haunting films like “The Conjuring” from James Wan. Another problem, out of the director’s control, is the obvious post-production tinkering by Dimension films. Apparently the original test screenings of the film were far more exploitative when it came to nudity and violence. The new PG-13 version for wide release shows obvious censoring with awkward cuts, poor flow, short running time and a tacked on ending. A personal problem I had with the film was the decision for Meta story telling. The references to the films “The Amityville Horror”, “Amityville II: The Possession” and the remake (amusing as the characters pass on watching the remake as remakes ‘usually’ suck, ironic since the director got his start directing a remake) were humorous but took me out of the film. They could have done away with the Meta and made it a straight up sequel and the film would have worked out just fine without the distracting ‘wink wink’ to the audience.

Considering all the production problems, delays and nit-picks, “Amityville: Awaking” didn’t end up that bad and far better than general consensus dictates. I heard horror fans calling it ‘awful’ but horror fans in general can be the harshest critics. It’s merely an okay film and when it comes to the official “Amityville” series in general, it’s one of the better entries. Perhaps with less post production tinkering, producers seizing control and better direction when it comes to tension and scares it could have been a good film instead. As is horror fans could do FAR worse (like all those home-made unofficial “Amityville” films), just don’t expect along the same quality as the haunted house films made by James Wan.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Sleepy Eyes of Death 5: Sword of Fire (1965)

Director: Kenji Misumi
Notable Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Tamao Nakamura, Michiko Sugata, Sanae Nakahara, Ko Nishimura, Ryuzo Shimada, Koichi Mizuhara, Junko Kozakura, Toru Abe

Aka: Nemuri Kyoshiro 5: The Swordsman and the Pirate

By the time that the Sleepy Eyes of Death franchise hits its fifth entry, the series has already seen its fair share of quality shifts and unique approaches to its series formula. It started off on some questionable and pulpy ground, but found a balance between serious artistic merit and those pulpy entertaining pieces with the last few entries. This balance of the previous films is what makes the fifth entry, Sword of Fire, such an intriguing one. Mainly because it’s a film that strips back a lot of the more entertaining elements for a starkly serious thriller tone. Where previous entries use some strong faced characters, snappy dialogue, or dynamic settings, Sword of Fire opts for a ‘less is more’ approach to things and plays its script in subtle ways. For fans of the series, it’s perhaps one of the less memorable ones due to these choices even if the film itself is impressively handled.

Stratton (2018)

Director: Simon West

Notable Cast: Dominic Cooper, Gemma Chan, Austin Stowell, Tyler Hoechlin, Tom Felton, Thomas Kretschmann, Olegar Fedoro, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, Jake Fairbrother

There’s a part of me that sincerely feels bad that Simon West has essentially dropped into the straight-to-home-video realm. Sure, most of his films are glorious B-movies anyway like Con Air and The Expendables 2 with a few questionable ones to add to the mix (*glares at my copy of the When a Stranger Calls remake on my shelf*), but often enough he’s a much stronger director than people give him credit for. His latest film, after the disappointing Gun Shy that just came out, is the espionage film Stratton, which is based on the popular book series. Stratton is a shocking West film though. Shocking enough, that I had to watch it twice to truly appreciate what it was offering after I started it. For all of the great B-action movies that West is known for, Stratton is much more serious and grounded than expected. Reading the synopsis, it sounded like a low-budget James Bond film, but in reality, it takes its Bond-like concept and grounds it in a much more dramatic and subtle espionage thriller akin to Jack Reacher. Yes, Stratton is an effective merging of James Bond meets Jack Reacher. That’s not a sentence I thought I would be typing, but in the end it’s true.

Better Watch Out (2017)

Director: Chris Peckover

Notable Cast: Levi Miller, Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Patrick Warburton, Dacre Montgomery, Viginia Madsen, Aleks Mikic

If a person digs through the $5 bin or stumbles into the straight to home video section of their local Wal Mart, one is likely to see that Christmas themed horror films are a dime a dozen in the last couple of years. It’s an easy gimmick to grab and throwing on the word Krampus or a bad Christmas pun for a tagline guarantees a handful of impulse buys in box stores looking for some counter programing to the usual Christmas movies that bombard their TVs. Yet, it’s a sub-genre of horror that does have its merits when properly utilized. This leads to the hesitation and excitement for any new film that adheres to the Christmas theme. Better Watch Out, a rare horror release from our friends at Well Go USA who are known for distributing foreign films usually of the action variety, marks an intriguing spin on the Christmas horror film. It’s a film rooted in the Christmas film idea, at times even going as far as referencing a famous Christmas film that I will talk about here in a bit, but also spins it as a home invasion/survival film with a wickedly effective dark sense of humor. Better Watch Out is a film that somewhat takes its audience in different directions than expected and still presents a film that grows on repeated viewings. Some fans may not love that it doesn’t play its hands up front, but for those going into it with an open mind, Better Watch Out will become an instant holiday horror classic to revisit in years to come.

The Swindlers (2017)

Director: Jang Chang-won

Notable Cast: Hyun Bin, Yoo Ji-tae, Bae Seong-woo, Park Sung-woong, Nana, Ahn Se-ha, Choi Deok-moon, Choi Il-hwa, Heo Sung-tae, Kim Tae-hoon, Jung Jin-young, Oh Tae-kyung, Cha Soon-bae, Jin Seon-kyu

With the popularity of heist films reaching some seriously outrageous heights at this moment, it’s hard to be truly surprised by any of them. Whether it’s the espionage slants of films like Mission: Impossible and The Adventurers or sleight of hand con-films like Bitcoin Heist and Now You See Me, the films all have a tendency to be fairly predictable in their unpredictability. Audiences know that the film is going to trick them, through visuals, narrative, or out of left field spins and they automatically look for how the film is going to do so. This is the mindset that I went in with into South Korea’s next ‘rogue team of con men and women,’ The Swindlers. While the film certainly plays up its strengths of charm with its substantially effective casting and visually appealing look, The Swindlers takes the sleight of hand motives to whole new levels. This is a film built on tricking its audience, along with many of the characters in the film itself, but the layers upon layers of different angles and illusions make it something to admire. The Swindlers is a film that takes its title to heart and sprints with it to the finish unveiling one of the most fascinatingly complex and entertaining cinematic con films to experience.

Animal Factory (2000)

Director Steve Buscemi

Notable Cast: Willem Dafoe, Edward Furlong, Danny Trejo, Mark Boone Junior, Seymour Cassel, Mickey Rourke, Tom Arnold, John Heard

Animal Factory is one of those films that has crossed my path while researching films a handful of times, but I’ve never really bothered to dig into the whos, whys, and whats about the film in any serious regard. If I had, I would have seen that the film contains perhaps one of the most peculiar cast listings ever gathered on film. Directed by cult actor Steve Buscemi, Animal Factory takes its robust cast and goes for a slow burn and realistic story that’s more concerned with the characters and their interactions than a truly thrilling plot or dynamic narrative. At its core character drama, the film succeeds, but when it comes to being something that rises above that one foundational element it refuses to be nearly as entertaining or as dramatically effective with its narrative and story as it might have with the talents involved. It’s a film that certainly has its merits as a dramatic piece of cinema, but the more that it sits with me the more it feels like it could have been so much more.

Top 5 Modern Christmas Horror Classics

It’s now post-Thanksgiving here in the US and that only means one thing: Christmas has already been in our social conscious for four months. Seriously though, retailers have been prepping the masses for the Yule Tide cheer for months already. For most of us though, it’s not until after Thanksgiving and Black Friday that we really start to get into the Christmas spirit. For cult cinema fans, that means busting out the “non-traditional” Christmas classics from our collections. For many of us in particular, that means the popular Christmas horror sub-genre. We already all have our favorites for this genre, whether it’s Bob Clark’s nihilistic Black Christmas or the comedic scares of Gremlins, but for this article I wanted to dig into some of the modern films that deserve some love.

To qualify for the modern list, the film had to be released after the year 2000 and it had to be a horror film that embraced the tone and feel of Christmas. This can be a hard thing to define ultimately and I’m sure readers will immediately fill my inbox with suggestions of things I missed (which I wholly encourage since there are plenty of gems out there that I have overlooked), but for each film picked there is a little blurb as reasoning for its selection. As much as I loved this year’s Better Watch Out or the French extreme flick Inside, those films don’t quite embrace the Christmas time aura needed for it to make the list. Although I would love to hear otherwise from our readers.

So enjoy this Top 5 Modern Christmas Horror Classics list, spit some blood in the comments to let us know what we missed and why, and share it with your friends. Spread the cheer. Spread the screams. Cause it’s Christmas horror season.

05. Silent Night

It’s only natural that I start this list with the most controversial pick. Steven C. Miller’s much hated remake of the Christmas horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night does do things in such a strange and often tongue-in-cheek manner that it’s one I always find myself watching this time of year. If you read my original review for Silent Night, I’m pretty harsh on it myself, but over time the film has grown on me with its outrageous concepts, fun visuals, and just hilarious moments of cheesy horror. In a way, this is the perfect viewing companion with the (also) very hated Black Christmas remake, but I think this one might just edge that one out as a fun classic that will ultimately find its devout cult audience.

04. A Christmas Horror Story

Anthologies right now are all the rage in horror (they come and go in spurts of popularity, really) and Christmas horror movies are also hitting a heavy stride in popularity, so it’s only natural to expect that there would be one to combine the two. Like many anthologies, the quality of segments wavers and as each segment attempts to bring a different kind of horror to the mix including a ghost story, a Twilight Zone-ish fantasy horror, and a monster story. Yet, it’s the inclusion of a segment where Santa must battle hordes of zombie elves that truly cements this on the list. Not to mention, it’s narrated by William Shatner? Yeah, A Christmas Horror Story a modern Christmas horror classic for those last two things alone.

03. Saint [Sint]

Dick Maas already defined his role as a cult horror director with his killer elevator films Lift and Down along with his cult classic Amsterdamned, which all recently were released on Blu Ray and I highly suggest picking them up or renting them on VOD, but his leap into Christmas horror with Sint – released in the US as Saint – is an instant classic for the season. One-part dark comedy, one-part fantasy, and all horror, Sint is outlandish and often perplexing in the best ways. Seeing a zombie European cloaked Santa riding a zombie horse on rooftops aside, the film has plenty of moments that are unforgettable and brilliantly executed and it remains one of my favorites for the season for a reason. This is one that is often overlooked by fans and shouldn’t be. It’s a genre bending and heartfelt film that earns its cult status.

02. Rare Exports

Another European film about the dark origins of Santa like the previous entry, Rare Exports, also released as Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, is the Finnish modern equivalent to classic family friendly fringed horror like The Goonies and Gremlins in tone and it’s brilliant to watch. It spins the narrative, uncovering an ancient and evil Santa, as it follows our young protagonist while it mixes a lot of childish fun with fantasy and some truly dark and horrific moments. Its themes about family and heart make it weirdly effective as a Christmas film on its own even outside of the horror aspects. Simply put, this is a must see in the next month or so.

01.Krampus

This is the one film that was obvious to me that it was going to make the list, not matter what. Director Michael Dougherty set the standard for modern day horror that embraces the Halloween spirit with his film Trick R’ Treat and it’s impressive that he was able to do the same with Krampus. With only a PG-13 rating, he crafts a film that’s filled with laughs, scares, and just straight out strange things in it that – like the previous entry on this list – can actually work as a film for the whole family as much as it does a horror film. Just a couple of months ago I saw a kid, maybe 10 years old, watching this film on a plane and it wasn’t even close to being Christmas season. That’s impressive. Not to mention, this film has also spawned one of the worst trends ever of terrible, horrible Krampus themed films that litter the shelves of Wal-Mart. There’s gotta be something to a film that spawns that kind of weird phenomenon.

So now that you know my top five picks for best modern Christmas horror classics, what’s yours? Do you agree with the list above? What have we missed here at Blood Brothers? Spit some blood below and let us know what are your favorite films that deserve some recognition.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Chasing the Dragon (2017)

Directors: Jason Kwan, Wong Jing

Notable Cast: Donnie Yen, Andy Lau, Kent Cheng, Wilfred Lau, Felix Wong, Philip Keung, Michelle Hu, Raquel Xu, Chun Wong, Philip Ng, Kent Tong, Niki Chow, Bryan Larkin

There was a lot of hype around Chasing the Dragon. The ever-present director and producer Wong Jing along with director Jason Kwan were going to take superstars Donnie Yen and the everlasting Andy Lau and develop a remake of the award-winning Hong Kong film, To Be Number One. It’s enticing to say the least. This much talent wrapped into a Hong Kong dramatic thriller was bound to generate this kind of buzz. Enough buzz and hype that it was almost destined to disappoint on some level. Yet, Chasing the Dragon is an ambitious film nonetheless, utilizing its immense onscreen talents to generate a film that is built on some insanely effective moments of emotional power and striking imagery. It’s obvious though that Wong Jing and company take the film too far into its ambitious realms to be as strong as it might have, forgoing the ‘less is more’ mantra to create an epic tone for the film. It’s attempts at being the next Scarface, Godfather, or Battles Without Honor and Humanity are evident from the start and can ultimately be problematic for the film as a whole, but Chasing the Dragon still works as an entertaining and hefty piece of modern Hong Kong cinema.

Wu Kong (2017)

Director: Derek Kwok

Notable Cast: Eddie Peng, Ni Ni, Shawn Yue, Oho Ou, Zheng Shuang, Faye Yu Fei-Hong, Quao Shan, Yang Di, Wang De-shun, Quentin Zhang, Zhang Yi-Qian

The recent explosion of various Monkey King films from China’s film industry can be a bit overwhelming to keep straight. It’s not that there hasn’t always been an obsession with the Monkey King (and Journey to the West) stories in the market, but lately it seems even more intense. Animated films and two major franchises have seen releases in the last handful of years, so when a potential new franchise was announced for the character it was a bit yawn inducing. The Monkey King franchise covered the family friendly aspects of the character for his mischievous adventures and Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West films covered the more traditional stories nicely and with plenty of pizzazz in blending comedy, action, and heart. So what could the latest film Wu Kong, directed by Derek Kwok and starring A-lister Eddie Peng as the titular Monkey King, really bring to the table? As it turns out, much more than expected. Based on a popular online novel, Wu Kong forgoes the traditional dynamics of the Journey to the West story and goes for more of an origin of the character and the result is actually quite impressive. It’s executed in striking fashion and the film takes a more humane and emotional bent for the character that’s much more adult oriented than The Monkey King, which tried to pull off the same concept. For films that feature the Monkey King as one of the lead characters, I have to admit that Wu Kong just might be my favorite of recent memory which comes as a huge surprise to me.