The Devil's Tomb

Have you ever come to the end of watching a movie and realised that if someone were to ask you what it were about you probably wouldn't be able to give them a coherent explanation?  This is usually due to either some rather complex plotting or a complete absence of what should be the plot, instead being replaced with some other pointless garbage.  The second explanation is actually a great way to introduce our my next selection, The Devil's Tomb.

From the box art/one sheet this film looks like it could be rather promising; Gooding Jr, Winstone, Perlman and Rollins have all proved their acting metal in my opinion so what could go wrong?  Answer, lots...  A scary amount of lots!

The plot involves an elite team of soldiers going into a underground bunker which leads to an archaeological dig site, they are attempting to rescue a scientist who's daughter (a CIA agent) has recruited their team and is accompanying them on the search.  Now it gets complicated, apparently the dig site is the location of a temple which holds the frozen body of Nephilim; an angel who has been thrown from heaven by God for being a naughty boy... girl... thing.  The scientists are in fact some form of organisation which agree to absorb the spirit of Nephilim to stop it escaping and causing a literal hell on earth, ultimately leading to their death.

As a viewer I would expect a lot of back story and explanation about the crazy apocalyptic alien (yes, it does look like the type of alien even the X-Files would reject for being too obvious) angel, but instead it is all crammed into a few pieces of dialogue, mostly from Rollins who also spends a lot of time with his mouth taped shut which is probably not a coincidence.

Instead the majority of this film is spent on the on the actions of this apparently elite unit, if these guys are elite we should probably give up all hope now; lets just head off to the air raid shelters and stick our heads between our knees because they sure as hell aren't going to leading the charge for salvation.  From their inability to clear a room correctly to their constant need to wander off on their own these guys are easy pickings from the very moment they shut the bunker hatch.

This is problem with The Devil's Tomb, instead of watching the film it turns even the die hard pacifist of a viewer into a shouting critic of the teams military manoeuvres.  Also the film makers have tried to cram so many extra plot points into the last 20 minutes I was left wondering what the hell was going on, there is a completely pointless flashback storyline featured throughout about Gooding Jrs former Captain which was simply building up to explain 10 seconds of the current timeline story!

I could go on about the terribly thought out plot but I'd be here for a long time; lets just say the soldiers are stupid, the religious horror side of things an after thought, and it just all looks cheap right down to the card board sets...  You know it's bad when the actors are running up and down the same set corridor but supposed to be in different locations.

There is definitely a strong cast involved in this film but only Gooding Jr gets any real screen time out of the big names, Perlman appears on monitors for the majority of the film which about sums up his performance which is video called in to the extent that you're bored for him.  Rollins appearance is welcomed comic relief, along side Fobbs (playing the rookie Click); these guys make the film bearable but only just.  A basic script with no suspense means the majority of the lines are predictable and delivered at a plodding pace, with a bit of eye candy for the guys in some random lesbian encounter and the appearance of a naked centrefold model forced in for good measure.

Of course as with any film touted at horror there are obviously going to bloody scenes, these are relatively few and far between although there is a lot of black coloured vomiting and a lovely scene of pus leaking sore licking... that isn't a typo so don't get excited.  The effects are very low budget, lots of bright, bright red blood and brain bits but nothing original or of note, sometimes imaginative character endings can save a film but in this case it's all very run of the mill.  

All in all there is little to redeem this straight to DVD title, even fans of the actors will probably not enjoy this offering and it will be assigned to the "wish I hadn't done that" list for most of its head liners.  I wouldn't bother watching this again and recommend that if you haven't seen it then save your eyes the torture.

Husk

Sorry it has been awhile, life got in the way and I had to put my movie watching in limbo for a few weeks! I'm back now and ready to go...  So on with the blog and today I will be looking at Husk.

Husk starts like any other generic horror film, a group of friends are travelling across what appears to be middle America on some form of group bonding exercise.  An unfortunate accident involving their SUV and a group of crows scoring an epic fail at a game of chicken leaves our characters stranded at the road side surrounded by corn fields, what shall we do now with no mobile coverage and only a lonely looking farmhouse for company?  I know lets split up in typical cast culling style and investigate!

As the friends attempt to extract themselves from their predicament it becomes clear that all is not normal with the farm, abandoned vehicles and a run down excuse for a farmhouse indicate there must be some kind of psycho murderer on the loose...  Because what happens when people live in secluded places like these?  They turn into Leatherface.  Well in Husk this isn't strictly true as it turns out our band of happy stereotypes are being hunted by scarecrows, in a twisted Children Of The Corn fashion our straw based cultists want to kill the flesh people and make them join the collective.

Now this could have been an interesting premise had the makers of this film actually done something with it, instead what starts out as something different and potentially unique turns into another paint by numbers killing of the friends the viewer is just left with the task of working out in what order they are going to die.  There is a back story as to why the scarecrows aren't particularly happy hanging around all day but there's nothing original to see there.  The use of one of the characters as having the ability to "see" the back story unfold in visions is well done, but given his brain dead friends think he's going a bit loony it's never fully utilised to move the film along.

The problem with the plot is the feel of it being unfinished, some actions of the characters are illogical; for example it is explained that whilst one of the recently killed people is upstairs getting their freak on with a hammer, some nails and their fingers the spirit cannot occupy the scarecrows in the field... At this point would you not as a rational human being say "screw this so-and-so is dead lets make a run for it!"

The Scarecrow was fed up of waiting for Christopher Nolan to start filming the third instalment of Batman

The acting is of an average standard, they aren't terrible it just never gets above made for TV standard.  With a poor script, the writer appears to have written the majority of it on the back of a beer mat whilst discussing the plot with his mates down the pub, the actors have little to work with.  Unfortunately they are put into neat little characters moulds of jock, geek, bad boy and girl (yes, due to her short on screen time we simple only discern her gender as her defining character feature).  Jock is blonde and macho, geek wears thick rimmed glasses and is weedy, and bad boy wears black biker jacket with too much gel in his hair...  It's really that to the point.

For a small budget the film is well made, it would easily stand up to many big release films in the style and direction.  The scarecrows look good when seen in close up and cornfields are just scary full stop in my opinion.  Due to the budget the limited amount of gore is actually good due to a lack of reliance on CGI, particularly in one cringe worthy moment when the undead are becoming part of the sack cloth gang.

I wouldn't disregard the production company, After Dark Films, on the basis of Husk though, the trailers accompanying the feature had a couple of their other films which could redeem them for this average, run of the mill output.

In conclusion I wouldn't bother with Husk, you've seen it all before and done better; this is like someone came up with the idea of trying to combine Signs with Jeepers Creepers and realised it was probably a bad idea half way through.  For a simple plot summary (which'll be quicker than getting the DVD out of the box); stranded friends split up, scarecrows go boo, all but one die, large potential for even worse sequel ending...  I apologise if I've ruined it for you but this is definitely one to avoid.