Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

This kind of place does strange things to people . Tempers flair and animosity boils over as four friends get lost in the outback, not only dealing with each other's increasing hostility but the knowledge that a big rig driver with a gun is somewhere near. The ultimate villain is the Road Train, a giant monster diesel with two haulers containing something mysterious. This rig, however, runs on a unique kind of fuel and seems to possess anyone who remains near it for too long. The hood ornament for the Road Train is a cerebus, three headed wolves splitting into three directions..as a particular character "falls under the rig's spell", we see the image of three wolves with glowing eyes of blood red. Craig(Bob Morley, quite menacing once he's under the truck's power, a charming smile masking evil intent)has slept with his best friend, Marcus'(Xavier Samuel; TWILIGHT:ECLIPSE)current girlfriend, Liz(Georgina Haig)which continues to produce unease between them...

Lori Heuring stars as a doctor trapped in a well along with other selected victims, chosen for a madman's human behavior experiments to determine how they will contend with having no food, their bodies desire for sustenance slowly demanding nourishment. Linden Ashby, Joe Egender, Lea Kohl, and Julian Rojas round out the cast of suffering humans, Bjorn Johnson the psychopath monitoring them. Heuring explains to us in one scene, in detail, how the body will slowly deteriorate, the organs cannibalizing inside before total break down, starvation, and death. Bjorn Johnson's motivation derives from an incident when he was a child, eating from his dead mother in order to survive. Johnson will see if this group would do the same. Attempts to escape and reason how to get out of the well give way to anguish, fear, sickness, and mania. When a couple, choosing an area near the well as a make-out spot, are murdered by Johnson before they could get the trapped group help, we see that he wil...

Jean Juno, a former banker, starts a new job working as an insurance salesman, immediately finding himself in a bit of a quandary, a client, demanding payment on the loss of his child, could have murdered his own step-son. Juno, not accepting that this little boy actually committed suicide, believing he was murdered, will attempt to prove his death was in fact a homicide. Juno is haunted by the suicide of his brother(a victim of bullies)and this has shaped him as an adult. In regards to cold blooded female psychopaths, Shin Yi-Hwa reminded me of Béatrice Dalle from À l'intérieur and Asami Yamazaki(Eihi Shiina)of Takashi Miike's Ôdishon. She has these black soulless eyes reminiscent to Michael Meyers, there's a void where humanity should be present yet isn't. Yi-Hwa moves in a deliberate but determined manner, a crook in her walk due to a handicapped foot which bends inward. Director Terra Shin often points his camera at Yi-Hwa's feet, establishing her presence in a ...

Director Cody Jarrett's homage to Jack Hill's women-in-prison exploitation flicks(it even features Hill in a cameo as a corrupt judge!)concerns a news journalist going undercover to undermine/shakedown a prostitution ring headed by an evil warden and her guards, using inmates as hookers to wealthy clientèle. Aunt Irene(Jacqueline Scott)calls up news reporter Valerie March(Geneviere Anderson), known for her crusades against those in power positions using their authority to commit criminal acts. Irene's niece, Cheryl Jean(Jayme Rhae Edwards), was arrested for prostitution(not a crime which warrants an excessive prison term)and she desires for Valerie to help save her. Valerie beckons her publisher to allow her the opportunity to assume the identity of hooker named Angel, and while clashing with certain inmates, she does, albeit not without some initial resistance, befriend a prostitute named Loretta(Thela Brown; an obvious Pam Grier imitation), a tough-talking sista with att...

Chatree(Charlie Trairat) is sent to a boardinghouse for boys due to low grades and his current poor performance in school. Once there, a tight pack tell Chatree ghost stories which set up a terror in his mind which makes nights difficult for him. Adjusting and adapting to his new environment will prove difficult and uneasy, but Chatree soon makes at least one friend who starts up a conversation with him. DORM might be a bit too sappy and sad for some horror fans wanting edgy and visceral thrills because the filmmakers care about their little protagonist and his situation. They want us to sympathize with his predicament, but understand the father's reasons for his actions. Due to bad grades, his disapproving father sends Chatree to a boarding school hoping his boy will wise up and straighten himself out for the better. We have a dinner table memory where Chatree is informed that he would be "sent away", left by his parents in an institution where all the boys sleep in cots...

Por(Intira Jaroenpura)is a bartender(who deals and abuses drugs)who narrowly escapes a drowning after being pummeled by Ord, her sadistic supplier after he discovers that she is actually using his product instead of selling it like she's supposed to. When she awakens in a hospital, Por is told by her caring physician, Dr. Rudee(Aranya Namwong)that she is pregnant. Por realizes that her guitarist boyfriend(who leaves her to go on tour with a new band)is the father and wants an abortion. The pregnancy is the least of her troubles because not only must she contend with Ord who demands answers, but a ghost named Mai(Prangthong Changdham)is haunting her. The Nong Luang Swamp where Por almost died was the location for which Mai's body was found. Mai wants what belongs to her and will torment Por into investigating so that this dead girl's spirit can find rest. "The dead don't stay dead," is what passed through my mind as I watched Bhandit Thongdee's THE UNBORN...

John Hickman(Travis Aaron Wade), his girlfriend Brooks(Tina Huang)and friends, Ben(Howard Johnson Jr), Quincy(Trevor Bullock), and Wayne(Rajiv Shah)decide to go huntin' into the California wilderness. John's uncle is killed by something fierce at the beginning of the movie which turns out to be a gigantic monstrous pig known as "the ripper". John is using his uncle's land to camp on and old pals(he'd soon have avoided like the plague)from his childhood, dirty, foul hick brothers Jake(Jason Foster)and Ricky(Nick Tagas)impose themselves on the group. Tagging along(despite John and company's desire for them not to), Jake and Ricky go on and on about killing hogs, in particular, the ripper. Well, an incident involving the dirty duo's insistence on bagging up dope for profit(marijuana fields are being illegally cultivated on John's uncle's land), turns violent resulting in accidental murder, which spirals out of control as Jake warns them of the w...