The Attic

"Some secrets are better kept in the dark." 

The Attic is a 2007 horror film directed by Mary Lambert. The stars includes Elizabeth Moss, Catherine Mary Stewart, Jason Lewis and John Savage. 

A family moves into a house with a sinister past, and their daughter Emma becomes obsessed with seeing phantoms of her twin sister, that never existed. After a fall, Emma encounters a paramedic, who later returns in another uniform where he claims to also work some shifts as a police officer. He seems to be the friend she's wanting. When her brother appears from a trip, things get darker for the family when certain ghostly activities happen.  

There was a lot of confusion with the plot and the decline of Emma's character as she became more withdrawn and mentally unstable. Certain scenes were horrific and inappropriate, but there was a creepy atmosphere. Emma is often the damsel in distress even wearing thin nighties all of the time, and colouring her hair so that she appears different to her twin. There's a number of errors in this, but easily overlooked if you notice them. 

The film could've been a 6 but it feels like a 5/10.

Blood Strawberry   

Lei Zhen Zi of the Creation Gods

 

This is a Chinese 2023 action fantasy film, directed Chen Feng. The stars includes Norman Chu, Wu Chun-Yi and Yu LI. 

A load of barbarians invade a provincial town and slaughter everyone in the village including the general and his wife. Their child Xiading manages to escape. Years later the boy has grown up and is living in a small mountain town of great myth and legends, believed to be home to a dragon. He finds himself learning of his origins through his foster father the blacksmith, while rescuing the love of his life from an evil witch who works for the cruel barbarians. 

This film uses CGI and it looks impressive, especially the magnificent dragon. There are colourful moments, interesting characters, some humour and lots of fighting. This is based on the 16th century novel "Fengshenyanyi" or "Investiture of the Gods" by Xu Zhonglin of the My Dynasty. The film is high fantasy and part of a trilogy focusing on the divine Feather People who are also dragon slayers. 

I rate this an epic score of 10/10

Blood Strawberry

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

"The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" is an epic 1958 fantasy film directed by Nathan Juran. The stars includes Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant and Richard Eyer. 

Sinbad is on his return when his ship turns to an island of mist, when it appears visible they go ashore. Only to discover it's inhabited by an enormous race of cyclops giants. They rescue a wizard, who carries a magic lamp. Things turn dark and complicated when the wizard is invited back to Sinbad's father's palace and evil magic happens. What's even more disturbing for Sinbad is when his beloved princess is turned into as small as a mouse. Then the adventure begins.

The awesome special effects by Ray Harryhausen using stop motion animation never gets old. It makes the monsters appear more frightening. This was the first type of special effects shown in a colour film. 

I rate this excellent fantasy 10/10

Blood Strawberry   

 

Gappa the Triphibian Monster

 

This 1967 fantasy film was directed by Hiroshi Noguchi. The stars includes Tamio Kawaji, Yoko Yamamoto, Yuji Odaka and Koji Wada. 

Japanese explorers locate an isolated volcanic island called Obelisk, where the native inhabitants believe in a godlike creature named Gappa. There is a secret cave where no one is allowed to go otherwise it makes Gappa angry. The Japanese locate a huge egg near strange stone statues, which they decide to take back with them for study. However, the Gappa has become extremely angry and erupts. 

This film was also released under the title "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet." Despite the monster movies trend being made in Japan, this one was the only one made by Nikkatsu studio, which almost overshadowed by Godzilla and other Kaiju monster films. They quickly went out of business and didn't make anymore films, which was a shame really as this film has good special effects for it's time. The miniature city models were incredible craft works that seems not appreciated by modern audiences. I rate this a 7/10.

Blood Strawberry