VOD Review: Let Us Prey (2015)

(aka The Really Blacklist)
Release Date: May 26th.
Country: UK.
Rating: NR.
Written by: David Cairns & Fiona Watson.
Directed by: Brian O'Malley.
Starring: Liam Cunningham, Pollyanna McIntosh, Douglas Russell, Bryan Larkin and Hanna Stanbridge.

I don't know why so many people (like us) are so quick to compare movies to one another, but we just have to say that Let Us Prey felt a lot like Assault on Precinct 13 meets The Prophecy, with a serious helping of blood & gore thrown in for good measure. It also reminded us a lot of The Traveler and Storm of the Century in parts too, so maybe it's just one of those movies that borrows heavily from, or was inspired by, a bunch of other recognizable movies.

There aren't many movies in this Genre (or in general) that don't find inspiration in others that have come before them, so it's really all a moot point as long as they're good. Which this one was.

A mysterious stranger comes out of the crashing sea, and accompanied by a murder of crows, he walks into the lives of a small group of Coppers and criminals, on a mission to steal their souls. Since all of their souls are evil and black, we're rooting for the dark stranger from the get-go. Hell is coming, and he's coming with it! Should be exciting.

OR MAYBE HE IS HELL?

PC. Rachel Heggie is a rookie Cop who is about to start her first (and maybe last) night on the job. She comes from a troubled past, and now she's just looking to stay strong and protect others from the kind of Hell that she endured as a child. Straight off, she witnesses a local punk running over a man standing in the road, and arrests him even though the man disappears. It kind of makes her look like a fool though, because no crime without a body, right?

SHE'S NO FOOL THOUGH!

The jailhouse is full of creepers, and when the guy who got hit eventually shows up at the station, they lock him up too, because he's too cryptic for their liking. Rachel's Sergeant and fellow Officers seem to like her about as much as they do the criminals, but at least the mysterious stranger in cell Six seems to get her. That's because he's creepy, and he knows every deep dark secret that each of them hides. He likes Rachel though, so when it comes time to expose everyone for the POS's that they are, he pretty much leaves her be. For a while, at least.

THEY ARE ALL GOING TO PAY.

The basic gist of the movie is that everybody is a creepy fucker with nasty secrets to hide, and Liam Cunningham is here to sort them all out.

All Hell breaking loose vigorously ensues.

SORTED.

From the breathtaking opening sequence where we see massive, angry waves crashing against a gorgeous Scottish coastline, we knew that Let Us Prey was going to be special, at least as far as its visuals were concerned. We also ended up loving the story, how surprisingly gory it got, and every second that Liam Cunningham was on-screen. 

As simple and familiar as this story is (it feels a lot like The Traveler or Storm of the Century, at least in some ways), it allows the pieces of its narrative to come together slowly, one at a time, until we're left looking at a disturbing, horrific puzzle of human depravity. The movie isn't perfect, but damn it if it wasn't entertaining as hell. For a production with a smaller budget, it definitely makes the most out of what is has.

WILL SHE SURVIVE? (NO.)

Liam Cunningham is the heart and soul of this movie. He's got an intense menace about him that always captivates us (he plays Davos on Game of Thrones, and does so magnificently), and he plays the bad guy perfectly. For us, this movie is worth seeing for his performance alone. 

Aside from Rachel, the characters in this movie were pretty unlikable, so it was hard for us to give a shit about any of them dying... but maybe that was the point. The fact that we loathed almost all of the characters in this movie is at least a solid testament to the skill of the actors who played them.

Let Us Prey also boasts one hell of a score, which at times reminded us of 80's era John Carpenter. Using retro synth-driven scores seems to be a popular trend in Genre movies lately, and as great as it usually sounds, we're not complaining one bit.

FINAL GIRL.

Was Six Satan himself, or just a generic soul-collecting Demon of some sort? Some of the things that Six said and inferred made us think that he was the walking embodiment of Old Scratch... and yet there were other things that made us think the exact opposite. Then again, he could be an avenging Angel from Heaven too, although we're pretty sure that's not it.

We're probably wrong, but we're still going with our instincts and saying that he was Satan. We'd really like to know for sure either way though.

WHO ARE YOU?!?

 

***SPOILERS*** The part towards then end where the Sergeant flips his shit and goes all Old Testament on everybody seemed like it came out of nowhere. I don't know if he realized who Six was, and then suited up accordingly to do the Lord's work or something, but it felt like something that was thrown in just to give the movie an exciting climax. In that respect it worked, but it just felt forced.

HE IS VENGEANCE, SO SAYETH THE LORD.

There is absolutely no shortage of blood and gore in this one: people die messy, and there are disturbing flashbacks involving rape, child abuse, and murder, all of which we get to see it all in graphic detail.

THEY'RE PROBABLY GOING TO NEED A NEW FRIDGE.

We get a few scenes of sexual content, but none of it is graphic, and there is no nudity.

WHY ARE ALL RAGING BITCHES SO HOT?

People have secrets, and some of them are pretty horrible. Also, Liam Cunningham is fucking.aces.

THAT RIGHT THERE IS THE WORST KIND OF SECRET THERE IS.

Let Us Prey comes about as close to being a modern day Genre classic as it can be without actually being one, if that makes any sense at all. The story might be familiar, but the twisted way in which it all plays out made it enjoyable, familiar or not. It's definitely worthy of a rental, but at $9.99, you might as well just buy the Blu-ray, and call it a day.

B+

Let Us Prey is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Pollyanna McIntosh and Hanna Stanbridge are in this.

Theatrical Review: The Canal (2014)

It's not very often that a movie comes along that is genuinely scary like The Canal is.

That's not a knock on all of the other great genre movies that we see, because plenty of them give us the willies too, but rather its more of a testament to just how well executed this movie was.

We were lucky enough to have it playing at a Theater relatively close to us (which hardly ever happens with the new, good VOD titles like this), and so we made the trip to frigging Dearborn to see it.

Movies like The Canal are worth the extra drive.

David and Alice are a happily married couple that are buying their dream home; she's all kinds of pregnant, and he's just happy that he made her that way. As they take a tour of their future house, David notices someone creeping around, and he goes to investigate, but whoever it was disappeared into the sewer out back, so no harm no foul.

WEDDED BLISS

Five years later, the marriage isn't so happy anymore; they may have a beautiful son together, but David is pretty sure that Alice is cheating on him with some guy from work. He follows her one night, and sure enough, he catches them engaged in gland-to-gland combat. Instead of killing them both with a hammer, David runs off. On the way home, he stop by a public restroom to vomit and have some hallucinations, and maybe get a handy from a stranger... Because he's clearly lost his damn mind.

MIND = GONE.

When Alice doesn't come home the next day, David calls the Police to report her missing. From the get-go, the Police pretty much think that he killed her, because husbands always kill their wives when they discover them to be cheating whores. David knows he didn't kill her though, and as more and more odd and creepy things begin to happen to he and his son, he becomes convinced that something supernatural is going on. Of course, this leads him to start investigating things on his own...

HE DOES A REAL GOOD JOB OF INVESTIGATING THINGS.

I'll say no more about the plot here, as doing so would surely spoil its twists and turns, but suffice it to say that the more David investigates the strange goings-on in his house, the more he loses his mind... and of course the more he discovers about what's going on, the more that everyone around him ends up in danger. Everybody's screwed!

SHE LOOKS ANGRY.

The Canal may be the most frightening movie that we've seen all year. It's thick with atmosphere, and it oozes dread to the point where it almost got a little depressing. The tension is palpable throughout this one, and while the main mystery of the movie is "Did David kill his wife, or did ghosts do it?" (to put it very lightly), the answer to that question really doesn't matter, because it's terrifying either way.

The movie uses a lot of red, green, and blue tint throughout, most of which makes for some striking imagery. Writer/Director Ivan Kavanagh has crafted a movie with a very effective visual style here, which only serves makes the creeping unease of the plot feel all the more dire.

The ending of this movie twists and turns until it comes to a scene that truly put us on our asses; so effective was this scene that I can still feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Then, once we finally understand what's been going on, the movie does it to us again with another hair-raising scene. Then the epilogue hits, which may have been the most horrifying scene of them all.

Honestly, the last scene in the movie was just about as horrifying as a last scene in a movie can get. We really felt the need to emphasize that point twice.

BUT WHY ARE YOU INSIDE OF THE WALL?

Stories where everyone thinks that the main character is crazy, and they refuse to believe anything they say despite there being proof to back it up, tend to drive us nuts. That wasn't too big of an issue in The Canal, and even if it was, that's the point of the movie, but it irks us none the less.

When someone has pictures and video of some creepy shit, you have to at least believe them a little bit!

Why would you play a video (via projector) over the part of the wall that has a big gaping hole in it? You can't see what you're trying to play that way!

There are a few scenes of murder throughout this one, and it's full of all kinds of bloody and grisly imagery to boot. Once scene towards the end was extra, extra disturbing, and it might be the creepiest visual moment in the film.

YEAH, THINGS GET BLOODY.

We get some brief nudity in one sex scene, most of which involves a bunch of naked man ass.

AND HER; SHE'S NAKED TOO.

Marriage sucks. Also,Cops usually know what in the hell they're talking about, so heed their warnings.

ALSO, WHAT THE FUCK?!?

If you're looking for a movie that will unsettle you, and maybe cause you to have a nightmare or two, then The Canal should do you just fine. It's one of the best movies that we've seen in 2014, and it should be on everyone's viewing list during this Halloween Season.

If you're lucky enough to have it playing at a Theater near you, definitely see it on a big screen with an audience. If not, then give it a rent on VOD. Either way, just see it.

A-

The Canal is available now on VOD, and is also in Limited Theatrical release.

The poor women in this movie just can't catch a break.