VOD Review: Pyewacket (2018)

"Family drama with a supernatural bent."

(aka I Hate My Mom!.)
Release Date: March 23.
Country: Canada.
Rating: NR.
Written by: Adam MacDonald.
Directed by: Adam MacDonald.
Starring: Nicole Munoz, Laurie Holden, Chloe Rose, and Missy Peregrym as the voice of Pyewacket.

A few years back, writer/director Adam MacDonald gave us the really enjoyable killer bear flick, Backcountry, and you can read our review of that little gem, right HERE. Now, he's returned to the Horror fold with a little tale of grief and a goth kid gone matricidal, which only serves to further our belief that they guy knows how to make an effective genre flick.

FYI: According to real-life English lore, Pyewacket is the spirit of a familiar that was bound to serve a witch back in the 1600's, and is described as an imp. Now, going into this movie we thought that Pyewacket was supposed to be a witch, and some reviews out there call the titular character a witch, while others use the word demon to describe the otherworldly spirit, but it's really a familiar, which I guess is neither here nor there, but for some reason I felt the need to clarify.

Don't ask why. Just go with it.

Ever since the death of her father, Leah has gone goth and turned to Death Metal and the occult as a coping method. Conversely, her mother just drinks a lot of wine and cries. Feeling that they need a new start, Mom decides to move them both to a new home way out in the boonies, because the wilderness life will do them both some good.

"OMG MOM, YOU'RE DESTROYING MY LIFE!"

Leah is not happy about this at all, and so her relationship with her mother grows more and more contentious, to the point where she feels that summoning the vengeful spirit Pyewacket to kill the bitch is the only reasonable course of action.

NOTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS REASONABLE.

Of course it takes Leah about 10 minutes to realize that she's done something horribly stupid, and when odd and creepy things start to happen around their new home, she has to figure out a way to undo what she's done, before Pyewacket takes her mother her too.

MOM IS OBVIOUSLY DRUNK AGAIN.

Pyewacket is a slow-burn of a movie which offers plenty of moody dread throughout, but doles it out in a very subtle way. To me personally, it plays a lot like the excellent The Blackcoat's Daughter (review HERE) did in that regard; they both have mood and atmosphere to spare, and they both pack a pretty good punch at the end. I really like the way that MacDonald avoids the use of cheap jump scares here.

Teen angst plays a large part in the movie and its plot developments, and whereas that trope usually tends to annoy us, it's done very well here thanks to a truly great performance by Nicole Munoz. Sure she's moody, and yeah she's so unreasonable that she goes through an elaborate ritual to summon an otherworldly spirit to kill her mother after an argument, but she never plays it over-the-top or never gets too annoying with things. And Laurie Holden does a killer job as the aforementioned mother, especially towards the end when her character gets downright unsettling.

OH MAN, SOMEONE'S GROUNDED.

There's a bit of ritualistic bloodshed in this one, but it's the horrifying ending that might just make you hurl. Not that it's bloody, but it's... well, you'll see.

THE BLOODSHED.

Not that kind of flick.

WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE HAD A ROMANTIC SUBPLOT?!?

Teenage girls are moody. Also, messing with the occult is never a good idea, especially for moody teenage girls.

LOOK WHAT YOU DID!

Pyewacket is a movie that creeped us out and kept us involved in its human story at the same time, and gave us an ending that was truly disturbing to behold. A nice little surprise, all told, and one that should be seen by anyone who loves the term "Slow burn."

B+

Pyewacket is available on VOD now.

Nicole, Chloe, and Laurie: the bewitching women of Pyewacket.

Screener Review: Hellraiser: Judgement (2018)

"Well, it's not the worst entry in the series."

Pleasure and pain. That's what it is to be a Hellraiser fan these days.

Remember a few years back when the fine lads over at Dimension Films gave us the cheap cash-in that was Hellraiser: Revelations? You can read our review HERE if you need a refresher, but suffice it to say that it was really bad, in a really big way. Well, it's seven years later, and they're at it again, but this time it looks as if they might have gotten it right. Or at least more right than they did with Revelations.

I mean, how could anything be worse than that piece of shit was?

Pinhead is trying his best to adapt to modern times, because it ain't easy luring new souls to their doom, because the Internet is full of porn or something. Enter The Auditor, who has a plan to bring the best sinners on Earth to Hell. Craigslist!

HE NEEDS A NEW COMPUTER.

On Earth, a child murderer is lured to a house with the promise of a reward. There he meets The Auditor, who straps the creep to a chair, and hooks him to an intravenous typewriter, which records his sins. Then, The Assessor comes in, eats the pages of liquid confession, and pukes it into a tube, where it's sent to a trio of naked, faceless chicks (The Jurys) for them to run their hands through, so that they can pronounce him guilty. Then he's licked clean by a trio of old ladies, after which the morbidly obese Butcher comes in and lets a chick in fetish gear out of a sack, where she slices the pedo up.

IT'S A COMPLICATED PROCESS.

Elsewhere, there's a Serial Killer on the loose called The Preceptor, who kills sinful souls who dare break any of the Ten Commandments. A trio of detectives (two brothers and a hot chick) are hot on his trail, which leads one of them to the very same house where The Auditor awaits him. From that point on, it's Cenobites trying to claim souls; Angels trying to save them; and clueless humans trying to catch a murderer.

Somehow, this all ties together. You'll see.

"YES THAT LOOKS LIKE A CLUE TO ME."

I'll say this: The movie opens strong, and when it's focused on the hellish side of its story, it's fairly impressive. The FX work is solid, and it all feels dirty and forbidden in a dark way. The Auditor was a pretty cool addition to the Cenobite ranks, and he gave us a Dr. Channard vibe, in a way. The inclusion of Jophiel the Angel was really cool, and it would have been nice to see the story focus more on her and her involvement with the darker aspect of things.

The big question though has to be "How was Pinhead?" Well, the Pinhead of Judgment came nowhere near Doug Bradley's perfect portrayal in the earlier films, but he was hell and gone better than the embarrassing Pinhead of Revelations, and he was pretty serviceable overall. It's definitely a step in a better direction.

Where the movie loses steam, is when it jumps to the detectives storyline. I know this was made on a small budget, but the talking and investigating made things grind to a halt, momentum-wise, more often than not.The plot was a bit busy and was sloppily executed in places, and the dialogue could have been sharper too.

Overall though, not bad at all.

THIS GUY HAS POTENTIAL.

Lots of blood and grotesque acts in this one, but some of the kills weren't shown in graphic detail. Must have been a budget thing. That opening sequence though... it'll make you queasy.

THE "JESUS WEPT" LINE WAS A MISSTEP THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEFT OUT.

Sexy women abound throughout, though they mostly stay clothed. The Jury girls get naked and wet, and that's about it on the graphic nudity front.

SEXY, EVEN WITH NO FACE.

Hellraiser needs another big budget effort, and it desperately needs Doug Bradley back as Pinhead, if it's going to come close to the quality of the original movies.

LOVE THIS GUY.

I didn't hate it. I was waiting for Hellraiser: Judgment to be another cheap piece of shit that only served to lessen the Hellraiser name even more than the last five sequels did, but it got some things right, and did others pretty well, and I kinda dug it, despite its obvious flaws.

If you're dying to see a new Hellraiser flick, and can live with a few flaws, then give it a go. Just take it all with a grain of salt.

C+

Hellraiser: Judgment hits Blu-ray, DVD, & VOD now.

Hellraiser Judgment features a bevy of lovely ladies, but we're extra keen on Helena Grace Donald who played the angel, Jophiel. She special.

Screener Review: Inoperable (2018)

"Danielle Harris vs. a Haunted Hurricane."

When we received this screener for Inoperable, we thought "A new Danielle Harris flick, this ought to be good!" Because honestly, as self-respecting Horror fans, we have to recognize Danielle Harris as one of the greatest Scream Queens of all-time. She's just had a hell of a career, and she always entertains. Also, cute as a button.

As a flick where we got to see Danielle Harris being the damsel in distress for 90-minutes, Inoperable was all good.

As far as the movie being all good overall... well that's a different story.

Anyone who has ever been to Tampa Bay has no doubt wanted to escape it, and Danielle Harris is no exception. She's trying to get out of town in her bitchin' 80's-style corvette before a Category-5 Hurricane Sybil hits. Stuck in a traffic jam, listening to a song that sounds like a failed American Idol audition, she... wakes up in a hospital bed?

MAYBE SHE CRASHED?

The hospital seems to be abandoned, and coincidentally looks like a hurricane ran through its halls. She gets dressed and searches for a way out, failing to notice that there are spirits roaming the halls with her... but then nurse and doctors and patients start showing up, none of whom seem to notice her. Then in another blink, she's back in her car, trying to escape Tampa.

WE HAVE NO IDEA EITHER, DANIELLE.

Is Danielle Harris stuck in a time loop? Is the hurricane haunted? What in the hell is going on here?!? Far be it from us to spoil things for you, but suffice it to say that it will all make sense in the end. Not good sense, but sense.

OOPS, THIS MUST BE THE PROCTOLOGY LAB.

Danielle Harris is always fun to watch, even if the movie she's starring in doesn't offer much, which is the case here. Inoperable is a boring mess of a movie, that has an interesting idea going for it, but never really does anything compelling or scary with it. Sure, there's some good gore throughout, and Danielle Harris is a gem, but it felt like this movie was little more than her running around the hospital hallways, looking scared, and jumping back and forth in time.

There's a point to the "jumps" that happen throughout, and had the reveal at the very end happened about halfway through, this would have been a better movie. Or at least, a more interesting one.
 
Truth be told, as much as we love DH, it's Katie Keene that does the best work here. Hotness aside, Keene actually makes the film (and the bad acting going on all around her), a bit more watchable.

LOOKS LIKE HE LOST HIS HEAD. ZING!

Syringe violence, graphic surgery, a close-up of a brain, and various other hospital-themed moments of bloody fun throughout.

WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?!?

Katie Keene looks sexy throughout, but no nudity to be found here.

OPEN YOUR EYES, YOU'RE MISSING THEM!

Inoperable is not a good movie. It's boasts a pair of pretty starlets, and it has some solid FX work going for it, but it's not scary or intense in the least, and it's a bit of a mess plot-wise.

If you dig Danielle Harris, or want to discover the greatness of Katie Keene, then check it out. Otherwise, it's a hard pass.

D+

Inoperable is available now on DVD and VOD.

Katie Keene is a hot little sassbox.