Hi, people of this page who read my stuff and make it worth writing and keeping the flame burning. This episode of the movies I have seen may start off with j-horror, meaning Japanese horror RASEN. It is a 1998.made movie based on the novel by Koji Suzuki, Japanese Stephen King.

Doctor pathologist troubled by his past investigates the death of his college friend involving the mysterious video tape. When you watch the tape, in seven days you die. The only solution to avoid death is to make a copy and give it to someone else who must watch it. Sounds familiar folks? Ringu anyone? Well, you are right. Bpth Ringu or The Ring and this one were released simultaneously in the same year throughout the Japanese theatres, but Ringu was a great box office hit and this one flopped. This one was supposed to be a sequel, some of the characters being the same as in Ringu.

Although I love the Asian horror movie scene and especially J-Horror, this one left somehow bitter taste in my mouth. There are just too few spooky scenes and situations in the movie, plus those parts that we Europeans dont understand. Have you noticed that almost every Asian horror has approximately ten minutes of the movie that is understandable only to Asian people? I dont mean to offend anyone here with this connotation, maybe I am just to stupid to get some things or something. The deaths in the movie are too soft, not to mention the ending that is so philosophical and melodramatic that makes you regret you wasted an hour and a half of your life on this one.

Moving on to something different. Time for found footage cross between alien abduction conspiracy and horror. What? Yes, people, time for PHOENIX FORGOTTEN, Ridley Scott produced found footage. It is based on the true stories regarding mysterious lights in the sky in Arizona. The story revolves around young girl who is looking for her older brother who went missing as teenager along with two other kids in the Arizona desert.

Like it usually happens in those kind of movies, they find a broken camera with the tape inside and the girl watches the found footage that explains and opens more questions regarding the disappearances. I love found footage, it is besides slasher, my favourite horror subgenre, but this one absolutely did not work for me.

The rule in found footage is that absolutely nothing important happens until maybe 40 or 45 minutes into film. Then about half an hour of running around, shouting, impossible to see anything clearly and than the movie usually ends with a camera falling on the ground and remaining there. Blairwitch set the standards and many jumped on the bandwagon of success. The action in this one was just too thin, and I swear that I already saw the ending in one movie, at this moment I just cant remember in which one. Bad movie, but nice to see that the genre still exists today alive and kicking.

When I first saw the trailer for IT STAINS THE SANDS RED it made my mouth water. Finally, I thought, the zombie horror movie worth watching. Reading some of the reviews, some people that I know wrote that the movie sucked. Now I am happy I didnt believe them.

The movie opens with the scenes from Las Vegas and its a general chaos there. Sirens, fires, smoke, dead bodies…then we are moving to Nevada desert highway, where a stripper and her semi criminal, dealer friend get stuck in the sand with the car tyre.  They see a lone person walking towards them on the road, wearing suit and tie. It is a zombie and it quickly eats the dealer and the rest of the movie is a survival adventure of the girl running and trying to stay alive in the desert chased by that zombie. Although it is an interesting premise the story in the movie is so much more than that. The zombie and his mood is nicely written, the simpathy that the girl gradually has for that zombie which she called Smalls is at the moment touching.

Gore scenes in the movie are nice, some parts made me watch and laugh with disbelief and the ending of the movie left the space for the sequel which I am kinda hoping and kinda not hoping they will make. Zombie horror subgenre became somehow lame for me in the last couple of years, but I just loved this one. It was an incredible fun to see this one and I recommend it with all my heart.

For the last movie in this episode of reviews we return again to Japan. THE TEMPLE trailer and the story looked attractive to me, so I decided to watch it.

The movie opens with the Japanese police search party roaming through the woods looking for someone. They enter the spooky looking abandoned temple and find a badly burned survivor.

Afterwards, the police interrogates the survivor in the hospital trying to find out what happened. In fact, they are looking for the couple of missing American students, who were last seen traveling in that area. The survivor tells them his story about the group of American students who were making pictures or documentary or whatever involving old Japanese temples.

So, being naive and stupid as most of the characters in horror movies are, they disregard all warnings by the natives and enter the temple which is surrounded by the dark legend that people go mad there, some children went missing and never returned from there bla bla…Anyway, weird shit happens and one by one, the protagonists lose their minds, lives and everything. The movie has some spooky scenes and made goosebumps on some occasions while watching, but generally speaking it was too dark made and some of the scenes were ruined by being too dark to see anything. It also has a twist in the end, but it is one of those horror movie clichees that you have seen and I am certain you will guess it before the movie ends. This could have been much better movie. I wish it were.