Movie Review: The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence] (2011)

So like I said on my previous post that included this movie, I tried to tell myself beforehand that I just had to see it, as I am a card-carrying horror movie fan and this horror movie (and its predecessor) had been relatively big news upon its release. But who am I kidding? I couldn't wait to see The Human Centipede 2! When the first movie was pretty lame and didn't give us near the graphic-ness that was promised, how could I pass up a movie that was claiming to be so much more gross and disgusting?

I really am an idiot sometimes.

Martin is a rotund little person who has an obsession with the movie The Human Centipede. Probably quite mentally ill from suffering sexual abuse as a child and constant haranguing by his mother as an adult, Martin's fantasy is to create his own 12-person human centipede. He sets out retrieving victims from the parking garage he works at, and his fantasy soon becomes a frightening reality.

I can't say with full conviction that I actually liked this movie, because I don't want to have liked this movie. Everything about THC2 makes you feel dirty, uncomfortable, and guilty about even watching the damn thing. But at the same time, I've always said that I like, or at least admire, those films and filmmakers that have the balls to go as far as they can with whatever subject matter they choose. Tom Six may have chosen a topic that no one wants to hear about or see on film ever in their lives, but I still give him props for having the courage to make these movies. No matter what he makes after the hype from the movies has blown over (and maybe it sort of already has), he will forever be known as the guy who created The Human Centipede. Time will tell whether that will be a good or bad thing for his career.

I never have a problem with a movie shot in black and white because I think it looks absolutely beautiful, and this movie is no exception. It looks even better with the digital technology of film nowadays. The edges and shadows are crisper, more defined and the shades of gray are varying and interesting. The choice of using black and white for THC2 is fairly understandable - it might just have been unbearable to watch, even for me, with all the pretty colors that come out of the human body splashed across the screen. And yet, there is still the famous climax scene of the movie where a certain brown substance is literally splattered on the camera lens. It's the only color in the movie, obviously done by Tom Six to either further traumatize the audience in this scene, or just to fulfill his promise of showing absolutely everything in this sequel that he restrained from showing in the first movie. Uh, thanks Tom. Really wasn't necessary, though.

The most disgusting thing about THC2 to me was Martin himself. They found the perfect actor for this role - a short, overweight man with ears that stick out and balding hair that seems to be permanently plastered to his head with sweat. However, I found myself sympathizing with Martin a lot during the first part of the film, much the same as I would sympathize with anyone who obviously never had a chance at a normal life. He was sexually abused by his father as a young child and still lives with his mother whom he gets no love from because she's a whackjob and says she misses her husband and that it is Martin's fault he's in jail. He's extremely introverted and never speaks a word through the whole film. Martin is also an interesting character in that at the same time you may feel sympathy for him and his shitty life, you are also disgusted by him physically and as a person.

I don't really feel the need to focus on the graphic ways that Martin goes about making his own human centipede or the two instances of serious sexual dysfunction that he displays, because I'd merely be repeating what everyone else has already said. There are a couple of things about this movie that I found interesting that almost no one has mentioned. First of all, bodies that have been mutilated beyond recognition really, really gross me out, so the scene where Martin bashes his mother's head in with a crowbar and then sits her body up at the kitchen table was truly traumatizing for me. The sight of her mushy skull seriously made me want to throw up more than the pooping scene. Go figure. Excellent work on the makeup effects there, because I had to look away from the screen.

Another thing that really bothered me was a silly plot point that was insanely overlooked by the filmmakers. Martin gets his candidates for the centipede by kidnapping them from the underground garage where he works as a security guard. He hits them on the head with a crowbar (some people get hit several times, amazingly without any serious effects), ties their wrists and ankles with duct tape, and then just throws them in his empty warehouse while he goes to get more victims. At one point, there are several people left in the warehouse alone together, and yet they don't seem to make any attempt to escape! You're telling me that nine adults can't manage to free at least one person from freaking DUCT TAPE? And what makes this even more ridiculous is that the pregnant woman's hands aren't even tied. Shenanigans.

I also thought it was interesting that I heard nothing about the horrific scene where the above-mentioned idiotic pregnant woman finally does escape the warehouse. She runs out with an obscene amount of blood gushing from between her legs, gets into a car, can't start it (because this is a horror movie), gives birth to her baby in the front seat, then gets the car to start, and slams on the gas pedal - squishing her newborn's head underneath it. OH MY GOSH. That is horrible. I can't believe there hasn't been more backlash about that little tidbit, because it sure bothered the hell out of me.

So in conclusion, all I can say is that Tom Six made good on his promise to go even further than was thought possible with The Human Centipede 2. He gave us a disgusting villain who in turn gives us an hour and a half of some of the most repulsive acts ever put on screen, which amazingly seem almost comical at times because they are so over-the-top. THC2 will certainly not be forgotten by those who see it, that's for dang sure!

Weekly Movie Roundup: 3-4-12 to 3-10-12

Disfigured (2008)
This movie was actually very interesting and I'm glad I watched it. It's about an anorexic woman and an overweight woman who form a bond over their struggles with weight. The actress who played the anorexic really could have been anorexic in real life, her body was quite scary. And I have to give props to both the filmmakers and the actress playing the overweight girl Lydia for showing a fat chick buck nekkid in a sex scene! It was fantastic, and she seemed fairly comfortable with showing not only her breasts, but all those usually unflattering parts on a woman's body. The style of the movie is very indie-looking and much more dramatic than what you would expect. It's still very brilliantly done and as "a movie about women and weight," it brings up a few issues that aren't usually discussed on the topic - both from the side of overweight women and anorexic women.

What Lies Beneath (2000)
Okay, say what you will about What Lies Beneath, but I have always enjoyed this movie. Of course, it's about a ghost so right away I'm a little biased, but I think it is quite an entertaining little thriller with some actors in the lead roles. Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford are believable and real as a married couple and I'm glad that they agreed to do a movie like this. This is another one of those adult horror movies that are in such short supply nowadays, where there is no blood and the body count doesn't even exist, but the movie still manages to be somewhat spooky and mysterious. The ghost-scares are subtle but still creepy (love the part where Pfeiffer leaves the bathroom and then comes back in less than a minute later to find the bathtub full of water). While the climax isn't exactly the best, everything else leading up to it is genuinely well done and fulfilling, and What Lies Beneath remains one of my personal little favorite movies that I still love to watch every now and then.

The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence] (2011)
Ohhhh, boy, this was... interesting. I tried to tell myself that it was my, uh, duty as a horror fan to see The Human Centipede 2, but we all that's not the truth. Yeah, I wanted to see this, I admit it and I knew I was probably going to regret the experience. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to do a formal review on it,  even though I have a slightly different take on it than most other reviews that I've read online. I agree that the sequel was a couple hundred times more graphic and disgusting than the first one. I agree that Martin was perhaps not as interesting as Dr. Heiter, but he's definitely more fucked up and disturbed. I also agree that poor Ashlynn Yennie might not have the big Hollywood career that she was hoping for, but I applaud her conviction for being in both of these movies. Eh, what the hell. I'll do a review. Even though coprophagia is not generally one of my favorite topics for discussion.

Random Stephen King-ness: Needful Things (Viking, 1991)

Needful Things has always held a special place in my heart because it was the first Stephen King book I ever read. Well, it was the first one I ever read all the way through - I was about 11 years old when I tried to read Pet Sematary but soon gave up on it because of immature frustration. Since then, Needful Things has remained one of my favorites of King's novels. According to the top ten list I made for David over at Talk Stephen King, it is number 4, and I think that is the perfect place for this under-appreciated novel.

Needful Things is the last major story in King's string of tales taking place in the sinister fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where there have been many horrific occurrences that continually add to the town's evilness. The latest foe is a demon disguised as a man named Leland Gaunt who opens a new store in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Gaunt seems to have just what each resident wants the most, and he'll give it to you for a fair price. Somehow knowing all the townspeople's deepest secrets, Gaunt pits one person against another by having them play pranks on random people, until the seemingly innocent fun turns nothing short of deadly.

The first thing I love about this book is the prologue. The first page only has a single sentence on it - "You've been here before" - and then reads as if an old-timer resident is telling a new-comer a bit about the town and its people, and the new store that's opening up on Main Street. The reader is introduced to the backgrounds of some residents and their rivalries and lets them know that things are about to get bad in this town, that "a storm is on the way" - which proves to be true both figuratively and literally. The epilogue reads the same way and begins with the same phrase. Gaunt has been defeated and run out of Castle Rock, but according to this, he's starting up new business in Junction City, Iowa (and mentions Sam Peebles - the main character from the horrifying novella "The Library Policeman").

"You've been here before." It took me a bit of thinking to figure out the meaning behind that, and what I get from it is simply that people are the same everywhere. Gaunt has been peddling his wares and stealing people's souls since the dawn of time basically, but the people of Castle Rock are nothing special to him because he's probably seen it all before. Their trivial fights with one another may seem unique and specific to certain people but at the core it's the same old story - jealousy, greed, revenge, prejudice.

The second thing I love about this book is the characters. Needful Things is one of those King novels that has a ton of characters to keep straight and get to know. By this time, though, I think King had become a master at organizing his novels in a way where each character could have his or her story told and not make it confusing to the reader. It's easy to pick who the really important characters are in this story - Alan Pangborn, Polly Chalmers, Danforth Keeton, and Leland Gaunt are the ones that I would identify as the most central to the story. Pangborn is one of two Castle Rock natives who make a reappearance from two previous King stories. Sheriff Pangborn is the successor of George Bannerman, who first appeared in The Dead Zone, utilizing John Smith's psychic visions to capture the Castle Rock Strangler, and then came back again in Cujo only to be killed by the rabid dog at the end. Pangborn's involvement in the unusual case of Thad Beaumont in The Dark Half may have messed with his head a lot, but it no doubt made him stronger and more able to deal with the evil Leland Gaunt. In fact, Thad's sparrows and Cujo the rabid dog are tools that Alan uses against Gaunt in their final (if rather anticlimactic) battle - in the form of his famous shadow puppets. This was one detail that I really enjoyed about Needful Things, and thought it brought a real finality to the Castle Rock saga - along with the fact that most of the town was blown up at the end. The other Castle Rock townie to return is the resident bad boy Ace Merrill, now older but definitely not wiser. Though he plays a big role in carrying out Gaunt's master plan for Castle Rock, his character is no different than what you remember from "The Body" and he never changes and then he dies, so that's it for Ace.

I think what I love most about Needful Things though is the originality of the story and the appeal of Gaunt's sadistically fun plan for people to plan pranks on others. I can just imagine Stephen King standing in front of a corkboard with push pins and strings - constructing the web of who's fighting with who and who plays the pranks that set them off. The supernatural element of the novel is somewhat downplayed, so that the story can focus more on the characters and the effect that Gaunt's tricks are having on them. Yes, Gaunt is a demon who steals souls, and seems to know just about everything about everybody in town, and has eyes that frequently change color, and is able to repulse anybody with just a touch, but that is the real extent of the supernatural that we get. It's the characters that are really at the forefront here, and what is brought out in them when their biggest fears are shoved in their faces, and I love the way that King chose to present that with this story. It's a highly original idea and it completely works with what King was trying to say. His writing style in this book is also what most people refer to as "vintage King" - like he's slightly sophisticated but still naughty and nasty at the same time.

So what did we learn from Needful Things? Obviously, the main one is "Caveat Emptor!" You may think you are getting exactly what you want, but what are you sacrificing to get it? And what are you willing to do to keep it? Pride is a good thing to have sometimes, but remember that it is also one of the seven deadly sins. Grief is a necessity, but it's okay to move on. Questioning a loved one's death can only do more harm than good to your sanity. And finally, and maybe most importantly - drugs are bad. But you all knew that.

YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.

Project Terrible: Don't Go Near the Park (1981)

Oh, Maynard, you shouldn't have.

You really, really, really, really shouldn't have. This thing was atrocious. This is not so bad it's good, this is just plain bad. And yet at the same time, it's way too easy to hate on Don't Go Near the Park. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Is it a bad movie? You betcha. Did I like it? Not at all - but I guess I can appreciate it's inherent charms as a bad movie. It's still a really bad movie, though, make no mistake.

So our movie starts 12,000 years ago with an ugly old lady in a cave cursing her children Tra and Gar. They were eating kids in their tribe to stay young, so their punishment is that they will never die, which makes no sense. They have to keep eating people to keep their youth until 12,000 years go by when they have to kill a virgin descendant of their tribe to finally achieve eternal youth.

Ugh, I don't even know how to write about this movie. It jumps so many time periods, brings in so many new characters, and changes plots so many times that it is extremely hard to follow from one scene to the next. First the story is about Tra and Gar, then it's about Gar (now named Mark) meeting Linnea Quigley and marrying her and knocking her up. Then on their daughter Bondie's - which is actually not a horrible name - sixteenth birthday, Bondie runs away after constant bickering between her parents because the father dotes on her more than the mother. After avoiding rape by some creeps in a van, Bondie runs into the woods and meets up with two other runaways, Nick and Cowboy, at an abandoned building in what is supposed to be a park but doesn't look anything like one. The kindly ugly old lady that takes care of these runaways is none other than Tra, now named Patty. Do you follow this at all? Me neither!

Let's put the problems with plot aside for now, because that could take days to work through. How about the acting? Believe it or not... it sucks! Part of it is a byproduct of stupid dialogue and an incoherent plot, and part of it is just plain bad acting. Both Quigley and the girl who plays Bondie have ridiculous scenes where they over-scream (it's like over-acting but with really stupid screaming) and make themselves look like idiots often enough. I kind of feel sorry for them. Mark, played by a guy named Crackers Phinn (BAHAHA!), is no better. His acting consists of looking all intense by keeping his eyes open wide while he delivers all his lines. He never smiles or even really moves any of his facial muscles throughout the whole movie. You know who I really liked? The old lady mother from the beginning. She was a hoot, and she had this strange voice that is now permanently stuck in my head.

This is a movie about people eating other people, so there's got to be some cool gore, right? Nope, not so much. When the bro and sis team kill their victims, they rip open their stomachs with their bare hands and eat the insides a little bit. But there is hardly any blood or guts, just some cheap bright red paint and bad-looking fake skin. There's a scene at the end where all the duo's victims come back to life and rip the two of them apart, but you don't get to see a damn thing. Oh, the finally scene also has Tra and Gar shooting lasers from their eyes. Just thought I'd mention that...

As easy as it is to rag on just about everything about this movie, I can't get over the mishmash of a plot! This movie goes so ALL OVER the place that by the time the end finally comes, you wonder how in the hell it got there. I first started this review by trying to write out almost everything that happens to show how messed up the plot is, but that turned out to be way, way, way too long. The writer here obviously no idea what he was doing, and it's amazing that everyone else went along with this atrocious mess.

A movie quite befitting of the Project Terrible name, Don't Go Near the Park is totally screwed up from start to finish. It's occasionally funny in how bad it is and I can see how some people might get a kick out of it. Okay, I'll admit it, there were times when I enjoyed the movie's hokiness, but I don't think it's one I'll want to watch over and over again.

Movie Review: Daybreakers (2009)

Much like 30 Days of Night, Daybreakers was another vampire movie that I avoided seeing for a long time because I thought I would hate it. It looked too stylized and perfect for my taste and preference for what a vampire movie should be. I also didn't know anything about the plot, and if I had, I probably would have given it a chance sooner. It may not be for everyone, but I somewhat enjoyed this flick.

In 2019, years after a plague has turned most of the world into vampires, the human population is rapidly dwindling. Edward Dalton, a vampire and scientist at the world's largest "human farm," has been working with a team to develop a blood substitute to make up for the lack of human blood supply. But when a ragtag group of humans offers him the chance to introduce a different way to fix the problem, he dares to go against his own kind and the most powerful vampire in the country to end the populace's suffering.

I really like this story. Remember in Blade when Deacon Frost says "We should be ruling the humans! These people are our food!"? I've always had that same thought. So finally with Daybreakers we have a movie that explores the possibility of vampires being the dominant species on the planet - and the downsides that come along with it. However, these vampires are not necessarily evil. In fact, they're almost just like they were when they were human. They do have the insatiable bloodlust (which they can now buy at restaurants and coffee kiosks) and the enjoyment of immortality, but they've also had to put a lot of work into certain technological modifications to their cars, homes, and buildings in order to function during the day.

The story doesn't veer too far off from the traditional lore of the vampire, which pleases me. They burst into flames when exposed to sunlight or when staked through the heart, and have the cute little fangs and glowy eyes. The only point where the movie goes off in its own direction is in the exploration for a cure for vampirism, which I don't completely get. Sunlight apparently can both kill and cure vampires in Daybreakers - a limited amount of UV actually somehow manages to jumpstart their heart and turn them human again. Um, if you say so, I guess. One thing they included that I thought was hilarious was how much all the vampires smoked. Because, really, why shouldn't they? That was a nice little detail.

Ethan Hawke isn't really in a lot of movies anymore so I couldn't remember if I like him or not before I watched this movie. I guess he did a nice job but I wasn't totally blown away by his performance. Sam Neill is dead sexy as a greedy vampire king. He's smarmy and unlikable, but he wasn't evil enough in the role. He didn't seem like that big of a villain or threat for Ed and the humans. Willem Dafoe was still slightly off-kilter as he always is but he was at his most enjoyable here for me.

There is some fairly hardcore gore in Daybreakers with people being bitten and ripped in half, which was a lot more than I expected. The transformation of the blood-deprived vamps turning into bat-like creatures was nice and the makeup was really great on them. However, there is a bit of the evil CGI and CGI blood that we all dread, especially in the scene where the bat breaks into Ed's house but that was the only time I really noticed it. Overall the film is very stylish and sleek, with a lot of clean lines and muted coloring. They make very good use of shadows in specific scenes that make it look really cool.

Looking at it, I probably shouldn't like the movie as much as I do because it is very reminiscent of the Underworld films, which I'm not a fan of. Daybreakers worked for me, though. I'm not jumping through hoops at its amazingness, but it was genuinely entertaining for the time it took to watch it.

Movie Review: Slaughter High (1986)

Slashers from the 80s are more than a little guilty of being way too formulaic and not doing a very good job at getting the formula right. A lot of them do work, though, either because they manage to add in a little something different and exciting to the formula, or because it's just so much fun to ridicule people in 80s movies. The hair is usually enough to get a chuckle out of me. Slaughter High seems like it's kind of trying to be different here, but um... it's really not.

Marty is your typical science nerd with glasses who can't go one day in high school without somebody tormenting him. A group of the popular kids decide to play the ultimate prank on poor Marty, who ends up burned, disfigured, and crazy as a result. Years later, the popular kids return to the school, now abandoned, for a little reunion. What they don't know is that Marty is their host - and this will be a reunion they may not survive.

Right at the beginning, the filmmakers do things all wrong. The prank is played out far too long, for one thing. It does allow the audience to get to know both Marty and the rather large group of friends that torture him lets us see how horrible and cruel their crime was, but we needed to see more scenes of them in the present rather than in the past. We need to see how these people have changed since high school, if at all. That way we can at least have some kind of sympathy for these douchebags. Alas, it seems that when they all get together again, these guys are still rather unlikable and they also don't seem to give a crap about what they did to Marty. Shocking, I know.

So anyway. Carol, Frank, Joe, Stella, Nancy, Skip, Shirley, and later Susan (seriously... too many characters there) show up at the old alma mater for the reunion and soon realize that they are the only ones there. They enter the cobwebby and dirty old building and eventually find a room that's all decked out for the party - complete with all their old lockers, holding an item that they each thought they had lost years ago. Marty's locker is there too. Hmmmm, I wonder what that means. Nothing about this situation seems to bother them - like why no one else was invited to the "reunion," or why a reunion would be held in the high school if it was abandoned in the first place.

The kills aren't that bad and there are a few inventive ones. The first guy gets it when he drinks a beer with acid in it and his stomach explodes outward. Shirley, the Asian chick, gets blood on her from this and when she decides to take a bath (um, a bathtub in a school? Sure. Why not?) and the water suddenly turns to acid too which proceeds to melt her body. She actually tries to turn off the water while still in the tub instead of like, trying to get out, which would have been my first thought. There's also death by lawnmower blades, drowning in a pit of what I can only guess to be poo, and an electrocution while Stella and Frank are enjoying some coitus on a bed in another room (um, a bed in a school? Sure. Why not?). Basically, they all die and you don't care because you don't like any of them and they do all kinds of stupid stuff, so really, they deserve it.

The one cool bit in Slaughter High was the choice of joker/jester mask and hat for Marty the killer. It's actually really freaky looking, and reminds me a bit of a clown, which we all know is the scariest thing on earth. But that's about all that Slaughter High has going for it. The characters are too unlikable and annoying - even Marty, whom we're supposed to have a bit of sympathy for, is just a frustrated dork who goes completely insane. The performances are even worse, with some of the most uninspiring dialogue and delivery I've heard in a long time. The camera work is sloppy and there were several scenes that were almost completely pitch black. Most reviews seem to hope that the prank sequence in the shower was pitch black too. Why do men always have a freak out when they see another man's weenie in a movie? I mean, every time I see boobs, do I go, "Oh gross, another chick's tits! Ew, get it off the screen!" No. You know why? Because I'm more mature than that. And because the human body is beautiful.

Believe it or not, this was a British movie trying to pass itself off as American. And in some places it doesn't translate well at all. All the events of the film take place on the eve of April Fool's Day, and the murders don't start until midnight on the morning on the holiday. Two characters have a conversation about how they only have to survive until noon on April Fool's Day because the jokes stop at noon. Huh? Since when? In America, we'll prank your ass all day, we don't stop at noon. But that seems to be the rule in several countries throughout the world, including the UK.

Anyway, lame movie. I'll check it off my list of culty 80s slasher movies, but it's not my favorite. It could have better if they tried harder - or if some of these guys took an acting class or two - because the story has real potential, although the whole prank-gone-wrong revenge story has been done a couple times before. Nice try. Do better next time.

Horror Short Review: Familiar (2011)

Oh my freaking goodness, I think I just had a goshdarn heart attack.

And if you ever get a chance to see this amazing horror short called Familiar, then I'm pretty sure that you will too. This was literally some of the best twenty minutes of filmmaking that I have seen in a while and I only wish that I had filmed myself watching it. I've always believed that the best horror films are the ones that make you have those unconscious physical reactions to what you are seeing, and hoo doggy, I reacted so hard to this thing that my heart is still palpitating a bit.

At the beginning of this short, the main character reminds me of a much darker version of Kevin Spacey's character from American Beauty. John Dodd's inner monologue is full of loathing for his monotonous and boring life, with a wife he doesn't love anymore and a daughter he can't wait to get rid of so he can have more freedom. But it's only after one life-altering conversation with his wife that John's inner voice suddenly changes to a voice that is not his, but somebody(thing?) else in his head talking to him. And then the fun starts.

Robert Nolan's portrayal of John is spectacular. He is subdued and almost non-expressive most of the time, but you can tell that there is a lot more going on behind the mask. The best performance of the piece, however, is the voiceover. The writing for this is excellent as well and at first sounds very normal and at times quite funny ("Oh, you're always on time? So are my bowel movements"). As the story progresses, the voice becomes more forceful and commanding, telling John how he should really feel about his wife's pregnancy and talking him into doing some pretty horrific things - like slipping pills into his wife's food to give her an abortion. After awhile the voice starts to sound almost inhuman with its level of craziness, and while John is able to resist it sometimes, it still holds a strong influence over him because deep down he apparently agrees with what it is telling him.

Now what I wasn't expecting here was some severe body horror images that freaked me the fuck out. John discovers one morning these weird bulges that almost look like little egg sacs growing out of his side. Anybody with a fear of death or disease (like me) will most definitely find this part disgusting and horrifying - the fact that something unknown is inside your body and is making freakish physical changes to it that you can't control. In Familiar, this situation only escalates further into John having to perform some hideous self-mutilation - another topic that people with a low tolerance for pain will find almost hard to stand.

The bulges on John's side disappear (all while the voice is telling him to leave it alone) and move down to his upper leg so naturally, John decides it will be a good idea to try to cut whatever is in there out. Using a box cutter, which also freaks me out because that is a tool that I use every day at work, John starts cutting into his leg and... well, I won't completely spoil it here, but let's just say that I almost wanted to cover my eyes and not see what was in there. Can you believe that?! This little horror short turned me into a total horror pussy. It was fantastic.

The special effects are Hollywood-level and quite impressive. Beautiful blood and makeup on John's bulges. The direction and editing are brilliant, and the performances were spot on. I'd also like to make a note about how much I liked the casting of Astrida Auza as John's wife because, and I don't want to sound mean here or anything, she is not particularly hot but rather normal looking, like the people I see every day. She was obviously chosen for her talent, and does a fantastic job.

Director Richard Powell really turned out something awesome here. Apparently this short was actually a sequel to another short film he made called Worm, which is not as graphic but stars John Dodd's brother, Geoffrey, as a man who also has a voice in his head. Would really love to get a look at that one too if it's possible. This is a filmmaker with some real talent who will no doubt bring us more horrific stories to enjoy in the future.