THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #26: WITHIN THE WOODS (2005) **

A television producer thinks he has a brilliant idea for a reality show:  Drop off five contestants to the infamous “Camp Blood” and if they can survive the night, they will win a million dollars.  They just have to avoid an actor in a clown mask who’s playing the killer.  Naturally, the real killer clown bumps off the fake Bozo and starts murdering the contestants for real. 

Within the Woods is the third installment of the Camp Blood franchise.  I’m not sure why they felt the need to eschew the traditional title route with this one.  I guess the title makes sense as the primary rule of the game is that the contestants have to stay “within the woods” to win.  Honestly, it really should’ve just been called Camp Blood 3.  (Within the Woods was also the title of the film-within-a-film from Part 2.)

No matter what the heck they called it, one thing is for sure, the series had started slowly going downhill at this point.  The “killer in a reality show” trope was still relatively new when this was released, but the seams of the subgenre were already starting to show.  It doesn’t help that it’s only a slight reworking of the theme from the previous installment.  (That one was about someone making a movie about the murders, and in this one they turn it into a TV show.)  The gore isn’t quite as good as Part 2 either.  (We get throat slashing, an eyeball is popped out, stabbing, a machete through the stomach, and a hand gets chopped off.)

I will say this one is certainly more polished looking than the two entries that preceded it.  (Although you can see a few boom mikes in a couple of scenes.)  The acting is a tad better too.  It’s not nearly as much fun though.  Still, Within the Woods is a lot better than many of the cheesy Camp Blood sequels that would follow in the next two(!) decades. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #25: CAMP BLOOD 2 (2000) ** ½

Tricia (Jennifer Ritchkoff) is still in the nuthouse under suspicion of being the Camp Blood killer clown.  A director (Garrett Clancy) wants to turn her story into a movie called Within the Woods and hires Tricia to be a technical advisor on the picture.  Even before cameras start rolling, a psycho in a clown mask begins bumping off members of the cast and crew.  Once the production moves to the location of the original murders, the bodies really start piling up. 

Camp Blood 2 came out a mere six months after the original, and the good news is that there is a fair amount of consistency from film to film.  (Overall, I enjoyed it about as much as the original.)  The big drawback is the overreliance of flashbacks to the original that help pad things out.  If you never saw the first flick, you could probably just skip it and start with this one and not miss anything vital.  However, if you do watch Camp Blood 1 beforehand (like I did), it will offer its own share of rewards. 

For instance, you’ll be able to appreciate the Meta approach the filmmakers brought to this installment.  I especially liked how the script from the first film was recycled for scenes of the director’s “new” movie.  He even films a scene that is right out of the original.  I also found it funny that in one scene the director negotiates with a would-be starlet to do a topless scene for the “movie” and then the next scene is her getting topless in “real life”. 

They upped the gore this time out too, which definitely helps.  The carnage includes a machete through the back, a hand getting chopped off, a machete in the mouth and out the back of the head, a machete to the brain, and a bloody throat slashing.  The standout kill comes when someone gets their eyes gored out with a broken bottle. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #24: CAMP BLOOD (2000) ** ½

After seeing so many Camp Blood sequels on Tubi, it was nice to finally be able to go back to the beginning and watch the film that started it all.  Well, maybe “nice” isn’t exactly the right word for it, but you catch my drift. 

Two couples head out to the woods to hike at a closed campground the locals have dubbed “Camp Blood”.  Their guide is a tough woman named Harris (Courtney Taylor) who leads them to their campsite and tells them about the legend of a killer in a clown mask that lurks in the forest.  Little do they know the real killer is hanging about with a very large machete and hacking up anyone who gets in his way. 

The film kicks off in fine fashion with a couple of birdwatchers getting busy before the clown comes around and cuts them down.  Once it settles in, it becomes a pretty generic, albeit moderately entering slasher.  The gore is kind of sparse, but we do get an okay burnt up face and a decent machete in the head gag.  There are also moments that kind of crib from/pay homage to Friday the 13th and Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  Although some of the scenes where the friends get lost in the woods tend to drag, I will say the payoff works better than expected as the twist ending provides a solid capper on the film.  The most amusing part though is sound of squeaky clown shoes on the soundtrack to signify the killer is near.  

Just about every slasher movie contains a scene where an old guy warns the characters not to go messing around in the woods.  The guy in Camp Blood has to be the most obnoxious of all time.  At least he gets what’s coming to him. 

It’s hard to believe that a low-budget slasher like Camp Blood could spawn over a dozen sequels.  Like any respectable long running franchise, the sequels got sillier as time wore on.  Fortunately, if you just want a bare bones meat and potatoes horror flick, Camp Blood will likely do the trick. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #23: THE BLEEDER (1983) ***

When I’m picking movies to watch for The 31 Movies of Horror-Ween, I try to mix things up a bit.  I usually like to review a couple of low-budget Shot on Video slashers and at least one foreign film.  The Bleeder checks both boxes as it’s a low-budget Shot on Video horror flick from Sweden.  As a bonus, it belongs in one of my favorite subgenres, Rock n’ Roll Horror!

A crazed killer (played by rock drummer Ake Ericksson) escapes from a mental institution and lurks around a dilapidated resort playing with baby carriages.  An all-girl rock band called Rock Cats are on their way to a gig when their bus breaks down.  They go walking into the woods looking for help and eventually come upon the abandoned hotel where the killer begins picking them off one by one. 

The video cinematography is surprisingly crisp and looks very professional.  The camera movement and POV stalking shots are pretty good too, all things considered.  It looks especially polished when you compare it to other SOV horror flicks that were being made in America around the same time, like Boardinghouse and Sledgehammer. 

I will say that for a movie about a rock n’ roll band, the music is a little disappointing.  Rock Cats only perform one song, which is odd.  I thought they'd definitely play something once they arrived at the abandoned hotel (or at least rehearse).  Then again, they kinda suck, so maybe that was for the best.  (I was surprised to learn they were an actual band called Revansch.)  Also, the score just sounds like someone playing the theme from Halloween in the wrong key.  That said, this would still make a good double feature with Jess Franco’s Killer Barbys.

Do I wish the body count was higher and/or the kills didn’t mostly occur offscreen?  Yes.  However, there are countless other SOV horror films out there that score high marks in that department.  It’s much harder to make an SOV horror flick that looks fairly close to an “actual” movie and is this good to boot.  Besides, there’s a certain purity to the form of people splitting up and being bumped off until there’s only one left to confront the killer.  Shit like this is what October was made for. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #22: 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (2026) *** ½

The Bone Temple picks up shortly after 28 Years Later ended with the young Spike (Alfie Williams) being picked up by a gang of tracksuit wearing zombie killers who worship their leader Jimmy (Jack O’Connell) like he was the Messiah.   Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) has seen some interesting changes in the zombie “Alpha” Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) and is trying to establish a line of communication between humans and the “Infected”. 

The Bone Temple is a lot more uneven than its predecessor, but the heights it manages to hit are awfully lofty.  Before we discuss that, let’s get into what doesn’t work.  The stuff with the “Jimmys” is pretty goofy.  I know it’s a common motif in zombie movies to have humans be more of a threat than the undead.  That doesn’t mean it exactly works.  The fact that you have such an interesting character like Spike and stick him in a blonde wig and let him more or less become a fly on the wall for much of the picture also kinda sucks. 

So, essentially that’s where my nitpicks end because the rest of the movie is aces.  The last one was more consistent, but this one absolutely rips when it finds its footing.  The scenes with Fiennes kick all kinds of ass.  His smallish role in the last film was a real highlight.  This time out, he gets tons more screen time.  The scenes where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with the hulking Samson play like a mix of the scenes of Frankenstein and the blind man in Bride of Frankenstein and the Dr. Frankenstein and Bub scenes in Day of the Dead. 

The best part about his character is that he’s a raging Duranie.  After a hard day of surviving the zombie apocalypse, our boy likes to strip down in his fallout shelter and play “Girls on Film” at full blast.  Respect. 

It gets better though.  I won’t spoil the end.  What I will say is that it culminates with Fiennes performing one of the greatest song and dance routines ever shown on the silver screen.  It won’t happen, but Fiennes should seriously be nominated for an Oscar.  I mean, he deserves it for his performance as a whole.  It’s just that he is so fucking awesome in this scene that I feel the Academy needs to take notice ASAP.  Even if he isn’t nominated, I feel confident in saying you won’t find a more memorable sequence all year.   

In fact, I kind of wish they could’ve taken all of Fiennes’ scenes from both films, edited them together, and released it as one big movie.  Oh well.  Fiennes also gets the best line of the year when he says, “Pride moves inside me like maggots in the corpse of Christ!”

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #21: 28 YEARS LATER (2025) *** ½

Nearly three decades after the zombie plague ravaged the United Kingdom, a band of survivors live off the coast in a small village in relative peace.  Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his son Spike (Alfie Williams) to “The Mainland” to hunt his first zombie.  After a successful hunt, he is welcomed back to the clan and hailed as a hero.  Trouble brews when Spike ventures back to the Mainland on an unauthorized trip. 

I’ll leave the kid’s reasons for returning to the Mainland vague.  Just know that his father would not approve.  I liked that even after the zombie apocalypse, there’s still a Generation Gap.  Spike is hopelessly naïve but that’s kind of what makes him an interesting character.  The film’s theme of manhood is neat to chew on too.  Spike is performing a ritual to become a man, yet he almost immediately grows weary of his clan’s notion of manhood and sets out to do something way braver than his father would ever attempt. 

The film is almost neatly halved.  The first portion is essentially a father and son bonding during the zombie apocalypse.  (They hunt zombies instead of deer.)  The second half is a similar journey except with Spike and his mother (Jodie Comer).  This portion of the film cleverly undoes a lot of what we previously had seen and gives Spike an opportunity to look at the world through his own eyes instead of his father’s.  This half is also enlivened by the presence of Ralph Fiennes as a kooky doctor who lives among the “Infected”. 

The downside is that the film also weirdly takes a page from the Marvel Universe as it gratuitously sets up the next sequel, The Bone Temple.  It would’ve been a lot more impactful had it ended five minutes sooner on a more somber note.  The arrival of the Big Bad for the next film just feels cheesy and out of step with the rest of the picture. 

The zombie carnage is pretty good, even if their numbers are a bit sparse after 28 years.  Director Danny Boyle (returning to the franchise after sitting out in 28 Weeks Later) delivers a memorable opening scene where the zombie apocalypse occurs while a bunch of kids are in front of the tube watching Teletubbies.  The choppy editing is a little grating during the action, but it’s not nearly as bad as the shaky-cam shit from the original.  Besides, the gripes I have with 28 Years Later are few and far between, and many can be forgiven on account of the fact that the film contains the best zombie birthing scene since the Dawn of the Dead remake. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #20: ENTER THE DEVIL (1972) ** ½

A deputy named Jase (Dave Cass, who also wrote the script) heads into the desert looking for a missing person.  He eventually turns up inside a burned-up car.  The coroner says his wounds suggest he was crucified before he was set on fire.  Since it’s an election year, the sheriff (John Martin) wants it all swept under the rug.  Jase and a sexy doctor (Irene Kelley) do more digging, and soon, the bodies start piling up. 

Enter the Devil is a low-budget horror flick from Texas.  I’m not saying it’s great, but these kinds of regional horror movies have a look and feel that can’t be replicated no matter how hard you try.  Before what we now know as “independent cinema” came along, this is what a true indie used to look like.  It’s rough around the edges, features a no-name cast doing their darnedest, contains some unique location work, and has a handmade quality that is undeniable. 

It’s far from perfect.  I could make a laundry list about what’s “wrong” with Enter the Devil.  It suffers from too much padding.  The cinematography is often muddy.  It definitely could’ve used some gore or skin to spice things up.  However, I’m going to accentuate the positive here.  In doing so, I have to spoil the movie, so if your curiosity is piqued from this review so far, stop reading and go check it out. 

Okay, so if you can make it past some of the pokey passages and lackadaisical pacing, the end of the film is actually pretty interesting.  Our hero Jase gets Janet Leighed in the beginning of the third act, and his best friend is revealed to be part of the devil cult.  Just as the cultists are about to sacrifice the heroine, the sheriff, who has been dragging his feet the whole movie, bursts in with a bunch of deputies toting machine guns and blow the crimson robed worshippers away!  He also gets a badass line when he lights his cigar from a burning torch and says, “Maybe dynamite will put an end to all this foolishness!”

This is the equivalent of Mayor Vaughn saying, “Smile you son of a bitch!” and blowing up the Great White as he rescues Chief Brody.  The ineffectual sheriff gets his redemption.  I sort of loved it for that. 

So yeah, Enter the Devil is sure to frustrate viewers looking for something along the lines of The Devil’s Rain or Race with the Devil.  If instead you have an appetite for a quirky ‘70s oddity it should fit the bill.  Oh, and the theme song, “Green, Green, Green” is a certified banger.

AKA:  Disciples of Death.