On DVD: Three comedy horrors

There’s a night of Halloween themed murder and fantasy in Trick ‘r Treat, gendered zombie mayhem in Doghouse and a sinister doll in the reissued Ghost Story. Our special triple (comedy) horror review awaits you.

Trick ‘r Treat is made up of four intertwined horror stories set on Halloween night, all observed by Sam, the curious sackcloth-masked trick or treater, and spirit of the ghoulish goings-on.

The film opens with a mock public awareness ad, warning Halloweeners of the possible dangers should they break the holiday rules. Don’t blow out the candle in a jack o’lantern before midnight, hand out candy (but never take more than you’re offered – and make sure to check what you’ve been given), wear a costume and don’t go out alone. The next hour and a half is filled with characters breaking every single one and receiving some apposite punishments.

Written and directed by Michael Dougherty and produced by Brian Singer, it’s a sharply written and stylishly filmed little flick (it’s a zippy 82 minutes) filled with familiar faces including Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Leslie Bibb and Dylan Baker.

Much of the fun derives from the film’s twists and turns, which we won’t give away, except to say that these spine chilling tales will ensure you don’t forget the rules of Halloween next year.

Rating on a scale of 5 squashed jack-o-lanterns: 4

Release date: Out now
Directed by: Michael Dougherty
Written by: Michael Dougherty
Cast: Quinn Lord, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, Leslie Bibb, Rochelle Aytes
Rating: R
Running time (mins): 82

Doghouse

Vince (Stephen Graham) is going through a bitter divorce, so his friends rally round and organise a weekend away for some booze and bonding. Unfortunately, the getaway has been organised by hapless Mikey, whose idea of a precisely planned agenda involves them all crashing at his nan’s house while she’s away. The guys arrive in the crappy village of Moodley – a dead-end hamlet in the middle of the woods – and hit the pub.

But instead of relishing Moodley’s 4:1 ratio of women to men, the friends find these odds working against them in an unexpected way. The village has suffered an outbreak of an engineered virus that affects only women, turning them into homicidal zombies.

It’s this neat twist that means that Doghouse has something new to add to the zombie tradition: the gendered outbreak – and it plays the conceit for laughs. Though the film has been called misogynistic, this seems wildly off-piste. In fact, it’s a complete reversal of the standard (and now quite wearying) genre format of powerful man with knife, screaming girl running for her life. Instead, Doghouse presents the refreshing spectacle of a female monster enjoying a mouthful of intestine, as her male quarry beats a shrieking retreat (on one occasion, in some lovely frocks, to boot). The so-called ‘zombirds’ are individually characterised and created to scare, rather than thrill, and do so with panache.

As Dan Schaffer said, in an interview with io9, “If the audience misses the irony or takes this film at face value as a celebration of laddism, then what they're going to see is the opposite of what it's really about.” Unfortunately, some blundering marketing by Sony led to endless comparisons with much inferior Lesbian Vampire Killers and a crop of harsh cinematic reviews.

Forget all of that. What Doghouse offers is an inventive, gore-laden comedy that will entertain fans of splatter, zombie flicks and horror. The cast is a who’s who of young, male British acting talent, including Stephen Graham (most recently seen in Public Enemies), Noel Clarke (Kidulthood/Adulthood), Lee Ingleby (Spaced/Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and Danny Dyer, who sends up his own typecasting as an uber-lad and surprisingly steals the show with a painfully funny scene in which he tries to romance a zombird to escape her particular brand of torture.

We thoroughly recommend this, the third feature from Jake West, whose second film, Evil Aliens, you can watch for free here on Indie.

Rating on a scale of 5 finger candles in a zombie cake: 3.5

Release date: Out now
Directed by: Jake West
Written by: Dan Schaffer
Cast: Danny Dyer, Stephen Graham, Noel Clarke, Lee Ingleby, Victoria Hopkins
Rating: 15
Running time (mins): 89

Ghost Story

The 1974 film Ghost Story (AKA Madhouse Mansion) has been re-released, a flick which not only puts the ‘mad’ into the ‘house’ but into every other aspect of filmmaking. The plot sees posh Cambridge grad MacFayden inviting two college chums – snooty Duller and middle-class oik Talbot – to his family’s country pile for a weekend of shooting. The guests have no idea that their host has invited them in order to find out if there’s any truth to family rumours that the place is haunted. Duller, a ghost hunter manqué, sees nothing out of the ordinary – presumably as the ghosts are keen to avoid his turgid conversation. Nice chap Talbot, however, is almost immediately targeted as a sympathetic soul. Not only does a creepy china doll begin snuggling up to him but he is subjected to a series of visions regarding a previous occupant of the house, Sophy (Marianne Faithfull), who was unfairly committed to a mental asylum.

Talbot initially thinks it’s all some kind of jape, as may the baffled viewer. The action, while ostensibly set in the English countryside, is pretty obviously filmed in India (giveaways include the non-British flora and a mountain looming in the back of some shots); also Marianne Faithfull, playing a character who is initially sane and sheltered, is clearly in the grip of the drug problems that would blight the decade for her, and gives a whacked-out, eye-rolling performance that makes the decision to institutionalise her character seem eminently sensible rather than villainous. The other actors, including Penelope Keith, look rigidly uncomfortable, and while Larry Dann makes a good fist of his part, it’s only the fabulous Murray Melvin who’s able to rise above it all and bring his peculiar brand of charm to the proceedings.

As the film approaches its climax, the eerie early moments are superseded by overt shocks which do not work as well, and when the creepy doll moves beyond her symbolic remit to play antagonist, it’s likely to induce gales of laughter, rather than shudders of horror. An entertaining curio at best.

Rating on a scale of 5 fixed porcelain smiles: 2

Release date: Out now
Directed by: Stephen Weeks
Written by: Philip Norman, Rosemary Sutcliff, Steven Weeks
Cast: Larry Dann, Murray Melvin, Anthony Bate, Marianne Faithfull, Penelope Keith, Vivian Mackerall
Rating: TBC
Running time (mins): 89

(Note: These review were a little later than planned, thanks to Royal Mail and the flu. Apologies all.)